Boost productivity, increase creativity and save time. That’s the promise that Microsoft Copilot makes its users – but what is that promise founded on? An eye-opening piece of research from last year…
Microsoft published a study in November 2023 called “What Can Copilot’s Earliest Users Teach Us About Generative AI at Work?” which makes it clear where Copilot can help organisations improve straight away.
To help you decide where your company can find the most success by adopting Copilot, we’ve detailed some of the report’s most relevant findings below.
Microsoft wanted to know how customers were using Copilot to improve their workflow, so they surveyed 297 members of their Copilot for Microsoft 365 Early Access Programme. The outcome was deeply encouraging. Copilot enhanced the workday in several ways, including the following:
Making more time in the day
Copilot increased productivity by 70% and speeded up work completion by 73%, according to the survey. A whopping 85% of users reported that it accelerated the process of writing a first draft, and 68% felt that it enhanced the overall quality of their work. 72% found it useful for coming up with ideas while writing, and 71% found it useful for getting more done in less time. 57% of people also reported feeling more creative while using Copilot.
Respondents estimated a daily time savings of 14 minutes (or 1.2 hours) due to Copilot. Nearly a quarter of respondents (22%) reported saving more than 30 minutes per day thanks to Copilot, with the majority of those users allocating that extra time to more critical tasks.
This focus on time saving makes it easy to see how Copilot can aid your business: If you have ten employees, you could find an additional twelve hours per week to devote to your customers’ needs.
Copilot also proved popular with respondents, with 77% in Microsoft’s poll stating they were unwilling to give it up. Some even preferred having access to Copilot over free lunches!
Boosting speed, clarity, and conciseness, and expressiveness
Microsoft also looked at Copilot’s effect on business productivity through a quantitative lens:
After randomly assigning 147 participants to one of two groups (one with Copilot, and one without) researchers monitored how much faster one group completed a battery of activities, including finding material from a variety of sources, summarising a recorded meeting, and penning a blog post.
There was no discernible change in accuracy or quality, although users of Copilot were 29% quicker across the board. Using Copilot also made things simpler, according to the researchers; in fact, 85% of participants reported feeling like they used less effort to complete the activities.
While it’s clear that these productivity increases have the ability to completely transform businesses, it’s just as crucial to emphasise the excellent quality of the work that individuals are achieving with Copilot. In order to assess the “clarity and conciseness” of several emails sent with and without the help of Copilot, Microsoft enlisted a 62-person blind panel. When using Copilot, email clarity increased by 18%, conciseness by 19%, and the “couldn’t have said it better myself” factor increased by 25%.It’s hard to argue with the data – Microsoft Copilot has proven its ability to deliver significant productivity and quality gains to businesses. If you would like to learn more about integrating it into your own business, please contact us via the form on our contact page.
