Beyond the basics: dive into GenAI with Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Copilot Studio

Organizations of all sizes across all industries are forging ahead with GenAI to supercharge efficiency and productivity, enrich customer experiences and even open the door to new products, services and business models.

Since we launched Copilot for Microsoft 365 internally here at NTT DATA, we’ve settled on a few best practices for deploying it easily and making full use of its features. This article shares some of what we learned so that you can take advantage of our experience when you activate Copilot in your organization. We’ll also explore how we’re customizing and deploying Microsoft’s wider Copilot Studio technology in our clients’ operations.

• READ OUR GUIDE → Transforming the Digital Workplace with Generative AI

Making a start with GenAI

If your organization wants to experiment with GenAI, Copilot is a great place to start. This AI-powered companion integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft 365 apps your employees use every day — such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams — and provides improved functionality and intelligent, real-time assistance. Using advanced language models and your organizational data, Copilot significantly reduces the time and effort needed to access, organize and manage information, helps employees work more creatively and boosts workplace productivity.

Think of it as a digital work companion that’s always ready to provide you with support, automate mundane tasks and even chime in with suggestions when you’re all out of ideas.

In Teams, for example, Copilot can help schedule meetings by suggesting available times and relevant people and files, draft an agenda and track attendee responses. It also provides real-time analytics during meetings. And afterwards, employees can ask about meeting outcomes and check whether their names were mentioned.

Leading by example

As a trailblazer in digital transformation, NTT DATA has embraced GenAI solutions internally — to lead by example and equip our workforce to deliver outstanding client service. Here’s what we learned on our journey, and some of the compelling outcomes we realized.

First, we established a GenAI committee and secured approval to integrate Copilot for Microsoft 365 into our applications — with user enablement and training as core considerations. Our employees needed to be comfortable, confident and competent in using these new tools, so we:

• Identified user personas
• Verified access and information readiness for selected personas
• Created a communication and adoption program
• Conducted regular training sessions
• Shared Copilot prompts and a handy quick-start guide to help users get the most out of the tool
• Set up a support community and hosted calls where users could ask questions
• Designed a form where users could get real-time answers from our experts
• Resolved technical issues swiftly

What we achieved with Copilot

The results of our pilot deployment were overwhelmingly positive:

• Overall, users rated Copilot 5 out of 5 stars.
• Two-thirds (66%) reported increased productivity, while 62% said their AI companion helped with creativity.
• The average time savings per person amounted to about 20 hours per month.
• The overall adoption rate among employees (that is, the percentage of users who used the tool regularly) stands at 92%.

Copilot was so effective at eliminating tedious tasks that many users offered to pay for licenses personally!

One of the program participants, Noel Hara, Chief Technology Officer of our Public Sector business, had this to say: “In just a few short months, Copilot for Microsoft 365 has become an invaluable resource. I’m regularly engaged in multiple projects and conversations across the organization. Copilot helps me by providing a quick recap of the latest conversations with colleagues and finding relevant information across emails, chats and files. As I continue to explore the features, I save time and work more effectively daily.”

Charlie Doubek, NTT DATA’s Vice President: Managed Collaboration and Communications, reported that Copilot saved him 6.5 hours in five days.

By taking a phased approach instead of rolling Copilot out to all employees at once, we were able to gather feedback and make adjustments before deploying it to the rest of our workforce. This has ensured a smooth transition and maximized the impact across our organization.

• ALSO READ → 5 things you must know before deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365

A team of helpful agents at your command

We’re also helping our clients set new standards for employee productivity and customer experience by drawing on the power of Microsoft Copilot Studio and our long-standing partnership with Microsoft.

Specifically, we’re helping clients in all industries integrate Copilot Studio with the NTT DATA Productivity Cockpit, a suite of modular, industry-specific Copilot agents designed to help employees perform at their best, regardless of their roles, and streamline customer experience during contact-center interactions.

Offered as a service, Productivity Cockpit agents can be deployed to meet the needs of any organization, and we’re always issuing updates and adding new features.

The types of agents we can introduce to help your team perform at their best include:

• Onboarding Agent: Provides newly hired employees with essential resources immediately
• Prompt as a Service: Prepares and delivers reports in advance
• Growth Agent: Pulls prioritized leads from your customer relationship management (CRM) system for the front office
• Ask Me Agent: Gives employees the information they need to provide exceptional customer service
• Service Agent: Assists with underwriting and back-office tasks
• Fix IT Agent: Resolves technical issues quickly
• Copilot Swarming: Escalates persistent issues and creates knowledge-base articles
• AI-DX Agent: Answer, self-service and redirect queries and requests through natural conversation

Every industry stands to benefit

These agents can be customized and adapted to any industry, from retail to financial services.

For example, on IT help desks, agents can handle incoming IT queries through calls, chat or service portals. They can automate administrative tasks like unlocking accounts, resetting passwords and more, and they will divert complex or high-priority queries to the right local or global IT team along with the full context of the conversation.

In retail, agents can improve customer service and wait times by answering frequently asked questions about opening hours and receiving and diverting queries across the head office and retail stores, depending on the context.

Another use case is found in the airline industry, where agents can answer questions about flight schedules and baggage limits, enable self-service check-in and coordinate queries between customer service and airline booking teams.

It's time to learn how NTT DATA can help you get the most out of Copilot and Copilot Studio to give you a competitive edge in your industry.

This article includes contributions by Jacqueline Chan, Product Marketing Manager: Digital Collaboration Services at NTT DATA.