How to start Unlocking the Power of AI in the Workplace
Are you curious about how AI Tools can make your work life easier, but not sure where to start? Perhaps you’ve dabbled with (or at least heard of) ChatGPT and found it handy, or seen the AI summaries in your browser search results, but you’re looking for something more tailored to the workplace.
Since Microsoft is an investor in OpenAI, Copilot Chat leverages the same powerful ChatGPT model to generate responses, but it’s specifically designed with workplace security in mind. Unlike public AI chatbots, Copilot does not use your data to train or improve its underlying models, so your work content remains private and secure within your organisation’s environment. This means you can more confidently use Copilot to handle sensitive information, knowing that your data isn’t being shared or repurposed for external training, where data can ‘resurface’ to other users.
See here a good explanation from a legal standpoint of why models training on user generated content (UGC) are a concern: The Hidden Risks of Repurposing User Data for AI Training | Preiskel & Co
Try Copilot Chat Before Committing
Before investing in a fully licensed version, it makes sense to try out what you already have and see how it works.
If you’ve used ChatGPT, you’ll notice that Copilot Chat is very similar, but with a few extra benefits since it’s embedded into Windows and Office meaning you don’t need to copy and paste information from once place into another (which, as indicated above, can be a source of data loss) and you don’t have to worry about switching between apps.
When you search for ‘Copilot’ in the Windows Start menu, you may notice two different options: ‘Copilot’ and ‘Copilot for Microsoft 365’. While both are AI-powered tools designed to assist you, they serve slightly different purposes in the workplace.
The standard ‘Copilot’ is integrated into Windows and provides general assistance across your device, such as answering questions, helping with settings, or providing suggestions based on your activity. It’s a broad assistant for everyday tasks and productivity, accessible to most users with Windows 11.
In contrast, ‘Copilot for Microsoft 365’ is specifically tailored for use within Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams. This version leverages your organisational data (such as emails, documents, and calendars) to offer more context-aware support, generating content, summaries, meeting notes, and more – and with your company’s security and privacy requirements in mind.
Use ‘Copilot’ for general device-based assistance and ‘Copilot for Microsoft 365’ for deeper, work-specific help within the Microsoft 365 suite.
Prompt Like a Pro: The GCSE Model
To get the best results from Copilot Chat, it helps to know how to ask the right questions – or, as the experts say, “craft effective prompts”. That’s where the GCSE model comes in:
- Goal: Clearly state what you want to achieve. (e.g., “Summarise this report for me”)
- Context: Provide background or specifics to help Copilot understand your needs. (e.g., “This is a quarterly sales report”)
- Specifics: Add details or constraints. (e.g., “Focus on the UK region and highlight top trends”)
- Examples: Share what a good answer would look like, if possible. (e.g., “Bullet points are great”)
By following the GCSE approach, you give Copilot Chat everything it needs to deliver precise, relevant results – no guesswork, just useful answers.
More Than a Search Engine
It’s tempting to think of Copilot Chat or any other chat based AI as another search engine, but while it’s undeniably useful for getting quick answers, and certainly a great way of getting started, it’s much more than that.
Traditional search engines fetch links or facts from the web based on keywords. Copilot Chat can summarise the results for you and give you a citation of where it got the answer from (hint – you should check those out! ‘AI generated responses may be incorrect’ and at first you should assume they are, just as you would anything else out there on the internet).
It can also analyse your documents, help you write or edit content, generate summaries, and even offer creative suggestions. It understands the context of your work and can interact with your files in Word and Excel, making it more useful than just a search tool.
Copilot Chat in Word and Excel
In Word
- Drafting Documents: Ask Copilot Chat to help you write a letter, report, or proposal. For example, “Draft a professional cover letter using the attached CV.”
- Summarisation: Paste a lengthy document and request, “Summarise the key points in bullet form.”
- Editing Help: Say, “Check this paragraph for clarity and suggest improvements.”
In Excel
- Formula Assistance: Unsure about how to create a formula? Try, “How do I calculate the year-on-year percentage change in this column?”
- Data Analysis: Ask Copilot Chat to “Highlight the top three sales trends in this table.”
- Explaining Functions: Get plain English explanations, like, “What does the VLOOKUP formula in this cell do?”
Give Copilot Chat a Go
Copilot Chat is your chance to explore how AI can support your work before taking the plunge with a full license, whether that’s Copilot for Microsoft 365, ChatGPT for business, or something else.
By following the GCSE model for prompts and experimenting with its features in Word and Excel, you’ll soon see how it’s much more than a search engine and see how it might help improve your productivity.
If you’re ready to go to the next level, consider the full Copilot for Microsoft 365 license: Unlocking the Full Power of Microsoft 365 Copilot
