A banner with the blog series title, "Grow with Copilot for Microsoft 365"
Welcome to Grow with Copilot for Microsoft 365, where we curate key relevant news, insights, and resources to help small and medium organizations harness the power of Copilot.
In this edition, we take a deep dive into how small and medium-sized businesses are embracing AI in their everyday workflows despite the common hurdles SMB employees often encounter in adopting AI technologies. We also highlight Floww, a FinTech firm that capitalizes on Copilot for Microsoft 365 to boost operational efficiency and communications, discuss how Copilot is tackling the pressing issue of data security and privacy, and lastly, provide resources for the adoption of Copilot and best practices for skill development to help organizations fully leverage Copilot’s capabilities.
A deeper look at the state of AI in small & medium businesses
We are witnessing how AI is reshaping work for organizations of all sizes in last month’s 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report. This month, we dove deeper into the report for findings specific to small and medium businesses.
Like large businesses, 79% of SMB leaders believe AI adoption is critical for their company to remain competitive with 61% of these leaders saying their company lacks a vision and plan for AI
From the study, leaders believe that the top three benefits being increasing employee productivity, accelerating growth and innovation, and automating and streamlining business. In addition, while 78% of SMB workers have used generative AI at work, even more so (+10 ppts) compared to large businesses, SMB workers face more challenges in AI adoption, either feeling more (+9 ppts) intimidated to learn how to use generative AI tools or (-5 ppts) having received any AI training at work.
As we continue to learn in our work with SMB customers, there is a path forward: identify a business problem and apply AI, integrate AI tools across your business, take a top down and bottoms up approach, and prioritize training. Read more from Brenna Robinson’s blog on Microsoft 365 as well as her interviews in Fortune magazine, Inc. magazine, and Entrepreneur magazine.
SMB Customer spotlight: Floww
Speaking of working with customers, we’d like to you to meet Floww, a fast-growing FinTech company with about 100 employees in the United Kingdom that has created a financial infrastructure platform that connects investors and innovators. Floww helps startups and scaleups find funding from angels, VCs, and other private equity investors, and helps investors manage their portfolios and collaborate with each other.
Floww uses Copilot for Microsoft 365 to improve efficiency and communications:
Copilot for Microsoft 365 process, analyze, and summarize large amounts of data from various sources, such as financial documents, regulatory compliance, and customer profiles. Copilot also helps Floww create mockups, draft policies, and share information with customers faster and easier.
Floww trusts Microsoft to ensure data security and compliance:
Floww works with sensitive data that requires high levels of security and compliance. Floww relies on Microsoft's security tools and features to protect its data and maintain its ISO certification. Floww also values the trust that Microsoft provides for its customers and partners.
“Some teams are saving 10 to 20% of their time with Copilot because it’s assisting with meeting notes, generating to-do lists, summarizing complicated documents, and freeing us up so we can concentrate on the bigger tasks.”—Alex Pilsworth, Chief Technology Officer, Floww
Check out the full customer story and other customer stories here.
How Copilot for Microsoft 365 delivers on data security and privacy
Like Floww, many customers have data privacy and compliance top of mind. It’s no wonder as research shows 82% of ransomware attacks are targeted at small and medium-sized businesses[1].
Our customers, when using Microsoft 365 for Business and Copilot for Microsoft 365, get peace of mind with the highest standards of data protection. Microsoft 365 for Business protects passwords, secure access, keep your business data safe, manage your devices so they stay secure, and defend your business against cyberthreats. You can learn more about our three subscriptions plans here. Additionally, as a Microsoft 365 for Business user, your Web-grounded AI chat in the browser, Outlook, M365 apps or Teams come with enterprise data protection to safeguard your business data and devices with integrated identity, security, compliance, device management, and privacy protection.
Now Copilot for Microsoft 365 also works with work & business data in the Microsoft 365 Graph – your emails, calendars, and documents you have access to. That is how it has the power to become your personal assistant at work, from recapping Teams meetings, to turning a Word document into a stunning PowerPoint. Here’s how Microsoft protects your data and gives you control over it.
A high level architecture diagram of Copilot for Microsoft 365, depicting service boundary, data flows, and prompt/response orchestration
Tenant Security
Copilot operates within the Microsoft 365 tenant, inheriting all the existing security, privacy, identity, and compliance requirements. It is built upon a foundation of trust, ensuring that organizational data is distinct and separate from other tenants. Watch this video to learn more about how Copilot is built upon a foundation of trust.
Data Defense
Data is considered the customer’s business, and Copilot respects the customer’s control over its collection, use, and distribution. It ensures that data is stored, encrypted, processed, and defended to the highest standards. Further, we don't use your customer data to train foundation models, and Copilot adheres to existing data permissions and policies, and its responses to you based only on data that you personally can access. Watch the following video to learn how data is stored, encrypted, processed, and defended.
Azure OpenAI Service
Interactions with Copilot (prompts) are processed using Azure OpenAI services, which prioritize the integrity and protection of your organizational data. Watch this video for a deeper understanding of how Azure OpenAI services power Copilot while prioritizing data integrity.
For all the latest updates and deep dive information start at Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 documentation | Microsoft Learn and aka.ms/copilotlab to learn more about how to use Copilot. Find adoption and skilling best practices at adoption.microsoft.com
[1] FBI Releases the Internet Crime Complaint Center 2021 Internet Crime Report, FBI. March 22, 2022.
More highlights: Build, Mechanics, new Partner resources
Last month, Microsoft Build 2024 had over 3000 in-person attendees in Seattle and over 200K+ virtual attendees. We announced exciting news across the company, but one not-to-be-missed for SMB is Team Copilot. Available as preview later in this calendar year, Team Copilot expands Copilot beyond a personal assistant to work on behalf of a team, improving collaboration and project management. Read Jared Spataro’s blog for how it works as well as other news in Copilot for Microsoft 365. Watch the 90-Second Recap: Satya Nadella’s Keynote if you want to get all the news announced across Microsoft.
Not to be missed: the top two Copilot videos in Microsoft Mechanics, the Microsoft official video programming to teach you how to apply Microsoft innovation to the work you do every day, explain how Copilot for Microsoft 365 works and how to get ready for Copilot in three simple set up steps.
If you are one of our CSPs, we recently launched new partner led adoption immersion experience – consisting of new click-through demos for Sales, Marketing HR, Exec personas (with more coming soon), facilitator guide to deliver this in a workshop, and participate guide for end users to follow along. Check here for the entirety of the content: aka.ms/CopilotImmersionCSPLed .Go here to quickly access the full list of demos: aka.ms/CopilotImmersion/DemosList.
That’s it for this edition! Thank you for reading. Let us know in the comments how you use Copilot for Microsoft 365 to grow your business!
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