Introduction to Copilot Studio: Unveiling the next chapter in AI-driven business solutions
Tuesday 15th October 2024
Introduction
Copilot Studio is Microsoft’s cutting-edge platform designed to revolutionise the way businesses interact with AI. By enabling organisations to build custom Copilot solutions, Copilot Studio empowers enterprises to respond to both customer and employee needs swiftly and effectively. The platform offers intelligent experiences that remember and understand user context and intent, and it dynamically completes tasks while ensuring industry-standard security protocols. With over 10,000 organisations already leveraging its capabilities, Copilot Studio stands out as a secure, trusted solution supporting over 30 languages and seamlessly integrating with legacy systems and Microsoft's ecosystem. This comprehensive studio not only reduces overhead costs and optimises business processes but also accelerates innovation, making it an indispensable tool for modern enterprises.
In this blog we will discuss the process of creating Custom Copilots, Copilot plugins, when to opt for Copilot Studio versus Azure OpenAI, the latest Surface Copilot+ PC devices, as well as how Bytes can help you with our Copilot workshop offerings, resources and events.
Tailoring AI to fit your enterprise's unique demands
The process of creating custom Copilots begins with identifying the specific requirements and goals of your enterprise. This involves a detailed analysis of the needs of both customers and employees to determine the functionalities that the custom copilot should support. Once the requirements are clear, the next step is to map out the data sources and integrations necessary to provide the Copilot with the information it needs to function effectively.
For example, consider an enterprise that hosts a significant amount of its internal data on SharePoint. To create a custom Copilot that leverages this data, the process would involve the following steps:
1. Integration with SharePoint: Establish a secure connection between the Copilot and the SharePoint platform. This ensures that the Copilot can access and retrieve the necessary data in real-time.
2. Defining User Interactions: Design the interactions that users will have with the Copilot. This includes specifying the types of queries the Copilot will handle and the kind of responses it will generate based on the data available in SharePoint.
3. Contextual Awareness: Implement contextual understanding capabilities so that the Copilot can provide relevant and personalised responses. For instance, if a user inquires about project updates, the Copilot can fetch the latest documents and summaries from SharePoint.
4. Testing and Refinement: Conduct extensive testing to ensure that the Copilot functions as intended. This involves simulating various user scenarios and refining the Copilot's responses to improve accuracy and relevance.
5. Deployment and Training: Once the Copilot is thoroughly tested, it is deployed for use within the organisation. Training sessions are conducted to familiarise employees with the Copilot’s features and functionalities.
Example Scenario: A custom Copilot for a marketing team.
In this scenario, the marketing team uses SharePoint to store all their campaign materials, performance reports, and strategic documents. The custom Copilot can be designed to:
- Provide quick access to recent campaign performance metrics by pulling data from SharePoint.
- Summarise meeting notes and action items stored in SharePoint for easy reference.
- Assist in creating new campaign strategies by suggesting templates and resources available in their SharePoint library.
Copilot Plugins, Extending Capabilities
Copilot Plugins are essential for enhancing the functionalities of your custom AI assistant by integrating it seamlessly with various line-of-business applications. These plugins support the creation of adaptive cards, which are user-interface templates that can be used to display information, collect user input, and trigger actions in a visually appealing and interactive manner.
Example Scenario: Extending Copilot with Adaptive Cards
Imagine a sales team utilising a custom Copilot integrated with their CRM system through SharePoint. With Copilot Plugins, the team can extend the Copilot's capabilities using adaptive cards. Here’s how it works:
Dynamic Data Retrieval: The Copilot can generate adaptive cards to present real-time customer data pulled from the CRM system stored in SharePoint, such as recent interactions, purchase history, and account status.
Interactive Task Management: Sales representatives can use adaptive cards to update customer records directly from their chat interface with the Copilot. For instance, after a client meeting, the representative can update meeting notes, set follow-up actions, and schedule reminders using the Copilot's interactive cards.
Streamlined Reporting: The Copilot can summarise sales performance metrics and display them via adaptive cards, allowing team members to quickly gauge their progress and identify areas needing attention.
By leveraging Copilot Plugins and adaptive cards, Organisations can create a more interactive, efficient, and user-friendly experience, ensuring that their AI assistant is not only informative but also highly functional.
Strategic Integration: When to choose Copilot Studio and when to opt for Azure OpenAI service
To maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of your custom AI solutions, it's crucial to understand the strategic integration options available. Specifically, choosing between Copilot Studio and Azure OpenAI Service will depend on your organisation's unique requirements and the level of customisation you seek.
Copilot Studio
Copilot Studio is ideal when you need a low-code tool to create custom AI assistants based on your specific data and business needs. It allows you to:
- Train and deploy a Copilot model that can handle various tasks and scenarios.
- Integrate your Copilot model with different data sources and services using Copilot connectors.
- Manage your Copilot deployment using a simple dashboard.
- Provide natural language content generation from your data, such as emails, documents, or chat messages.
- Ensure higher quality, relevance, and security by customising the AI for your specific domain and data.
Azure OpenAI Service
Azure OpenAI Service is the optimal choice when you need more control over AI deployment and require extensive customisation. It is suitable for scenarios where you:
- Want to use AI over an API with specific questions and answers.
- Require the ability to connect to extremely specific datasets.
- Need to fine-tune models for even more accurate answers.
- Seek a managed service for deploying Foundation Models like GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and others.
- Wish to integrate AI capabilities into new or existing applications, allowing for custom business AI applications.
Azure OpenAI Service provides powerful AI capabilities with the flexibility and scalability of the Azure cloud platform, making it suitable for both internal and customer-facing applications.
New Copilot+ PC's: Explore the latest in Microsoft's new Surface devices and how they can be used with AI
Copilot itself is not only heavily influenced by the user itself, but also with the advancements in the latest devices.
With powerful performance to handle demanding workloads and AI that runs directly on the device, you can find mission critical information faster, turn ideas into action, respond quicker to customers, and safeguard your most sensitive data.
With windows 10 support ending in October 2025, Businesses are rapidly moving to Windows 11 devices. 5.5 Million devices are still on Windows 10 PC.
The latest devices not only simplify the Copilot experience, but these devices are 80% faster in performance. The new NPU chips, dedicated to focusing power and performance on AI, have gone hand in hand with improving battery life by double the amount on the previous generation.
In the hybrid working world we find ourselves in, battery life and performance has never been more important to enhance the end users experience.
What’s New
- Describe it to find it. With just a few words for context, find what you've seen or heard on your device using Recall.
- Enhance communication. Understand almost any call, conversation, or recording with Live Captions from 44 languages into English.
- Windows Studio Effects: Creative Filters (Illustrated, Animated, Watercolor), Portrait Light, Portrait Blur and Standard Blur, Eye Contact, Voice Focus
- Create and transform: Find the right content with Recall, and take quick action with helpful suggestions like copy, summarise, ask Copilot, translate, or start an email.
- Transform your writing: Make your words shine by drafting and editing email and other content with Copilot and get suggestions for revision. Create confidently in Copilot shielded by commercial data protection.
AI is not a tool for work. It is a new dimension of work!
Latest Device Portfolio from Microsoft
Latest Accessories Range
Explore the latest accessories here.
All devices are available through Bytes and can be complimented with our Bytes Managed Workspace offering. Reach out to your account manager to learn more about how we are assisting clients in their move to Windows 11 devices.
How can Bytes help - Bytes Copilot Workshops
Bytes have helped over 500 organisations benefit from using AI technologies. Using a team of consultants we can provide you with art of the possible sessions, uncover AI use cases and understand the business value they represent.
Bytes are no 1 in the country for delivering Copilot workshops. We may be able to offer funding to complete the workshops. Microsoft and Bytes are helping organisations get up to speed with AI, quickly allowing businesses to benefit from the productivity gains. Please contact your account manager for more information on these Microsoft Copilot workshops.
Read more about our workshop offerings here.
Watch our Copilot Webinar on-demand
Dive into the world of Copilot Studio, where the creation of custom AI solutions becomes a reality. Our recent webinar explored the advanced capabilities of Copilot Studio, guiding you through the process of crafting your own Copilots tailored to your unique business needs. Our specialists also discussed the strategic scenarios where Azure OpenAI service emerges as the optimal choice for AI implementation.
Additionally, discover the latest in Microsoft's new Surface devices, including the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7, which are AI PCs designed to accelerate Microsoft Copilot experiences. These devices offer integrated AI engines that enable the next wave of business features, providing performance, versatility, and accessibility to drive productivity and resilience in the modern workplace.
Ignite Innovation with Microsoft - 28th November
Bytes are thrilled to announce that our biggest Microsoft event of the year has landed, and we'd love you to join us!
Register for a day full of thought-provoking presentations, delivered by subject-matter experts, around the most sought-after industry topics, including; Microsoft Copilot, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Fabric, Data Analytics, Microsoft Security, Endpoint Management and much, much more!
For more information please visit the link here.
Conclusion:
Bytes has assisted over 500 organisations in leveraging AI technologies through our team of architects and consultants. We offer "Art of the Possible" sessions, uncover AI use cases, and evaluate the business value of AI. Bytes is the leading provider of Copilot workshops in the country, often funded by Microsoft, to help organisations quickly gain productivity benefits from AI.
Bytes provides comprehensive support for customers looking to implement custom AI solutions with Copilot Studio and purchase AI-powered Surface devices. For more information, please contact your account manager or email [email protected].
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