How Copilot in SharePoint Could Extend Its Workplace Reach
At the Microsoft 365 conference earlier this month, Microsoft announced it would be bringing generative AI to SharePoint later this year. According to the company's president of collaborative apps and platforms, Jeff Teper, the platform will tap into Microsoft’s Copilot System, which uses Microsoft Graph data from across the organization to offer answers to questions in natural language.
This announcement is only one of the many the company has made so far this year — Microsoft 365 Copilot, the Microsoft Loop app (preview), the new Microsoft Teams (preview), Copilot in Microsoft Viva and Microsoft Security Copilot — but SharePoint could be a game changer.
Teper writes: “Copilot in SharePoint also takes your existing document or presentation and turns it into a page that uses the best web design visuals of SharePoint. It can help you rewrite key passages of text on the page too, helping you strike just the right tone that will drive engagement with your readers.”
Productivity Gains Through Faster Outputs
Benjamin Niaulin, VP of product at ShareGate, said the value of Copilot in SharePoint is likely to come from productivity gains, particularly in reference to the time it takes for employees to get to the specific "outputs" they are tasked with.
Copilot understands your data, your company and more importantly, your words, he said. He points to two examples within Microsoft 365.
CoPilot in #Excel #M365Conf pic.twitter.com/AHSk2Dgj8p
— Benjamin Niaulin (@bniaulin) May 2, 2023
CoPilot with Word in action #M365Conf pic.twitter.com/Kl2QFJPvq2
— Benjamin Niaulin (@bniaulin) May 2, 2023
“In short, it helps individuals get to their results a lot faster,” Niaulin said. “I don't think Copilot will be taking people's jobs away but rather improving their effectiveness and the time it takes them to get something done.”
As for the integrating within SharePoint, Niaulin said he can see Copilot helping people quickly create meaningful pages and set up a workspace for that next project, "one that fits your needs in just a few seconds by talking to you. Once again, save time, gain efficiency.”
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Improve SharePoint User Experiences
For Sam Hamway, a research analyst covering enterprise applications at Nucleus Research, some business processes will be greatly improved by bringing Copilot into SharePoint.
The addition of Copilot could, for instance, elevate document handling by assisting users in real-time with document creation and editing, thereby improving the quality and consistency of business communication.
By automating workflows within SharePoint, Copilot is also poised to enhance operational efficiency, saving time and reducing the risk of manual errors, while the enhanced search functionality is expected to make data retrieval within SharePoint easier.
“Copilot is expected to significantly bolster collaboration by providing real-time suggestions during collaborative editing and facilitating better task management, leading to improved team coordination and project outcomes,” he said.
By learning from user behavior and preferences, Copilot is positioned to offer a personalized SharePoint experience that is more intuitive and user-friendly, thereby improving user engagement and productivity.
Hamway does caution, however, that while workplaces might see improved productivity and enhanced collaboration, they should still consider potential challenges such as data privacy, security and workforce adaptation to new processes.
Copilot in SharePoint Strength: The Mechanics of Website Generation
Susan Hanley, a business analyst and information architect specializing in the design of intranet, collaboration and knowledge management solutions based on SharePoint and Microsoft 365, said one of the most important productivity boosts from this addition will likely be the user's ability to generate a page or website from a document or presentation — a user-friendly way to get started when creating a website.
That, however, remains a technical benefit that is unlikely to displace the need to have individuals on board who know how to communicate with audiences.
“I don’t see it replacing the need to understand the audience for a site and aligning the content to best meet what users need,” she said. “We still need to do the research to make sure that pages and sites [are] created for the reader, which means you need to know who your readers are and what they need to know, what tasks they need to perform and what is important to them.”
Still, with the introduction of Copilot, it will be possible to allow page and site creators to focus on just that — and let Copilot get started with the mechanics of page and site creation.
Hanley said Copilot will also be able to assist with improving the content on individual pages, by creating easier-to-read text and, hopefully, making sure that the most important information remains above the fold.
As to what it brings to the workplace? She agrees there will be a productivity boost for SharePoint authors and site creators but, more importantly, better outcomes for the consumers of intranet and communication content because Copilot can help make everyone a better page author.
Learning Opportunities
“It’s more than just helping pages look better. That’s important but not the key goal," she said. "The key goal is to achieve better outcomes on our communications and intranet content — more engagement, improved findability and content that drives the desired action.”
Related Article: Why Your Workplace Needs a Generative AI Use Policy
Helping Surface and Simplify Content
According to Andrew Pope, co-founder of Designing Collaboration, a firm that builds workplace strategies with Microsoft 365, Copilot will augment and improve one of SharePoint’s principal functions: sharing content and communications.
“I can see how Copilot in SharePoint can help us simplify complex messaging. Humans are great at producing content, and SharePoint is great at sharing content. Put the two together, the content users will find a [usable] gem,” he said.
For instance, the ability to scour PowerPoint to extract key messages and turn them into SharePoint pages will provide great value, Pope said. Users often over-create and lose both perspective and an ability to be concise. "Copilot will really help to get simple messages from too much content,” he said.
Beyond communications, Copilot could also streamline processes by breaking them down into key stages and building a SharePoint page that can guide people along the way. "This would be a big headache fixed,” Pope said.
Related Article: How Generative AI and Low-Code Can Work Together
Enhanced Metadata
Another major advantage to integrating Copilot within SharePoint? Better metadata support.
Kartik Sundar, founder of TeamSlide, a tool that allows users to find PowerPoint slides in SharePoint, said one of SharePoint’s advantages over other content systems is its ability to support metadata.
Metadata is extremely powerful for search use cases, but adding metadata is an often-laborious manual process so it very rarely gets done. Sundar said most companies don’t have the resources and processes to maintain metadata, and classifying a deep repository of old files is not practical.
Copilot in SharePoint, however, could automatically add relevant metadata to all the content in SharePoint. Depending on capabilities, content admins may need to first define metadata (e.g., text, Boolean), but Copilot could automatically add the values for each document, or it may define the most relevant metadata categories for the organization.
Related Article: How Your Taxonomy Can Support Your Knowledge Management
An Evolving Tool
These are all benefits expected with the upcoming integration, but even more developments are on the way. Given the reach and capabilities of SharePoint, the possibilities of combining it with Copilot seem limitless.
While it will only really become clear exactly what Copilot is going to bring once it is released, the Microsoft Build event this week should give us a better idea of where the company is going with this.
About the Author
David is a European-based journalist of 35 years who has spent the last 15 following the development of workplace technologies, from the early days of document management, enterprise content management and content services. Now, with the development of new remote and hybrid work models, he covers the evolution of technologies that enable collaboration, communications and work and has recently spent a great deal of time exploring the far reaches of AI, generative AI and General AI.
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