Microsoft has introduced guidance to help companies ready themselves for the launch of Copilot.
The new guidance information provides insights into technical requirements, managing licenses, permissions and content, security and privacy, adoption strategies, and more.
Microsoft 365 Copilot combines large language models (LLMs) with an organization’s data to provide a range of productivity tools. These span the enterprise, touching the contact center too.
Indeed, Copilot gained new capabilities recently, with the addition of AI conversation and chat summary features designed to reduce agent workloads.
This is on top of its AI-powered assistance to answer customer questions in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, which was later demoed to showcase the solution’s features.
Technical Requirements
To get started, Copilot users must have either a Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license, as well as an Azure Active Directory account.
An Azure account provides access to Microsoft 365’s range of apps and services that are compatible with Copilot, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, and Loop.
When Copilot becomes available within a business, users will need to either be on the Current Channel or the Monthly Enterprise Channel for Microsoft 365 apps.
For reduced latency and improved network quality of service (QoS), Microsoft recommends that customers align their network with the Microsoft 365 network connectivity principles.
WebSockets should also be unblocked from user endpoints as some Copilot experiences require a WebSocket connection between the device using the Microsoft 365 app and Microsoft’s service.
To make the most of the cross-app intelligence experience in Teams, you will need to enable plugins from the Teams admin center.
Managing Licenses, Permissions, and Content
Licenses can be assigned to individual users or multiple users via the Microsoft 365 admin panel.
Group memberships can be assigned in Azure Active Directory, and 365 licenses can be designated to user accounts with PowerShell.
Permissions and policies for Copilot will be the same as your existing permissions and policies in order to provide the most relevant information.
It is, therefore, important to maintain good content management practices at the outset.
Security and Privacy
The author of Microsoft’s blog post announcing its guidance recommendations, Yana Terukhova, a Microsoft Tech Community Employee, wrote: