The future of Modern Workplace is upon us

I’ve always been a huge fan of efficiency, working smarter, not harder. Always on the lookout for ways to reduce the mundane tasks so, I can really focus on the important stuff.

Ironically, always struggled with writer’s block too!

Which is why I am so excited for the launch of the Microsoft Copilot family, particularly Microsoft 365 Copilot 😆👨‍✈️

The acceleration of AI in recent years has been phenomenal (and maybe sometimes a little scary…) but, the amount of time it’s saved me already has been incredible!

So, I wanted to share with you the top 5 things I’m most looking forward to using with Microsoft 365 Copilot:

Producing presentations, training decks and webinar materials is a huge part of my role at Giacom. Getting started and those creative juices flowing, for me, takes time. Formatting, keeping on brand, deciding what to include, what images will work. All of these questions answered for me by Microsoft 365 Copilot!

With all that taken care of, I’ll be able to really focus on the content to provide a top quality presentation!

I’m by no stretch an Excel expert, I can just about manage an XLOOKUP & pivot table. But, with Microsoft 365 Copilot, I don’t need to learn all the fancy shortcuts, formulas and remembering which order to put things in.

• Suggesting formulas – Copilot can offer suggestions when writing formulas. No more searching the web to see what will work! ✅
• Auto completion of functions – sometimes it’s the little things! Those functions with long names or the more complex ones can be automatically populated for you ✅
• Efficient data analysis – I spend a lot of my time analysing data, understanding trends, forecasting. Copilot can provide suggestions to streamline your analysis ✅

Something my team know well is, I love efficiency! To be efficient, it’s paramount to be organised. For me, organisation starts with a well-managed Outlook inbox!

I love to see an organised inbox! Tidy folders, slick rules so I can prioritise incoming traffic, but all that lovely stuff takes time to set up. Microsoft 365 Copilot can suggest categorization options for your emails, helping you organize your inbox efficiently. By providing recommendations for assigning categories or applying rules, Copilot streamlines the process of managing and filtering incoming messages.

But, it’s not just email. Without my Outlook calendar, I’d be entirely lost in my day. It keeps me on track and helps me manage my time. Am I perfect at it? Who is?! Copilot can help me there too! By helping you schedule appointments by suggesting meeting times where all attendees are available, generating meeting content and setting reminders so, you don’t miss any important meetings.

Similar to my Outlook calendar, I spend a lot of my days on Teams meetings with partners, vendors and colleagues. It’s a huge part of the modern workplace now.

With a busy schedule, it can be frustrating when a vague meeting invitation lands in your inbox, a generic subject with no agenda. Copilot will offer suggestions for structuring and organising the meeting content. Providing clear and concise agendas, making meetings more efficient (there’s my favourite word again! 😃)

Not only that, how many times have we all been in back to back meetings? We all have those days, right? Meeting after meeting with no time to follow up with action points. Copilot can provide full transcripts from meetings and compose a round up of the points discussed and action points for attendees. So, no more of the question ‘Who’s action point was that again?!’

I’ll be completely honest on this one… I’ve only fairly recently migrated from a trusty notebook and pen over to OneNote. Then, a couple of months ago, I walked into my home office and noticed the amount of note books stacked on the shelf under my desk. 15 notebooks!! 😲

Right there and then, I knew I needed to make the switch to OneNote. It started off fantastic! Organised tabs, key information and lovely task list. But, it soon spiralled into short hand notes made during meetings and a labyrinth of tabs.

So, I’m really looking forward to Microsoft 365 Copilot helping me optimise my search queries when I’m looking for something specific and making my nonsensical short hand notes into readable content.

On top of that, I have always used a task list to plan my day. I’d be lost without one. So, copilot offering suggestions to prioritise my tasks and create due dates and descriptions will be a complete game changer for me!

So, what’s my take on Microsoft 365 Copilot? Is it going to change my working life entirely? Absolutely! But, I do think it’s important to call out that Copilot isn’t going to do my work for me! We’re not in the floaty chairs from WALL-E just yet! What it will do though, is make my life so much more efficient.

It’s important to remember, you need to work with Microsoft Copilot. It’s not to be mistaken that it will do your work for you. Although one can dream…