
Want to find out more about Microsoft 365 Copilot, the power of next-generation AI for work?
In this blog, Ross Soady, our Partner Success Director, discusses this new technology and how it has the potential to make our lives easier and free up some precious time.
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At our company, Seer 365, our focus is on developing applications to help partners to sell, design and deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 in a more consistent, efficient way, but let’s be honest we, as humans, are consistently inconsistent.
So, what do I mean by consistently inconsistent? Put simply, we don’t do the same thing, the same way, every time – as hard as we try. It’s in our nature – for example, how we interpret what others have told us depends on our grasp of language, how we interact with people, how well we are listening and what, if anything, we write down.
For those of you reading this, think about the number of times you’ve come out of a meeting. You hastily scribble something down, you nod in agreement, maybe later that day or the next day, write it all down, go off and issue notes and actions. Invariably, you’ll get some level of disagreement on what was and wasn’t said.
And sometimes, too often, we get it wrong. “That’s not what I agreed.” “I said I was away and not able to take that action.” “No. You didn’t listen to me.” “Why did you write that in the meeting notes?” are common comments.
Come on everyone…. “Ahhhhh.”
Today, we’ve got lots of great tools at our fingertips to help us (and more coming), and perhaps it’s time that we started using them more.
For me personally, collaboration using Microsoft Teams is key. We spend so long in Teams, in meetings, sharing documents and spreadsheets, chatting… that sometimes we forget that there’s a lot more to it. There’s Planner, OneNote, Forms, Lists and Power Automate to name just a few, all designed to allow us to capture, structure and do something constructive with information, actions, and decisions.
That’s all great, but it’s down to us as information workers to populate the Planner, update the Lists and write in our OneNote. This takes time, it’s not much fun, or productive – but vital in getting clear actions and results from a meeting.
However, looking over the horizon, it’s Microsoft 365 Copilot that really excites me.
But what is Copilot, you are probably thinking?
Earlier this year, Microsoft let us know about this tool, which in the future will be your digital personal assistant at work. Putting aside any concerns about AI being too smart and ensuring we consider any security or privacy implications, let’s understand what some of its capabilities are:
- Ability to summarise meeting notes and actions
- Instantly identify who owns these actions
- Highlight next steps and discussion points
Just the thought of having some help with these mundane but very important tasks makes me want to start using Copilot now, although unfortunately it’s not yet at general release! It’s going to save us so much time by summarising and creating notes in real time based on live input, which is going to be much more accurate (and less prone to bias) than what meeting attendees would write down themselves.
Not only will Copilot summarise your notes, but it will also help to organise your notes for you. Just imagine! It will help with reorganising your notes, adjusting the formatting, and highlighting your most important points, such as next steps and discussion points. It will even identify the actions and who owns these actions – it will practically do (some of) our job for us! I for one am more than ready to start using Copilot and freeing up a few extra hours in my week. In that way, I can spend more time on important stuff and less time on the boring stuff that adds no value to me, my company or my Partners!
Sadly, for every advantage of new technologies, such as Copilot, there are also a few negatives. At this stage it’s very much in the testing stages, so we have little concrete information to work with – I’d love to speak to one of the special few (only 600 companies worldwide) who are currently testing it. I’m also very conscious of any privacy and security aspects, as well as having to mind my Ps and Qs in meetings.
Overall, I think the launch of Copilot will be welcomed with open arms. Personally, if I could save 2-3 hours a week, I could make better use of that time!
So, when is Copilot going to be available to the public, I hear you ask?
It’s not clear yet exactly when it’s going to be on general release but Microsoft have recently launched an early preview of the technology. So, this is a big call out to Microsoft. I want my Copilot and I want it NOW! I want extra time in my day to do other things. I want to be more productive. I’m ready to start using Copilot…yesterday! I’m sure many of you feel exactly the same.
If you’d like to find out more about Microsoft Copilot, read Microsoft’s blog here: Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot – your copilot for work – The Official Microsoft Blog

Written by Ross Soady
Ross Soady is our Partner Engagement Director and has been a part of the Seer 365 family from the beginning. Ross has over 18 years experience within the Microsoft Dynamics arena and helps our GYDE365 partners to grow through the effective use of our ever-growing suite of applications.