Core Capabilities

Copilot facilitates natural and intuitive interactions within Microsoft Teams. This capability allows users to communicate with Copilot using everyday language, intended to make it easy to access information, manage tasks, and seek assistance without navigating complex menus or commands. However, there are certain areas we see Copilot lacking its ability to fully understand what we’d be looking for, which then creates a gap that only solid Prompt Engineering skills can bridge. With saved prompt galleries and other 3^rd party tools, this makes the task far less daunting and much more attainable. In a later post, we’ll dig into the Power of Prompting.

Teams Meetings

In the realm of Teams Meetings, Copilot plays a pivotal role in enhancing the meeting experience. The biggest place we see this is as an add-on to the capabilities brought to us by the Teams Premium benefit – Intelligent Meeting Recap (also a part of the Copilot license cost). With Intelligent Meeting Recap, we could see the summary of what was said and by whom, toggle between chapters, and get an overall understanding of what was discussed without needing to watch the entire recording. With Copilot, the layer that gets added here is two-fold: conversation with Copilot from the recap page and, for those who were able to join the meeting, from the meeting itself. Note: Transcription must be enabled for recap and Copilot features!

The caveat that I’ll add here is that the meeting recap most of the time hasn’t been as good as my handwritten notes. Many times, it has left out important details or skipped over a portion of the conversation entirely. Here are a couple prompts I’ve used to help with this:

Please provide the meeting summary including the action items for each person.
What are the key takeaways from this conversation based on the items mentioned by [client name]?
Help me to understand what the key initiatives are following this call from the perspective of [name] and list any action items.
List the ideas, including people’s feedback, from transcript and chat (Copilot reading the chat is a new feature announced at Ignite and one I am thrilled to see!).

These are prompts I have used with Copilot for both a meeting recap and during an actual call. When joining late, catch up on what you missed by asking Copilot (if your call was being recorded and transcribed or Copilot was already enabled). Copilot can also be used even if your meeting isn’t being recorded, your chats just won’t be accessible after the call so make sure to copy any needed responses to be able to access or save for your record later!

One of my favorite tips for the meetings you are an organizer of is that you can also limit when Copilot is available and who it is available to. Simply open your Teams meetings options for the meeting you are an organizer of and find “Allow Copilot” to specify your requirements.

Note: Only the organization of the organizer will be able to use Copilot at this time.

1:1 and Group Chats

In both 1:1 and group chats, Copilot offers contextual support by providing quick responses, sharing relevant documents, and maintaining efficient and productive communication. You may have also seen what I’m calling Copilot’s cousin – the AI notes button.

The feature is also referred to as the AI notes feature in the new meeting creation process as pictured below. My prediction is that this is where Microsoft will be drawing the line between what is Copilot and what AI features are included with Teams Premium.

Future Developments

Upcoming features and improvements

If you’ve ever attended one of my training sessions, you know I always say there are three key themes within Microsoft 365: Standardization of navigation, integration, and personalization. For Copilot in Microsoft Teams, and across Microsoft 365, we see there is no exception to this rule. Copilot is and can be pulled into the navigation pane on the left-hand side, the integrations of Copilot across Teams are evident and growing (Microsoft, please bring Copilot to Teams Channels!), and we also see the abilities we have to personalize when or where we want Copilot used.

In the future, we can continue to look out for capabilities such as the Interpreter and Facilitator agents (this will most likely be what AI Notes is renamed to as indicated at Ignite. See my post about this here), the ability for Copilot to reason over content presented in our meetings, greater Administrator policies/reporting and more. Above all, I am interested to see what more will be done to bring Copilot into Teams Channels, as the only developments we have seen with this space would be the SharePoint agents that can be created to reason over the files stored.

The evolving role of AI in workplace collaboration

In the time it took you to read this, I’m certain a new feature has probably been created. As AI technology advances, tools like Copilot will become indispensable, all with the goal of driving efficiency, fostering innovation, and facilitating seamless communication and collaboration. Copilot in Microsoft Teams represents a significant leap forward in workplace productivity and communication. Try it out today, it may not be the same tomorrow!

The Future of Collaboration Starts with Copilot in Teams