Over the past year, many companies began their generative AI journeys with Microsoft 365 Copilot. As the technology evolves, these organizations are discovering innovative ways to drive impact across business functions and industries. In this blog, we aim to highlight and celebrate examples of AI in action to improve business outcomes. Using generative AI, organizations are The post Revolutionizing work: Customer success stories with Gen AI appeared first on Microsoft in Business Blogs.
Over the past year, many companies began their generative AI journeys with Microsoft 365 Copilot. As the technology evolves, these organizations are discovering innovative ways to drive impact across business functions and industries. In this blog, we aim to highlight and celebrate examples of AI in action to improve business outcomes.
Using generative AI, organizations are meeting market demands, driving business value, and optimizing operations in various functional roles. 79% of business leaders see the need for more and recognize that their company requires an AI strategy to stay competitive. By incorporating a comprehensive AI strategy that includes employee training and education, companies worldwide are fueling organizational transformations powered by AI.
Redesigning business processes with automation and holistic AI solutions
Enhancing customer service, marketing, and HR operations with generative AI
Prioritizing education and training for a successful AI transformation
Unleashing creativity and productivity with generative AI
Redesigning business processes with automation and holistic AI solutions
Many companies are already using generative AI to streamline operations and dedicate more time to value-added tasks. Employees report spending 60% of their working hours on emails, chats, and meetings rather than on innovative endeavors. Responsible AI principles are critical to empowering organizations to gain a competitive edge and improve business outcomes.
With holistic generative AI solutions, businesses can reimagine how work gets done. Among leaders who are “extremely familiar” with AI, 41% expect to redesign business processes from the ground up with AI.
One example of the efficiencies gained through new processes and automation is with Eaton. A leader in intelligent power management, Eaton is unifying financial workflows and automating documentation with Copilot. They reduced the time spent generating standard operating procedures from more than an hour each to 10 minutes. Thus, the company saved more than 650 hours, giving its finance teams more time to focus on strategic initiatives instead of manual data entry.
As generative AI matures, agents designed for specific roles, like Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales and Service, are accelerating organizational efforts to drive business growth and optimize operations, along with the ability to build custom agents through Copilot Studio.
Learn more about the impact of generative AI
- Discover how key metrics and insights help organizations measure the impact of AI.
- Explore the top five AI trends that drive business value in 2024.
- Learn more about optimizing Microsoft 365 Copilot with customization and role-based training.
Enhancing customer service, human resources, and marketing operations with generative AI
Organizations often begin their Copilot journeys with features that benefit employees across business functions, including meeting and email summaries. And as employees and teams become more familiar with the capabilities of generative AI, they create new workflows for the unique requirements of every department.
For example, Schneider Electric, an industrial technology leader, is using Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales to reduce the time its sales staff spends on manual research and data entry. Copilot seamlessly works with customer relationship management (CRM) tools to consolidate information across apps, so the staff can spend less time switching between apps and more time engaging with customers.
Customer service and sales teams often use the same CRM apps, and generative AI can help representatives access important customer information with the ease of a prompt. Customer service representatives at Microsoft have found that Copilot is helping them resolve customer issues more quickly and communicate more empathetically. Organizations that have incorporated Microsoft 365 Copilot for Service report that the average call handling time for customer service agents decreased by 12%–16%.
For marketing teams that invest heavily in content creation, incorporating client briefs and strategies into generative AI solutions can act as a springboard for creativity. Marketers can quickly convert a Microsoft Word document into a dynamic, polished presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint, potentially saving hours of work. Finance teams can use Microsoft 365 Copilot to save time on data reconciliation, contract review, and compliance reporting. At Microsoft, finance teams have seen 75% time savings on compliance reporting alone.
Human resources (HR) departments are on the front lines of improving job satisfaction, facilitating communication between employees and leadership. At Canadian asset management firm British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), the HR department used Microsoft 365 Copilot to save a month of processing time for an employee survey that returned almost 8,000 private comments. BCI’s HR department was able to quickly identify common themes and action items and engage with employees to address their concerns.
How Copilot is shaping specific business functions
- Explore examples of how Copilot is used in roles ranging from communications to HR.
- Discover free Microsoft 1 hour digital training events that are tailored for various business functions: executives, marketing, HR, sales, operations, IT, and finance.
- Watch these short videos for real-life scenarios in streamlining operations across functional areas.
Prioritizing education and training for a successful AI transformation
Organizations that prioritize employee training are more likely to see high usage rates for AI-driven tools, but only 25% of companies are planning to offer this type of training. Early Microsoft 365 Copilot adopter Insight Canada, a leading solutions integrator, learned firsthand the importance of employee education. The company offered weekly “office hours” for Copilot users to collaborate, an essential part of the company’s approach to adopting AI.
“The internal adoption journey and cross collaboration between our teams were important to our overall success,” says Mike Crampton, Collaboration Practice Manager at Insight Canada. “A valuable lesson that we continue to share is that you can’t just turn this type of technology on and go. You have to continually enable your organization and help them shift the way they think about their tools.”
Farm Credit Canada—another early Microsoft 365 Copilot adopter and a large agricultural and food lending corporation—put storytelling at the center of its AI transformation. The company used internal videos, “Tech Tuesday” sessions, and a collaboration site for its Copilot users to share success stories, offering employees practical ways to improve their daily workflows.
For these organizations, educating employees and sharing Copilot success stories played a vital role in boosting productivity, unleashing innovation, and maximizing the AI investment.
Discover resources to facilitate AI adoption
- Develop and expand your AI skills with the AI learning hub on Microsoft Learn.
- Jump-start employees’ use of AI with the Copilot Prompt Gallery and find resources for the implementation journey with the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales Success Kit
- Experience the power of Copilot firsthand—join the 30-Day AI Productivity Journey.
Unleashing creativity and productivity with generative AI
Companies’ commitments to AI-driven innovation demonstrate that Copilot can help supercharge productivity, streamline repetitive tasks, and enhance decision-making. By reducing the time spent on routine tasks, generative AI is empowering employees to focus on the strategic and creative efforts that make work meaningful.
To learn more or start your Copilot journey, please check out these additional resources:
- Join this live webinar with Microsoft leaders and AI-first movers on March 5 to see examples of Copilot driving value in action: Microsoft Events – Opportunity Meets Innovation: Driving Business Transformation with AI
- Read the Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption Playbook.
- Access the e-book: Crash Course in Copilot.
The post Revolutionizing work: Customer success stories with Gen AI appeared first on Microsoft in Business Blogs.
