When companies deploy Microsoft Copilot for M365, three applications consistently deliver the fastest and most measurable ROI: Teams, Outlook, and Excel. These are the apps where knowledge workers spend the most time on routine, repetitive tasks — and where AI assistance makes the biggest difference.
If your company is rolling out Copilot and wants to focus your training budget where it matters most, start here.
The average manager in Southeast Asia attends 8-12 meetings per week. Each meeting generates action items that need to be tracked, decisions that need to be documented, and follow-ups that need to happen. Without AI, this creates an enormous administrative burden.
During the Meeting: Copilot listens to the conversation (via the meeting transcript) and can answer real-time questions:
After the Meeting: Copilot generates a structured summary including:
For People Who Missed the Meeting: Instead of watching a 60-minute recording, ask Copilot:
| Practice | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Always enable transcription | Copilot needs the transcript to generate summaries |
| Name your meetings clearly | "Q3 Budget Review" is better than "Quick Sync" for searchability |
| State decisions explicitly | Say "We have decided to..." so Copilot captures it accurately |
| Assign actions verbally | "Sarah will prepare the report by Friday" helps Copilot track items |
| Review summaries within 24 hours | Correct any errors while the meeting is still fresh |
Beyond meetings, Copilot summarises chat threads. In busy channels with 100+ messages per day, this is transformative. Ask Copilot: "What happened in this channel today?" or "Has anyone mentioned the client proposal?"
Knowledge workers spend 2.5 hours per day on email. Much of that time goes to reading long threads, drafting routine replies, and searching for information buried in old messages.
Drafting Emails: Tell Copilot the key points and tone you want. For example:
Copilot produces a complete draft that you review and send. For employees writing in English as a second language, this is particularly valuable — Copilot generates grammatically perfect, professionally toned text.
Summarising Threads: Long email chains with 10-20 replies become a one-paragraph summary. Copilot identifies who said what, what was agreed, and what remains open.
Finding Information: Ask Copilot to find specific information across your emails: "When did the client confirm the delivery date?" or "What budget figure did finance approve for the project?"
Prioritising Your Inbox: Copilot helps you identify the most important emails, draft quick replies, and flag items that need attention — turning a 30-minute inbox review into a 5-minute task.
| What You Need | Prompt Example |
|---|---|
| Professional decline | "Draft a polite decline for this invitation. Suggest meeting next Thursday instead." |
| Meeting follow-up | "Write a follow-up email summarising what we discussed and listing the action items." |
| Tone adjustment | "Rewrite this email in a more formal tone suitable for the CEO." |
| Quick reply | "Draft a brief reply confirming I will attend and will bring the updated figures." |
| Information request | "Write an email asking the finance team for Q3 actuals by end of week." |
Excel is the most widely used data tool in business, but most employees only scratch the surface of its capabilities. Complex formulas, pivot tables, and advanced analysis remain the domain of a few experts on each team.
Natural Language Queries: Instead of building formulas, ask Copilot in plain English:
Copilot reads your data and returns the answer — with the formula visible so you can learn from it.
Automated Chart Creation: Describe the visualisation you need:
Copilot creates a professionally formatted chart in seconds.
Formula Assistance: Even experienced Excel users struggle with complex nested formulas. Copilot generates them from descriptions:
Data Insights: Ask Copilot to analyse your data and highlight patterns:
Copilot in Excel works best with well-structured data:
Companies that track Copilot adoption across Teams, Outlook, and Excel typically see these results within 90 days:
| Metric | Before Copilot | After Copilot | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time spent on email per day | 2.5 hours | 1.5 hours | 40% reduction |
| Meeting notes turnaround | 1-2 days | Immediate | 95% faster |
| Excel report creation | 2-3 hours | 30 min | 80% faster |
| Employee satisfaction with tools | Moderate | High | +35 NPS points |
| Missed action items from meetings | 20-30% | < 5% | 85% improvement |
A focused 1-day workshop on Teams, Outlook, and Excel Copilot features gives your team enough skills to see immediate productivity gains. Follow up with a 2-hour coaching session after 2-4 weeks to address questions and share best practices.
Microsoft Teams typically delivers the fastest visible ROI through automatic meeting summaries, action item tracking, and chat thread summaries. Outlook follows closely with email drafting and thread summarisation. Excel delivers the most dramatic individual time savings for data analysis tasks. Most companies should train on all three.
Yes. Microsoft Copilot for M365 requires a base Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 licence plus a Copilot add-on licence (approximately US$30 per user per month). The Copilot licence covers all M365 applications — Teams, Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
With structured training, most employees become productive with Copilot within 1-2 weeks. The learning curve is gentle because Copilot uses natural language — employees type what they want in plain English. The main learning is knowing what Copilot can do and how to write effective prompts.
