Microsoft Introduces First-Ever AI Assistant for Business Apps

Microsoft recently launched Dynamics 365 Copilot, the world’s first-ever AI assistant for business applications. The new tool provides assistance across a range of business activities, including sales, customer service, marketing, supply chain, and operation.

The Copilot is designed to reduce the time spent on clerical tasks. Some of the most impressive features of the Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales Copilot are writing email responses and email summaries for Teams meetings.

Microsoft shared that in the future, the tool will be able to connect actions discussed during Teams meetings to calendars. If, for instance, attendees discuss having another one in two weeks, the AI bot will automatically schedule it.

The Dynamics 365 Customer Service Copilot can create contextual answers in chat and email queries. Customer service departments can use it to build virtual agents almost instantly.

“If you think of a customer service agent, he’s dealing with a customer inquiry and 18 different databases internally to come up with the responses,” Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, said. “Now you have this copilot that allows you to interrogate the 18 databases and craft a response without distracting the agent from the customer.”

For Dynamics 365 Business Central, Copilot can simplify the creation of product listings for e-commerce stores. Online store owners can generate compelling copy by simply providing the product’s specifics and then selecting a desired tone of voice, length, and format to tailor the product description.

According to Microsoft, Shopify users can publish the generated descriptions “in just a few clicks,” but it’s yet to be announced how this feature will apply to users of other e-commerce platforms.

The Copilot for Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Dynamics 365 Marketing can assist marketers in content creation, audience segmentation, and data exploration. It can also help marketers create email campaigns using prompts, previous emails, and various internet sources. They can choose from categories like luxury, formal, or adventurous for their email campaigns.

For Nadella, traditionally separate programs should work under one workflow in the future: “ERP, CRM, marketing, customer service, supply chain – all these distinct categories are all made up, right? I mean, they’re all garbage sort of categories thought up by vendors,” he said, adding “What if we said, there was just one Biz App workflow?”

Microsoft is transforming all of its business applications with generative AI technology developed by OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. On March 16, Microsoft will unveil more productivity-related AI features.