Brian Shaw has been a Microsoft 365 Copilot enthusiast since the company first launched the generative AI solution in February 2023. But with AI tools evolving rapidly, he knew it would be a challenge to keep up with the latest changes and feature releases.

The most effective way he found to do that? Share his knowledge with other employees.

“One of the best ways to learn something is to train others,” says Shaw, a 17-year Microsoft veteran who currently works as a principal customer success account manager on the Retail and Consumer Goods team. “Every time I’ve trained a group on Power BI, I’ve learned something. It’s the same with Copilot. Someone asks a question—I have to figure out the answer. It keeps my skillset sharp and allows me to keep my technical focus.”

That passion for training and enthusiasm for the ways that Copilot can make everyone’s job easier explains why Shaw stepped up to be one of the first Copilot Champs at Microsoft—and why he remains one of the most dedicated evangelists for the technology solution at the company.

“I’m always finding new ways that Copilot can save you time,” he says. “And the great thing about that is that you can redirect that time to have more impact, whether that’s with a customer, in another aspect of your work, or with your community. It really helps magnify what you can accomplish.”

Customer Zero focus

Microsoft Digital, the company’s IT organization, puts a strong emphasis on Customer Zero: the idea that our employees—early adopters and consistent users of the latest Microsoft software tools and processes—should share their experiences with others, including our customers. It’s an idea that Shaw embraces wholeheartedly.

“If we as employees aren’t successful using Copilot, no one’s going to be successful,” Shaw says. “I’ve always heard that if Copilot helps you save 20 minutes a week for six straight weeks, you’ll be hooked. I want everyone to see those benefits, so that’s why I’m always encouraging people to get in the habit of using Copilot every day.”

One example Shaw cites is the way he uses Microsoft 365 Copilot to help him reduce his work email burden.

“I get up to 200 emails a day just from customer support cases, which can be difficult to keep up with,” he says. “So, I ask people to @mention me in the email. Then I can ask Copilot to go through all the emails where I’ve been @mentioned and tell me the subject line, who sent it, the date and time, and what task I need to complete. This allows me to get caught up very quickly and understand what my next actions are.”

On the leading edge

Shaw’s excitement in sharing his knowledge of Microsoft 365 Copilot comes directly from his passion for technology, according to those who work with him.

“Brian is an early adopter and a technologist at heart,” says Rod Combs, a leader in the Customer Success unit for Microsoft’s Eastern U.S. region. “He loves to learn and to be one of the first to master something. So, when Copilot first came along, Brian was in there messing around with it, trying to understand its capabilities and get the most out of it. From there, he’s continued to lead and drive engagement with Copilot across Microsoft.”

One of Shaw’s key principles when approaching any training session is to strive to explain technical points as simply as possible.

“I try to demystify Copilot for people,” he says. “For example, people often ask me, ‘Why are there so many Copilots?’ and I explain that there are basically three types of Copilot: a tools-based Copilot, an application-specific Copilot—like in Word or Outlook—and Copilot Chat, like the one you see at copilot.microsoft.com.”

Jody Ryan, director of Copilot Sales and Compete in Customer Health and Growth at Microsoft, agrees that Shaw’s ability to simplify things sets him apart.

“He really makes Copilot accessible for everyone to understand, just by the way he presents it,” she says. “Brian has a way of explaining things in a non-technical way so that everyone can grasp it, across all skill levels. I think that’s a key strength.”

A customer-centric mentality

Another reason Shaw is so successful at helping fellow employees get the most out of Microsoft 365 Copilot is his “day job” as a customer success account manager (CSAM), which relies on some of the same strengths. It’s a parallel that Cadie Kneip has observed in her role as a leader of the Copilot Champs community.

“There’s something unique about the combination of skills that CSAMs have, of being very technical but able to deliver technical trainings in a way that lands a customer,” says Kneip, a readiness business program manager in Microsoft Digital tasked with finding creative ways to get more Microsoft employees using Copilot in their day-to-day work. “It tends to be very friendly and personable. I see that with Brian, who is very generous with his time to demo Copilot to so many fellow employees. I don’t know the exact number, but he’s completed more than 500 activities to help his peers learn Copilot.”

Yen Anderson, a fellow CSAM at Microsoft and another enthusiastic Copilot Champ, recognizes the skills and passion that Shaw brings to his Copilot advocacy.

“Brian really has knack for instructional training and is masterful at walking people through a tool’s features and functionality,” she says. “He goes out of his way to amplify his impact and upskill the learning community at scale.”

Going global with Camp Copilot

Observing Shaw’s enthusiasm for Copilot trainings, Kneip invited Shaw to be part of Camp Copilot. The internal Microsoft event, held over three weeks in the summer of 2024, attracted 25,000 participants from around the world, all interested in learning more about how Microsoft 365 Copilot can enhance their work and magnify their impact.

“I ended up being one of main presenters in Camp Copilot,” Shaw says. “Over my four sessions, we had more than 5,800 people attending and listening in. It was a lot of fun. And of course, I had a lot of people follow up with me and ask me to do a presentation to their team or group, sometimes for multiple sessions. I would never have had that opportunity if it wasn’t for Camp Copilot.”

Looking to what’s next

Always looking to the future, Shaw can’t wait to be a part of the next wave of features that Microsoft 365 Copilot releases.

“I like to say that the Copilot you’re using today is the dumbest Copilot you’ll ever use, because it’s constantly getting upgrades, getting smarter,” he says. “As it starts learning more about you and the things you work on every day, it’s going to give you better and better information.”

He cites the progression of Copilot in Excel as one example.

“When Excel Copilot first came out, it did maybe three things and I don’t think people were very excited,” he says. “But now that they’ve integrated Python into it, it can write code, create custom visuals, link multiple files and tables together, and more. It’s turned into a real tool that people who use Excel everyday are just going to absolutely love, because it will save them a ton of time.”

Shaw’s also looking forward to the imminent introduction of automated agents with Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility, which will bring even greater productivity enhancements.

“Soon, we’ll have agents where you can say, ‘Hey, create a Help Desk ticket on this issue’ and it just goes out and does it, and returns with, ‘Your ticket’s been opened, and here’s the link to it,’” Shaw says. “Having Copilot agents do that kind of thing is going to save people a significant amount of time and effort.”

In the meantime, Shaw will continue to keep teaching others about Copilot, which will help him stay ahead of the curve with a technology that he believes is changing the world.

“I’m always working to keep up with the roadmap, which is a large ask, but it’s also fun,” he says. “With Copilot, we’ll eventually have one central tool that can do everything—the future is going to be incredible. I can’t wait to see what the journey holds.”

Here are Shaw’s top tips and insights for using Microsoft 365 Copilot:

• Let Copilot teach you how to use it. Copilot is one of the few tools that will tell you how to use it. For example, if you are unsure what you can accomplish with Copilot in Word, just say, “Hey Copilot, I’m new here. What are all the things you can do?” and it will tell you.
• Use Copilot as an interactive conversation engine. Don’t think of Copilot as a search engine, where you type in one query and then page through the results. Instead, carry on a conversation with Copilot. Keep asking it questions until you have the information you need.
• Ask Copilot to analyze your meeting while it’s happening. For example, if you’re in a Teams call with a customer, at any point you can ask Copilot, “Are there any questions that the customer asked that I haven’t answered yet?” Copilot will search the transcript and see if there’s anything that got skipped over; then you can go back and address those issues.
• Treat Copilot like you would a new intern. You need to give Copilot the context it needs to produce valuable results. If you want the information in a table, tell it to make a table, including what information should be included and how it should be displayed. Give it specific instructions and you’ll have a much better chance of getting the output you want.
• Use Copilot to catch things you might have missed. Copilot can do sentiment analysis to detect when a customer or team member is concerned or upset. It can also help you if you’re distracted during a call. Just ask Copilot, “Hey, can you summarize the last five minutes?” That way you don’t have to interrupt the call and ask, “Can you please repeat that?”

• Try Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Make a difference. Become a Champion.

• Check out this story that explains how our Microsoft 365 Copilot Champs program works. 
• Read our profile on Copilot Champ Yen Anderson.
• Here is where to go to get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Read our guide for deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot at your company.
• Learn how we’re tackling Microsoft 365 Copilot governance internally at Microsoft.

• Want more information? Email us and include a link to this story and we’ll get back to you.

The post Staying ahead of the AI curve with Microsoft 365 Copilot: How a champion does it appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Yen Anderson remembers the first time she saw Microsoft 365 Copilot, the generative AI tool that the company launched in February 2023. She intuitively knew that the way she went about her job would never be the same.

“I realized I’d need to make significant changes in my work habits, and to start thinking with a different mindset in order to embrace AI,” says Anderson, a senior customer success account manager for Azure and AI. “So, I started to revamp the way I worked.”

She also immediately began to share her excitement about this powerful new virtual companion with her peers.

“By the second day after receiving Copilot, I was already demoing it to my internal team,” she says.

Helping her peers use the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot

Today, less than two years later, Anderson is one of the leading internal evangelists for Copilot at Microsoft. She has presented her tips and insights on how to get the most out of Copilot for dozens of internal teams, town halls, conferences and other Microsoft audiences around the world. She estimates she’s trained over 16,000 employees so far.

Anderson’s passion for Copilot and willingness to share what she knew caught the attention of Cadie Kneip, a readiness business program manager who was trying to come up with creative ways to get more Microsoft employees to use Copilot in their day-to-day work. When Kneip launched the Copilot Champs community in January 2024, Anderson was one of the first employees she invited to join.

“Yen was one of the earliest Copilot Champs, and she’s probably the most famous,” Kneip says. “She’s just naturally passionate about Copilot and AI, and she’s been insanely generous with her knowledge companywide.”

Powered by the enthusiasm of employees like Anderson, Copilot Champs has taken off. In less than a year, more than 6,000 Microsoft employees have joined the program, Kneip says. It’s a great example of Microsoft Digital’s Customer Zero philosophy, which pushes employees to use the company’s latest tools and technologies.

“My focus has been on amplifying use of Copilot inside of Microsoft for full adoption for Customer Zero,” Anderson says. “I think if we fully embrace Copilot internally at Microsoft, we’re better equipped to help our customers fully embrace Copilot as well.”

A passion for prompting and saving time

Anderson’s internal advocacy and external promotion of Copilot—she frequently posts about ways to save time and work smarter with AI on LinkedIn and in her personal Substack newsletter—focuses on practical tips and strategies that have broad appeal.

“Yen always tries to keep the audience engaged,” says Brian Shaw, a principal customer success account manager in RCG and fellow Copilot Champ. “She does these interactive sessions where she shows you how she’s saving all this time using Copilot, and she has people hooked on every word. Her excitement is contagious.”

Kneip appreciates how Anderson’s deep knowledge of how to get the most out of Copilot is communicated in live demos rather than through preset examples.

“I love the way she demos Copilot—not by using screenshots or a slide deck, but with live prompting,” Kneip says. “She has an incredible reputation for being a prompt-engineering wizard.”

Anderson’s most recent training efforts have focused on how Copilot itself has evolved over the last year or so, and what she’s learned along the way. “The prompting has definitely changed from when I first started, to the point that it’s radically different,” she says.

Yen Anderson’s top five Copilot prompting tips

How AI can improve job satisfaction and work/life balance

Anderson’s excitement about helping others unlock the power of Copilot is directly connected to the impact the tool has had on her own life.

“I’ve seen dramatic increases in my productivity and my well-being,” she says. “Copilot has the ability to help alleviate some of the problems with work today, like too many meetings, being overloaded, and not having time to do focused work. I’m a huge advocate of mental health in the workforce, and when you combine these productivity tools and mental frameworks with AI, that combination is a game changer in terms of improved work/life balance.”

One daunting task that Anderson was able to make easier through Copilot was employee self-reviews, known as Connects internally at Microsoft. She created a set of highly guided prompts that allowed employees to use Copilot to help them craft their self-reviews. She partnered with Human Resources to make sure the set of Connect-writing prompts that she created not only complied with company rules and regulations, but that it supported HR’s goals of helping to make the experience easier and more rewarding for employees.

Anderson also worked with Kneip to distribute train-the-trainer sessions on her Connect-writing prompts.

“Yen and I did several ‘Copilot for Your Connects’ sessions, and we also ran a Teams channel called Connects Helpline to answer questions about prompts,” Kneip says. “Microsoft is a competitive place, but Yen is so generous with her time in helping other employees. This is not her regular job, but she does this extra work because she believes it’s valuable and the right thing to do.”

The future of Microsoft 365 Copilot

Anderson herself can’t wait to see what happens in the world of work as Copilot and other AI tools get better and better.

“I’m really excited about the use of agents, where a string of Copilots are working on our behalf,” she says. “Eventually, I want to be able to dictate to Copilot and say, ‘Send my team a communication about this topic, and distribute it to all the relevant Teams channels, and then create a nice flyer in order to incentivize people.’ And then Copilot will go off and do that for me.”

Anderson believes that this is the true power of AI: to free up humans so they have the time and energy to pursue things they are truly passionate about.

“It’s definitely changed my life. Because of Copilot, I’ve rediscovered my love of writing and being creative again. I’d forgotten about all of that,” she says. “And I hope I can empower others to unlock something inside of them that they’ve forgotten about and give them the time and freedom to pursue the things that give them joy. That’s why it’s so exciting to be at Microsoft, at the forefront of AI.”

Here are some tips from Anderson on how you can get started with Copilot prompting:

• Diversify: Add variety in sentence structure or vocabulary to your prompts.
• Elaborate: Add more detail or explanation to a given point.
• Explain: Make the meaning of something clearer in the rewrite.
• Exaggerate: When you want to add hyperbole in the rewrite.
• Illustrate: Provide examples to better explain the point.
• Paraphrase: Useful when you want to avoid plagiarism.
• Reframe: Change the perspective or focus on the rewrite.
• Simplify: Reduce the complexity of the language.

• Try Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Make a difference. Become a Champion.

Check out some Anderson’s top Copilot-related tips and tools:

• Check out this example of Anderson’s favorite and most effective productivity hack: time-blocking.
• Want to be more productive? Here are tips from Anderson on how to do exactly that.
• Break out of your Friday routine with these tips from Anderson that will give you a boost that lasts through your Mondays.
• Here’s how to get time-blocking right (and what not to do).
• Check out and sign up for Anderson’s newsletter.

Check out these suggestions on how to get more out of Microsoft 365 Copilot:

• Here is where to go to get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Read our guide for deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot at your company.
• Learn how we’re tackling Microsoft 365 Copilot governance internally at Microsoft.

• Want more information? Email us and include a link to this story and we’ll get back to you.
• Please share your feedback with us—take our survey and let us know what kind of content is most useful to you.

The post Transform your IT operations with Microsoft 365 Copilot: Insights from a champion appeared first on Inside Track Blog.