Have you ever felt like GenAI is a solution looking for a problem? Maybe you’re feeling the pressure from senior execs to start implementing Microsoft Copilot, but the business case just isn’t clicking into place for you?
The reality is, the use cases for GenAI are myriad, with some offering more tangible value to certain industries over others. Finding your GenAI niche may require approaching the technology from a slightly different angle.
To inspire your thinking, here is a selection of recent Microsoft GenAI success stories from some of today’s trailblazers using Copilot to achieve specific business outcomes. Each one links to a detailed case study elaborating on key choices and outcomes that could spark ideas for GenAI’s potential within your own context.
Copilot for enriched employee experiences
A vast number of Microsoft enterprise customers are leveraging Copilot to streamline and enrich their employee experiences. From collaborating on worldwide research projects while saving time on daily tasks (Bayer) to driving productivity and enhancing decision-making (Banreservas) to streamlining workflows, improving communications and reducing admin workloads (Cathay and MTR).
On the creative front, Dentsu reports time savings of up to 30 minutes a day for hundreds of their employees doing creative visualisations.
KPMG has seen a 50% boost to employee productivity thanks to GenAI, while EY is using Gen AI to make it easier to generate reports and access near-real-time insights.
Financial services organisations like PNB and AmBank are using Copilot to streamline employee searches and enhance the quality and impact of their work, while financial advisers at Hargreaves Lansdown are combining Copilot and Teams to drive productivity and make their meetings more inclusive.
Avanade is saving time for their sales team by using Copilot for Dynamics 365 to update contact records and summarise email threads, and HSO Group, Vixxo and 9altitudes are all successfully using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service to streamline work for their field and service teams.
Copilot for reinventing customer engagement
Many organisations are also using Copilot to enhance their customer experience, providing value-adding access to information and/or experience personalisation.
In the energy space, MECOMS is using Microsoft Fabric and Copilot on their Power Pages portal to enable their customers to ask questions and receive suggestions on how to cut their power consumption. Schneider Electric has built a Resource Advisor Copilot to provide their customers with enhanced data analysis, visualisation, decision support and performance optimisation.
California State University San Marcos is using Dynamics 365 and Copilot for Dynamics 365 to personalise their student journey while driving better engagement with parents and alumni.
UiPath has used Copilot to help save one of its insurance customers over 90,000 hours through greater efficiency, and Providence’s GenAI-powered solution has enabled its clinicians to respond to patient messages up to 35% faster.
Atento has seen a 30% boost to customer satisfaction (and 20% reduction in operational errors) since introducing Copilot.
Dominos, LAQO and OCBC have all built GenAI assistants that are saving their employees time and improving their customer service. Other great examples of GenAI assistants include Setur’s chatbot (personalising travel-planning in multiple languages for 60,00 daily users), Coats Digital’s customer onboarding assistant, Ergo Insurance and EBO’s virtual agent, and H&R Block’s customer-facing AI Tax Assistant.
Copilot for reshaping business processes
Copilot has been pivotal in helping many businesses achieve new heights of efficiency, creativity and AI innovation. Siemens, for example, has built its own industrial copilot to help design engineers and frontline workers collaborate, accelerate simulation times, and slash task completion timelines.
Hanover Research’s custom AI-powered research tool is streamlining workflows and producing insights up to 10 times faster than before, while organisations like the London Stock Exchange Group and Milliman are using GenAI to derive greater value from their data insights.
Zeiss is using Copilot to streamline its analytics workflows to enable more customer-centric decisions. Volvo is using a customer-built Azure AI solution to simplify document processing, saving an estimated 10,000 manual hours.
Carlsberg is using GitHub Copilot to supercharge its development team, while Mastery Logistics Systems and Novo Nordisk are using it to automate repetitive coding tasks for their developers. Intertech, too, is using GitHub Copilot, pairing it with Azure OpenAI Service to enhance coding accuracy and reduce daily emails by 50%.
Hover, SPH Media, Doctolib and CloudZero are all using AI to improve their workflows within agile and secure environments, while Unique AG is using it to reduce admin, accelerate existing processes and improve IT support for their financial industry clients. PwC is also using Azure OpenAI Service to simplify its audit process and increase transparency for its clients.
Epiq is using the AI and Copilot features of Power Platform to automate employee processes, saving over $500,000 in annual costs and 2000 working hours a month. PG&E has clocked annual savings of more than $1million by using GenAI to address up to 40% of their helpdesk demands, and Nsure has reduced manual processing times by over 60% and costs by 50% by building AI-driven automations to reduce manual processing times.
On the security front, WTW is using Microsoft Copilot for Security to enable its cyber teams to ask questions in natural language, significantly boosting its threat-hunting capabilities. LTIMindtree is also planning an AI-led solution to reduce training times and enhance security analyst expertise.
Copilot for driving innovation
GenAI is touted as offering a significant competitive advantage to those willing to push the innovation envelope. Plenty of organisations are rising to the challenge, and reaping the rewards.
Nonprofit Team Rubicon is using Copilot for Dynamics 365 to boost their volunteer efforts, identifying and connecting with the right volunteers in the right locations. TomTom is developing an advanced AI-powered automotive voice assistant to help drivers with tasks like navigation and climate control, and VinBrain is using AI-powered copilots to enhance medical screening and detection processes while supporting more meaningful doctor-patient interactions.
Rockwell Automation is using Azure OpenAI Services to accelerate time to market for customers building industrial automation systems, while Perplexity.AI is bringing AI to millions via its Azure AI Studio-powered conversational answer engine.
Myntra is bringing AI to fashion, helping shoppers search for outfits by occasion while Aisin Corp is using generative AI to help hearing-impaired people with tasks like navigation, communication and translation. Natural Reader is bringing education on the go to students with learning differences by improving AI voice quality using Azure AI.
And let’s not forget Synopsys, using generative AI to accelerate time to market for some of the most complex engineering challenges out there – semiconductors.
Prepping for success
Clearly, AI is ripe with opportunity, but spotting that opportunity is just the first step. It’s also vital that you prepare your environment so that you can safely unleash the full power of the technology in play.
Getting that right requires a solid understanding of the risks associated with GenAI and the implications it may have on your security and compliance requirements.
As security specialists, we’ve worked through these questions a number of times and have compiled our insights into a series of blogs analysing the various aspects of AI.
You can find those here:
- Intro to AI: A high-level overview of AI risks and rewards.
- Data Protection’s AI-shaped elephant in the room: An analysis of AI’s impact on data governance responsibilities with practical suggestions for risk-reduction.
- Meet Microsoft 365 Copilot: An introduction to Microsoft Copilot’s capabilities and security and privacy considerations.
- Land on your feet with Microsoft 365 Copilot: An update on developments in the world of Microsoft 365 Copilot and suggestions on where to start your AI-readiness programme.
- Is Generative AI learning all your business secrets?: A look at how users interact with GenAI, and how to prevent them poking invisible holes in your corporate data security strategy.
As strong as the push towards GenAI is, there is a lot to consider before letting your organisation dive in, head-first. If you’re concerned that you’re not seeing the full picture, or spotting every pitfall, our specialist team is here to help.
We can assist in assessing your compliance maturity, and in educating and informing your cross-functional teams. Together, we’ll unpack the art of the possible within your Microsoft license, reducing your risk and improving your compliance by progressing towards your optimal policy and technology implementation and configuration.
