How Copilot can help New Zealand businesses

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer sci-fi; it’s fast becoming a regular part of our day-to-day lives. For Microsoft 365 users, there’s Copilot, an AI-powered assistant. Here’s how it works.

Microsoft developed Copilot to help you navigate and operate Microsoft 365. Machine learning, trained by your usage patterns and preferences, it offers up personalized recommendations, reducing your time and effort invested.

Copilot’s proactive suggestions and tips can add efficiency. They also aim to help you take full advantage of all the software’s capabilities.

Using MS 365 Copilot

Built into the Office Suite, Copilot simplifies what you do in Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams. You’ll start your prompts out by saying, “Hey Copilot ….”

In Word, you can ask Copilot for help with formatting, spelling and grammar, and even research. You might say:

  • “How can I centre this text?”
  • “Can you suggest a better way to phrase this?”
  • “Help me find a relevant image.”
  • “Show me how to use the track changes feature.”

In Outlook, Copilot can help create emails, manage your calendar and reminders, and more. Prompts could include:

  • “Show me how to attach a file to this email.”
  • “Find a time for this meeting that works for everyone.”
  • “Show me how to set up an out-of-office reply.”
  • “Remind me to follow up on this email in a week.”

For Excel, ask Copilot to assist with formulas, help analyze data, format spreadsheets, and navigate. You might ask:

  • “Show me how to use the SUM function.”
  • “Create a chart to visualize this data.”
  • “Show me how to format this cell as currency.”
  • “How can I freeze the header row in this spreadsheet?”

PowerPoint also has Copilot functionality. You might use the assistant to design and deliver presentations, or to format slides. For example, you can say:

  • “Suggest a better layout for this slide.”
  • “Change the font size of my headers on every slide.”
  • “Show me how to add a hyperlink to a slide.”
  • “Help me set up a slide show with automatic timings.”

You can also use Copilot in Teams. Take advantage of its capabilities by asking:

  • “Schedule a meeting with Julius and Jane for next Tuesday at 10 a.m.”
  • “Create a status update on X from our chat conversations this week.”
  • “Tell me what customers were discussed on the Teams call.”

You’ll need to first enable Copilot in your MS 365 settings. Then, click on the question mark icon in the top-right corner to access the assistant, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + / (Windows) or Command + / (Mac).

Of course, as is true with most AI at this point, Copilot is not always perfect. Microsoft warns users to verify any AI-generated content. Still, Copilot aims to save you time figuring out how to use Microsoft 365 and frees you up to do your best work.

Want to know more about setting up Copilot and how it can help your business? Contact our team here.

ChatGPT for New Zealand businesses

Imagine a world where you could get blogs automatically written for you, social media content generated effortlessly, as well as automate customer service chatbots. 

More than that, imagine a world where you can communicate with your computer and the whole Internet by simply asking detailed or complicated real-world questions. And where it will come back with seriously good answers.

That world is arriving and in its vanguard is ChatGPT. 

In a nutshell, it’s a website that you can go to, sign up, and ask serious questions – and get really good answers. 

The amazing and unique thing about it is that it is programmed to understand how we speak. And then to do unbelievably quick research and processing to give us answers that sound like they have been written by a human. 

For example, you can type in a question like:

What are the benefits to a small business of having a backup of their Microsoft 365 data outside of Microsoft?

And it will almost instantly give you a very good answer, with multiple bullet points, that you can’t really tell was not written by a human!

Or, how about – What are the benefits to a small business in New Zealand of using a professional accountant?

Or – What are the processes that a small business in New Zelaanbd needs to follow to terminate an employee for serious misconduct?

Starting to get a feel for what it can do? 

And the answers are really good and around 400-500 words long (you can tell it how long you want them to be).

Notice New Zealand was spelt wrong? It doesn’t seem to mind that sort of thing and in the answer it uses the correct spelling.

Google can only take shorter less specific questions and you’ll generally need to look at several websites to get a decent answer. ChatGPT brings it together for you.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT stands for Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer. The GPT-3 language model developed by OpenAI is one of the most advanced natural language processing models in existence. Watch the introductory video about ChatGPT here 

On July 22, 2020, Microsoft announced its partial acquisition of OpenAI.  OpenAI is best known for its work in developing advanced AI models, including the GPT-3 language model, which has been used in a wide range of natural language processing applications. This powerful combination of resources means that ChatGPT will be advancing significantly.

ChatGPT is currently free, and explains that it is available so that it can be used in the real world and learn. It will undoubtedly be monetized in the future, perhaps a bit like how Google is now.

Where next for ChatGPT and this technology?

The most exciting things are definitely still to come. Companies are starting to pour millions, billions and soon many billions of dollars into this type of technology.

It won’t be too long before you are just talking to your computing device, and perhaps asking it in plain English to put together your sales results by intelligently identifying and dragging in raw data to present to you. 

Will you even need a keyboard and mouse anymore? Microsoft’s CEO has said probably not.

Microsoft Teams – We are already seeing this type of technology being built into Teams. We’ll keep you informed.

Copilot – Copilot is a Microsoft product that is more than just a chatbot. Microsoft is gradually building an AI assistant that it has dreamed about for years. You can watch the video here on what Copilot can do for your business.  

How can your business benefit from ChatGPT?

We asked ChatGPT that, and here is most of its reply:

  • The model can generate human-like text in a variety of styles and formats, including news articles, stories, and poetry. 
  • It is also able to answer questions, translate languages, and summarize text, making it a versatile tool for a wide range of natural language processing tasks.
  • This makes it a valuable addition to businesses seeking to improve communication with their customers.
  • With its potential to enhance workflows and deliver a superior customer experience, ChatGPT creates enormous opportunities for companies to strategically leverage technology. 
  • ChatGPT can help businesses improve customer engagement by providing quick, informative, and more natural responses to their inquiries.
  • ChatGPT can automate repetitive tasks such as answering frequently asked questions increasing efficiency and productivity. 
  • Generation of high-quality content: ChatGPT’s ability to generate human-like text can produce high-quality content for marketing, customer engagement and other business purposes.
  • Personalization and customization: ChatGPT can personalize customer interactions and tailor responses based on the customer’s preferences, needs, and history. It can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to increased sales and revenue for the business.

So how do you use ChatGPT?

  1. Sign Up on OpenAI
  2. Visit https://chat.openai.com/auth/login. 
  3. Create an account on ChatGPT

Once you have signed up, type in your question until  you get the results that you want . 

The downside of ChatGPT:

Like any technology it is important to make sure that you still give it the human once over and check for anything that doesn’t sound quite right. 

ChatGPT at present does not store the latest information. Like what band is playing at your local venue this Saturday night – use Google or Facebook for that.

ChatGPT also does not seem to like providing answers about individuals. Maybe it’s an anti-stalking thing that has been programmed in. 

In Conclusion:

ChatGPT is in its early days, yet already could be very useful and provide some excellent advantages for businesses. Technology is always moving and evolving quickly, and here at the IT Alliance we will do our best to keep you up to date with what is going on, and help you to understand what is best for your unique business requirements. 

Reach out to our team here if you would like any advice.