Welcome to a day in life with Copilot. From the moment you sip your morning coffee to the last email you send out at night, Copilot is there, making tasks smoother and goals more attainable. Read on to know how this innovative tool transforms an ordinary day into an extraordinary one. This post become a lot longer than I originally thought, so take a few moments for this one.
Before going to Copilot, let’s do a short sidestep: much has happened in the Copilot era (since October 2023) that it feels that I have been using Copilot for Microsoft 365 and AI “forever”. I have been involved with numerous customer workshops and trainings where I have had the privilege to get them to see what Copilot can do already today. As you may know, I am a consultant working in a Finnish company Sulava, which is part of The Digital Neighborhood group. Sulava may have only around 130 employees, and yet we are one of the top companies when it comes to helping customers (already having 200+ of them) to the Copilot & AI era globally. As a result of this, I am proud that we, as Sulava, were one of the few finalists for the Microsoft Partner of the Year 2024 award. And not just in one category, but in two: Copilot and Training Services! In other words: Sulava has been recognized by Microsoft to be one of the top 4 best global Copilot and Training partners. For a company of this size, it is an amazing feat. It makes me feel proud to be part of the wonderful, innovative, and skillful people making this happen.
The topic of this article is not to glow on company’s award, but to tell you about my Day in Life with Copilot, and give you more understanding of how I am using and utilizing Copilot in my work. Copilot is not just a tool or a feature, it is a versatile personal digital assistant that helps me in my daily tasks.
7:30 am
I begin my working day usually around 7:30. To get started, I get up to speed with Copilot by asking about what’s has been happening during yesterday.
Summarize all the emails and Teams chats in the past day highlighting the primary asks and open items.
No, I don’t always use the same prompt. Especially when I am using Copilot on my mobile. I might just ask Copilot to list the most important chats, emails, pages & documents from yesterday. Sometimes I can just use speech to text in mobile phone to ask questions from Copilot by speaking to it.
9:00 am – 12:00am
As a consultant I don’t have groundhog days, instead everything varies from day to day. That is one reason why I love my work. During days, there are multiple tasks where Copilot can help me. Such as meetings, writing a chapter to project proposal or sales deck or rewriting content to be more clear.
Draft a chapter summarizing key features and benefits of [topic] to a [target group] based on .
Instead of using Copilot (or searching) to discover earlier document containing similar info, I have found out that generating a new text does help to keep the result interesting. I can change the tone easily, depending on the target group with this and adding more style (how do I want to the result) makes it unique and up to date very easily. Copilot is also very useful when preparing for an upcoming meeting.
I have a meeting [reference to the meeting]. How should I prepare for that? What materials I should read before joining? Summarize what other projects we are doing with this customer. Highlight any open tasks or important details I should know about. Create a well structured information package for me.
There are a lot of texts I am creating very often. Using Copilot there to create the first draft does get me started faster. And I do use Copilot also to rewrite my texts. I don’t do this every time, only when it feels like I need to retouch it – or at least see some options how to write it better (or differently) partially.
Drafting content happens in various apps, not just in Word. I use it in Outlook when I want a more polite reply / email from concise content. This can speed up replying to threads quite a lot. One thing hindering me from using Copilot in Outlook more is the speed. I just write the reply faster and don’t want to spend any time waiting for Copilot to come with its version. Another reason is that, depending on the content, there are regions I don’t want Copilot to change as the information can get twisted and lose its original content. Once the speed picks up, it will be easier to check out alternative ways to write it.
Information discovery is another task I do throughout the day. Instead of searching for a document, it can be easier to just ask Copilot. Is it doing this flawlessly? Nope. And Microsoft 365 search is not a bad one – after all both Copilot and M365 Search both use Microsoft Graph to surface the results. But since I have been in IT for ages, and used search engines already before Google searching with keywords and phrases is very deep in my reflexes. When you start adding more parameters to the search – like “I was working on this document with Pekka a half a year ago” traditional search is beginning to lose its edge rapidly.
Searching is a good example of unlearning. We have been doing things in a similar way for the past 5-10-20 years and now we AI assistant. This requires that we unlearn old habits (which I still have quite many..) and learn the modern way to get things done. Instead of searching, asking for information is the way for many scenarios. It also important to learn when not to use Copilot/AI – not yet to be more precise. Everything is evolving so fast, that never say never – but instead “it doesn’t work on this month yet, I try again in a month and see if it has been evolving meanwhile”. Nothing is static in the Copilot era.
I, of course, use Copilot a lot with Microsoft Teams. Making starting the meeting transcription for every meeting is a new habit that needs to be picked up to allow the use of Copilot during and after the meeting. It is not automatic for me yet, but I do my best to remember to turn transcription on. It will be easier to focus on the meeting with a customer, when you know everything is going to the transcript and you can use Copilot to retrieve details from it. I do also keep manual notes on key things, but I can be more concise as I know I can fill in details with Copilot after the meeting.
Have you noticed that you can Follow meetings instead of selecting between attending yes/no or tentative? With the Follow you are marking the meeting to your calendar like you would attend it – but you are not expected to do that. Instead, when a meeting has been followed, you gain access to the transcription and meeting recap, thus allowing you to use Copilot to catch up with details that are beyond AI notes summary generated automatically (if you have a Teams Premium license). As there are lots of meetings for all of us, I won’t be attending even half of generic company meetings – instead I catch up with them later using Copilot in Teams.
Those are just a few examples so far. So, let’s move to the afternoon after a quick lunch.
12:00pm – 4:00pm
Does my afternoon differ from my morning work? No, it doesn’t. 😂 I might be writing a proposal or preparing workshop materials in the morning or afternoon. I could say I don’t have a fixed schedule where I do certain things (perhaps I should, but that is an another journey ) but plan my days to serve me in the best way. I don’t even have a habit that I would be more creative in the morning, as this depends on the day as well.
You have a lot of apps where you can use Copilot in Microsoft 365. Copilot Chat is the personal digital assistant that can do “anything”. Or it can answer in text to a lot of asks and it can also be extended to other systems (not a topic in this article). Copilot in Whiteboard and Loop can be used easily for ideating quickly, Copilot Chat to ideate new prompts that can be used with Copilot. Yes, that is a thing – use Copilot Chat to help you prompt engineer new use cases and to get better results. Or you can use it to summarize a meeting – without having to navigate your way to a meeting recap. Listing key information or requests from a meeting summary. A timeline. Tasks. Summarizing documents & presentations, pdf-files and more. Asking questions from document contents.
Talking about summaries, at the end of day I usually check my mails and what’s new in Teams. With Copilot in Outlook, it is good to summarize longer email threads (do I really need to read these or not) and discover emails in the same topic. For some peace of mind ending the day by checking what’s the latest and what I should be doing the next day usually ends up using Copilot, Outlook Calendar and Todo to see the whole picture.
I must confess, that I don’t use “what’s my agenda” with Copilot. It is just too slow, as I am checking my calendar way faster. In addition, I have multiple accounts (two primarily) in use, and Copilot can only work within one tenant à it does not know what another content account has. I can combine them (and other accounts too) to the same view with Outlook. Instead I use Copilot to collect information for me from different sources at the same time, like my preparing for a meeting example earlier. Copilot is really powerful combining information from various sources to a single reply (with references to the source information).
Sidestep: I use New Outlook 98% of the time. There are a few things that require opening the old one, but not that many. Creation of ICS-file is one of those use cases where I need to open the classic Outlook. And speaking of Copilot in Outlook: New Outlook and web version has more Copilot features available than classic version has.
And it is important to also remember that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is not the only Copilot out there! Microsoft has 100+ Copilots already, and the number is increasing. Application specific Copilots can help you from Office 365 to Power Platform to Azure to Security to Admin Centers… I utilize many different Copilots as I have the need – and even the Microsoft Copilot (consumer version). Using Microsoft Copilot and Designer it is possible to create images, stickers, etc. easily – just prompt it. Most of my filler images in presentations are done with Microsoft Designer.
Some tips for the Copilot journey
Here is a list of few things that can help you in your Copilot journey
- Create a personal library for your prompts to save the ones you use frequently without needing to rewrite them. Remember, however, to update and refine your prompts periodically.
- Create a group, document, or a discussion channel to exchange prompts and use cases with your team. It’s essential to share these with each other to enhance collective understanding and make the most of Copilot.
- Utilize simple, established use cases like initiating Copilot during Teams meetings and distilling the critical details of the discussion.
- Discover how Copilots function within different applications, including their capabilities in Word, Whiteboard, Teams, etc. Grasp the fundamentals to begin leveraging AI assistance. To understand how app Copilots can be beneficial, consider asking from Copilot Chat in Microsoft 365.
- Utilize Copilot Lab and read resources such as ASK & Prompt toolkit to learn more about prompting and as prompt templates. Even if you are familiar with Copilot these should be on your reading list.
- Consider dividing your intricate project into more manageable smaller tasks. Copilot turns everyone into a sort of “project manager” when it comes to decomposing results into smaller assignments and communicating these tasks to Copilot. Keep in mind: Copilot isn’t capable of knowing what you’re thinking!
- Be curious and experiment with prompts, when you have time. Try out new use cases and edit your prompts to improve your Copiloting skills and results. Don’t stick to the same ones all the time but keep on learning. You have a perfect prompt for a certain task, but can you use that in other use cases too?
- If you are a beginner, be even more curious and playful. You learn the best by using Copilot and seeing where, when and how you can get results.
- It is also important to learn where you should not use Copilot, and why it is so.
- If Copilot can’t do something today, it doesn’t mean it can’t do that tomorrow (or in a month). Keep an open mind to try out cases where you can’t use Copilot today and try them again now and then.
And don’t forget to learn from the community! Read and summarize articles, watch videos, check out LinkedIn posts and of course: take advantage of joining community events either online or onsite. A lot of these events are free to join, and have globally recognized speakers sharing their expertise and experiences! It is no wonder, why Jeff Teper from Microsoft calls this The Best Community in Tech.
I want to highlight one of those events here: Metaverse One 2024. It is online, so everyone can join it easy and free – again allowing everyone to join. And yes, I am involved organizing the event. Despite the name, it has several sessions about Copilot and AI. Registering is free and easy – just enter your email and you will get a calendar reservation to your calendar so you don’t forget that the September 18th, 2024 is the Metaverse One day!
End user targeted Copilot/AI sessions in Metaverse One 2024
- How to use Copilot in Microsoft Teams by Marcin Siewnicki
- The Human Impact of Copilot by Zoe Wilson
- The real ROI of Copilot (for Microsoft 365) by Pieter Op De Beéck
- Unlocking Creativity: AI Assisted Editing with ChatGPT and Copilot in the Digital Age by Martin Rövekamp & Knut Relbe-Moe
On top of those, there are several sessions how to extend Copilot and also sessions about security related to Copilot and future work. And don’t miss the closing keynote Delivering Business Value and User Satisfaction in the Era of AI by Karuana Gatimu, as her keynote is targeted to all audiences.
View all sessions (40+) and speakers (50) here!
Register to Metaverse One 2024 here!
We have a long history of learning and repeating how to do tasks. In the AI era you need to change your way of thinking and unlearn ways that are not valid anymore to be able to learn new.
PS. If you wonder did I use Copilot partially when writing this article? It happened, that I got a lot of inspiration when writing this and as the result Copilot was not used much. It helped to get me started quickly, and rewrite some texts for better grammar and clarity. To me it doesn’t matter if someone had written the blog post with Copilot or not. The result matters. And as with all AI – if you just use it without checking the results … Yes, we have all seen those emails.
Vesa Nopanen - Future Work today 