Going through our messages and emails is one of the most time-consuming parts of our day, especially if you’re involved in a lot of projects. Thankfully, Copilot is here to change that.
On the third episode of our Late Night Brew: Copilot series, we’re breaking down how Copilot can revolutionise the way we use Outlook and Teams.
Join us now for an insight-packed discussion!
TIMESTAMP
00:07 – Introduction
00:43 – The Brew
01:25 – How can Copilot help in daily email tasks?
03:40 – What’s a lesser known feature of Copilot for Teams?
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
Robert Buktenica: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Late Night Brew where we talk the brews first and then we get around to what we’re supposed to later.
Joining me once again for the next episode of this series on Copilot, Neil Wells-West, welcome back, buddy.
Neil Wells-West: Hey, Buk, nice to see you again.
The Brew
Robert: Always. Now, before we jump into how Copilot can help out in day-to-day email, Teams, etc. What brew are you having with me?
Neil: So today, Buk, I’m having something a bit different from the usual. This is Biotiful Gut Health Kefir, just because once in a while I need a bit of a cleanse. But it’s really good.
Robert: Arguably, you know, it’s kind of fermenting so it’s a brew right? You know, it’s within the rules. I, myself, have a hazy IPA. It was one of those impulse single cans like, “Oh, I’ll just give that a shot.” It’s not too bad, actually, for how early I’m drinking it.
Neil: There is that.
How can Copilot help in daily email tasks?
Robert: All righty, diving in. Now, Copilot with day-to-day emails for example, let’s just start there. How can it help out in that day-to-day work for everyone?
Neil: Yeah, yeah, another great question, Buk, thanks for that. I actually think with email, you know it’s such a pervasive problem for everybody nowadays. We’re swamped with thousands of emails. I know I am and I’m absolutely certain you are.
There are some cool tools in most of Microsoft Outlook anyway to help with that, but I think sort of prioritisation-focused inbox. I think one of the top uses that we’re probably looking at is drafting and composing emails. Often it’s quite difficult just to know how to start.
I’m not really talking about the sort of the quick sort of chat-based emails. But when you need to compose an email, think about the tone, think about who you’re directing it to, thinking about content, keeping it clear, keeping it concise — Copilot is great for that. So there’s a number of ways you can actually prompt Copilot to just improve the kind of the overall tone of drafting and composing emails. That’d be a starting point for me.
Robert: Definitely. My favorite Copilot usage in emails is, we’ve all been there when you get looped into this long email chain of “Oh, hey, Neil, could you give your thoughts on this? Or you’re the expert on this.” Rather than—and I’ve already done this—rather than read the twenty, ten, even five emails, depending on how lengthy they get, Copilot summarises for me.
Yeah, now that quick summary of you know, this is what they’re talking about, they did this or they are talking about doing this, has been very, very, very time-efficient.
Neil: Yeah, and I think one of the other benefits of that as well is that when you use Copilot to do summaries of emails, it’ll actually provide citations within the summary which will actually link you to the appropriate email. So, you can reference the emails that it’s summarising. So again, gives you that 360 view of things.
What’s a lesser known feature of Copilot for Teams?
Robert: You could have said 365 view and been recorded as we are witty. Now, you mentioned chat emails, which you know, “Man, this email could have been a chat” or you know “This meeting could have been an email” level. Teams. Where can we get a lot of benefit, maybe it’s a not so well-known feature from within Teams?
Neil: I will just touch on the summary side of things as well, because I think again, Teams is one of those environments that massively benefits from short-cutting because we can be overwhelmed with a lot of information. Teams generates, you know, Teams chats, particularly if you’re in in chats with multiple participants.
Being able to summarise meeting notes into actionable items, you know. Very, very powerful to use Copilot for those kinds of summaries. But then if you layer on top things like just human situations, you know, you turn up late to a meeting. Copilot provides the ability for you to catch up on a meeting if you happen to be five minutes late, ten minutes late, 20 minutes late, it brings you back into the loop. Even if you spend a couple of minutes just looking at a meeting summary that Copilot’s captured to bring you up to speed with the current conversation.
So again, they’re kind of improvements in productivity around, you know, those catch-up kind of activities.
Robert: Definitely. The meeting aspect of it alone is incredibly powerful, generating those meeting notes. One of the ones that I’ve taken advantage of with that Copilot thought, I’ll call it within chat, is just throwing in questions, you know.
“Hey copilot, what information is there on this project?” Like we’ve talked about, you know, Copilot has access to everything you have access to. Being able to ask that question and then go and do something else for a few minutes and it brings back the document or “Oh, yeah, Neil is talking about this in the general channel of this team, right?” That has been very useful for me.
Neil: Yeah, absolutely same here, Buk. And I think I think one of the other really cool things as well is assigning actions. Getting Copilot to say right what are the follow-ups from this meeting? What were the key pertinent points and what are the suggested follow-up actions? And again, you know Copilot will provide a suggested list of lists of actions that I can then tailor for the follow-up activities that are relevant for that core.
Robert: Yeah, definitely. On that time-saving note. Unfortunately, we are through the time once again. These are just getting quicker and quicker, it feels like. Neil, appreciate it, buddy. Looking forward to the next one.
Neil: Okay. Absolutely.
Robert: Cheers, mate. If you need or want to know more, if you want to get your organisation ready for Copilot, all of our contact information is below. Until next time, sir. Take care.
Neil: Cheers, Buk.
Copilot can cut down the time we spend on email work and chats, which we all know can take us hours to get through. If you’re interested in implementing Copilot for your organisation, feel free to contact us or book a Microsoft Copilot Readiness Assessment with us.
For a more comprehensive look into the world of Copilot, you may download our eBook Unleashing the Power of Microsoft Copilot: The Definitive Guide from Readiness to Deployment eBook or watch our past Late Night Brew episodes.
