[Learn about our strategy for deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales internally at Microsoft and the progress we’ve made against our vision. Check out our full content suite on how we use Microsoft Viva internally at Microsoft. See how we’re evolving our culture with Microsoft Viva.Learn about our journey as Microsoft’s Customer Zero.] 

Unleashing the potential of Copilot for Sales

Lori: It’s been six months since you’ve deployed Copilot for Sales, what results are you seeing? What key considerations did you have when rolling out a generative AI tool like Copilot for Sales on a global scale?

Nathalie: Copilot for Sales is deployed across Microsoft. Being customer zero has been invaluable in this process. It has allowed us to confirm the product, learn important insights, and make improvements along the way. We’ve been focused on turning on Copilot features to enhance the seller experience, and the feedback we’ve received from our own teams has been instrumental in refining and perfecting the deployment. I’m so excited to partner with our teams to see the first commercial solution at Microsoft to combine Copilot and Copilot for Sales.

Since the launch of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot in March, we have seen incredible adoption with nearly 4,000 users taking advantage of its capabilities. The impact has been significant, with approximately 37,500 draft emails generated through the power of generative AI. It’s encouraging to see the positive response from our users and the value they are experiencing. In fact, during a recent customer conversation, the Senior VP of Sales expressed their enthusiasm to partner with us as early adopters, emphasizing their willingness to invest in any technology that enhances the productivity of their sellers. It’s a testament to the effectiveness of Copilot and its ability to drive tangible benefits in the workplace.

Nathalie: It’s been quite the journey since we launched Copilot for Sales to our Microsoft sellers. What were the main goals your team hoped to achieve with this product?

Lori: We’ve been focused on seller productivity gains through taking advantage of conversation intelligence, enabling Copilot features, and ultimately improving customer connection, job satisfaction, and revenue for our sellers. Microsoft being customer zero has provided us with a unique advantage. It has allowed us to test these features within our own organization, gather valuable feedback, and fine-tune the experiences before rolling them out to more customers.

In the new update, we are adding some exciting capabilities to Copilot for Sales that have been influenced by your team’s customer zero work. Sellers can get real-time suggestions and guidance as they craft emails, pulling insights from automated email summaries. It’s like having a virtual assistant right at their side, helping them to generate compelling content and ensuring that no opportunity is missed. Our sellers have embraced these features with enthusiasm, recognizing how it significantly boosts their productivity and enables them to focus on building strong customer relationships.

Nathalie: Speaking of Copilot, how does your organization ensure that the implementation of Copilot features align with Microsoft’s ethical and responsible AI principles?

Lori: Supporting ethical and responsible AI practices is of paramount importance to us and our customers. As we use generative AI, we are committed to helping our customers be transparent, fair, and accountable to their employees and their customers.

As you know, one of the ways we do this here is with our works councils, where a few of our colleagues volunteer to help us protect the privacy of all our employees when we deploy new technology like Copilot for Sales. More importantly, they make sure we follow privacy laws in each of the countries and regions where we operate. We roll the feedback that we get from them directly into our products, which helps our customers protect their own employees. It’s this kind of thinking—and these kinds of checks and balances—that helps us be ethical in how we use AI in Copilot for Sales.

Lori: We were so excited to be the first Microsoft product to bring Copilot to our users; the feedback we have received from sellers has been incredibly positive! How have our newest Copilot in Copilot for Sales features influenced your thinking about supporting the employee experience?

Nathalie: It helped a lot! Seeing a tangible implementation of Copilot with real value opened our eyes to what was possible and is influencing ways that we’ll incorporate generative AI into our own employee experience. Kudos to you and your team for dreaming big and acting fast to bring that experience to the market!

Lori: Thank you. So, tell me more about this employee experience and how deploying Copilot for Sales Copilot in Microsoft has given your team insights and learnings that shaped your approach to using AI?

Nathalie: The success of Copilot for Sales really inspired my team to think more deeply about how we could further use AI in our employee experience at Microsoft. Just like Copilot for Sales provides conversation summaries and next actions for sales opportunities, we’re thinking through scenarios that will enable us to transform the way employees interact with our different services—like support and HR—to make them more personalized and efficient.

Broadly, our efforts fall into three categories—AI for IT, AI for the hybrid workplace, and AI for the employee experience. AI for IT includes investments to help us proactively detect and remediate issues in our employee services and IT infrastructure. AI for the hybrid workplace includes investments to help us perfect space planning and to enhance the experience when employees come into the office. Finally, AI for the employee experience is all about transforming the ways that Microsoft employees interact with our services and support. Across each of these investment areas, Copilot for Sales provided us with a great benchmark for how AI can really propel employee productivity.

Works councils and deployment

Lori: Nathalie, as the leader responsible for deploying Copilot for Sales across Microsoft, I understand that your team has been actively engaging with works councils. Can you provide insights into the impact of working with works councils during the deployment process?

Nathalie: Absolutely, Lori. Works councils play a critical role in standing for the interests of employees within our organization, particularly in European countries where they are prevalent, and they make sure that whatever we deploy internally within the company protects the privacy of the employees who live in that region. Engaging with works councils ensures that we consider the perspectives and concerns of the workforce during the deployment of Copilot for Sales. Their input is valuable in addressing compliance, privacy, and employee relations matters, making our deployment process more robust and aligned with local regulations.

Lori: What have you found to be some of the challenges in managing a global-scale deployment of Copilot for Sales?

Nathalie:Deploying any new technology globally has challenges, but the speed and efficiency with which we were able to roll out this transformative product was truly remarkable. We are working on a brand-new solution that is revolutionizing the way generative AI changes the workplace, and being customer zero has given us some unique advantages. We’ve had to navigate compliance and obtain necessary approvals for deploying AI features on a global scale. Our active engagement process, which includes working closely with works councils, has been instrumental in streamlining the deployment process and ensuring that our global teams can receive help from Copilot for Sales. Despite the challenges, the feedback from sellers has been incredibly positive, especially with the AI-generated email content enhancements we’re introducing. The best part is how easy and painless it is to enable Copilot for Sales, allowing our teams to quickly harness its productivity-boosting capabilities and experience a seamless transition to a more efficient way of working.

Lori: It seems like building an effective approval process is crucial. How replicable has Microsoft made this process for other companies?

Nathalie: At Microsoft, we have developed a globally recognizable, efficient process for enabling Copilot scenarios. By supporting open dialogue, we can gather feedback, address emerging concerns, and align our deployment approach with evolving regulations. We recently set up a framework with European works councils to supply valuable insights into employee needs and expectations, enabling Microsoft to tailor the product and deployment process accordingly. We encourage all companies to get connected with their respective works counsels to achieve a balance between rapid implementation and compliance, ensuring that their employees are protected, and the organization meets regulatory requirements.

Lori: It’s truly exciting to see the transformative power of Copilot for Sales in action and see the positive impact it’s having on our organization!

To learn more about our internal deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales, read our “See how we’re simplifying our sales with AI-powered Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales” blog post.  You can also read more about our internal deployment of Microsoft Viva at Microsoft by visiting our “Viva la vida! Work life is better at Microsoft with Viva” content suite. Learn more about other applications and capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot for Sales using the links below:

• Learn more about tips Microsoft has for working with works councils.
• Take a look at Dynamics 365 Sales and Copilot for Sales release wave documentation on Microsoft Learn.
• Watch the Copilot in Copilot for Sales demo.
• Stay up-to-date on Copilot for Sales features and updates on the Copilot for Sales Blog.

If you’re not yet a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales customer, check out our Dynamics 365 Sales webpage where you can take a guided tour or get a free 30-day trial.

We’re always looking for feedback and would like to hear from you. Please head to the Dynamics 365 Community to start a discussion, ask questions, and tell us what you think!

Click here to try or learn more about Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales. 

• Find out how we’re simplifying our sales with AI-powered Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales.
• Check out these seven things we learned deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales at Microsoft.
• Read the Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment and adoption guide we put together based on our internal experience here at Microsoft.
• Take a look at our Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment and adoption guide for executives.

• 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 The power of AI in Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales: Insights from Lori Lamkin and Nathalie D’Hers appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

By investing in the meeting experience with Microsoft Teams and by reimagining the physical and virtual spaces where meetings take place, we’re laying a foundation of innovation that will help Microsoft employees and our customers thrive in a hybrid world of work.

—Nathalie D’Hers, Corporate Vice President, Employee Experiences

Thanks to Microsoft Teams and the innovation being driven by the product team, we’ve seen a real opportunity to transform Microsoft employee and customer meetings from a weakness to a strength. By investing in the meeting experience with Microsoft Teams and by reimagining the physical and virtual spaces where meetings take place, we’re laying a foundation of innovation that will help Microsoft employees and our customers thrive in a hybrid world of work.

We’ve already seen satisfaction with meetings increase, while also making sure hybrid work remains seamless for Microsoft and our customers. How are we doing it? I’m glad you asked!

Simple questions, complex answers

The Microsoft’s WorkLab blog describes hybrid work as …”a blended model where some employees return to the workplace and others continue to work from home.” The Microsoft 2022 Work Trend Index identified five key trends driving hybrid work. While all are relevant, two stood out to us:

1. Employees have a new “worth it” equation
2. Leaders need to make the office worth the commute

It was clear we had some work to do as a team to ensure a successful hybrid future. My team asked two simple questions:

• What is the value of our physical work environment in a hybrid work world?
• What kind of meeting experiences satisfy the modern world of hybrid work?

Our answer to the first question was simple—to socialize and to collaborate. The pandemic tested all of us in innumerable ways, but a common response from employees, even those who have enjoyed the flexibility to work from home, is how hard it can be to collaborate remotely. The ability to socialize and connect is closely related, as both of those activities build trust, an essential ingredient of successful teams. We determined that the meeting experience of the future needed to honor the value of physical space while making it possible for everyone to fully participate, regardless of where they were.

The second question was more complicated. We recognized the need for simple, powerful meeting experiences in our facilities and had been working on just that in the years leading up to the pandemic. But how could we reimagine the meeting experience to enable our employees to collaborate without friction and feel connected even if physically apart? Microsoft Teams has already implemented an innovative feature in Together Mode to help make hybrid teams more connected. But how could we take that vision to the next level?

The way things were—hybrid meetings in an in-person world

To answer that question, contributors across Microsoft have built prototypes in a space we call “the Hive,” a design environment optimized for reimagining physical and virtual spaces. In the Hive, PMs, designers, and software engineers are empowered to question everything, so no idea goes unexplored, and no constraints go unchallenged. This approach led to breakthroughs across both physical and virtual space.

In the physical world, a typical Microsoft conference room consists of a rectangular table, with space for six to 18 people, dependent on room size. It’s a pretty traditional layout you’ve likely seen before. A large monitor or projector screen is mounted on a wall. In person attendees are oriented toward each other on either side of the table, not facing the screen unless they tilt their chairs. Online participants are out of sight during discussion, only visible when in-person participants are focused on the screen. Physical white boards are situated on either side of the table, out of view for online participants. These traditional conference rooms were designed and optimized for in-person collaboration, inadvertently putting remote participants at a disadvantage.

In the virtual space, Teams focuses on a shared presentation or a “spotlighted” presenter. Whomever shares their screen needs to choose what additional details to display whether it be the list of attendees, the chat window, or neither, in order to maximize presentation space. While Teams is highly optimized for the online meeting experience, the hybrid meeting experience was uneven. We realized quickly we had some work to do if hybrid meetings were going to continue to be the future of work at Microsoft and for many of our customers.

Building the perfect meeting

To address these shortcomings, we spun up a virtual team comprised of product engineers, representatives from our facilities team, and the Microsoft Digital team. Together, we imagined a new meeting room experience that would offer a corporate boardroom-like experience for all employees.

The team began by shifting the center of the room from the middle of a table to the halfway point between in-person and remote attendees. They imagined a “single pane” of content instead of multiple screens, where remote attendees could appear at eye level and approximately life size. With the seating arrangement allowing more viewable space, content takes center stage, with still more room for chat and other meeting content at the sides.

As the team iterated, they began to see an exciting new experience taking shape: one that brought people together across physical and virtual spaces. Remote attendees might join from their phone, their home, or a focus room somewhere else on campus, but each participant was on equal footing and on the same page.

As the heartbeat of the employee experience across the company, and as part of the team that propels the company forward in terms of modern workplace patterns and practices, it’s important that we provide an inspirational enterprise blueprint for customers and partners.

—Nathalie D’Hers, Corporate Vice President, Employee Experiences

Since sharing these prototype designs, the response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Unlike bespoke systems from some of our competitors, the new meeting room experience we’ve envisioned can be created and supported with commodity hardware at modest cost and powered via enhancements to our already ubiquitous Microsoft Teams product. We were thrilled when Microsoft Corporate Vice President Jared Spataro and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella highlighted this prototype environment in their talks at Microsoft Ignite, and since then there has been an outpouring of interest from customers and hundreds of engagements at The Hive.

From “traditional IT” to “stewards of the Employee Experience”

This new meeting experience is a great example of how my team inspires our Microsoft product teams by thinking holistically about the employee experience and driving innovation that helps our customers. As the heartbeat of the employee experience across the company, and part of the team that propels the company forward in terms of modern workplace patterns and practices, it’s important that we provide an inspirational enterprise blueprint for customers and partners.

With this new meeting room experience, we’re leading the way and preparing for a future of hybrid work that is here to stay, and where everyone regardless of their physical location can collaborate, socialize, and feel like a trusted and important member of the team. To support that vision, we’ve published a free guide for business leaders to help navigate the complexities of the hybrid workplace. Coupled with inclusive meeting behaviors, we believe that hybrid meetings can be just as productive as in-person meetings if done right.

It’s been exciting working with our counterparts in product development and facilities to turn this prototype into a real experience that will help everyone to be more productive. It’s a great demonstration towards our commitment to Microsoft’s mission to Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

• Familiarize yourself with Microsoft Teams Meeting Guide to enhance video conferencing, chat, document collaboration, and integration functionalities.
• Evaluate your current meeting spaces, whether physical or virtual, and identify areas where improvements can be made. Consider how you can create a more inclusive and engaging meeting environment that promotes collaboration and participation for both remote and in-person attendees.
• Embrace the concept of hybrid work within your organization. Encourage employees to adapt to the hybrid work model and establish inclusive meeting practices that ensure everyone, regardless of their physical location, feels connected and valued during meetings.

• Discover how Microsoft enables its employees to work remotely with Microsoft Teams.
• Unpack driving inclusive and effective meetings at Microsoft with Microsoft Teams.
• Explore advancing your meetings with the Microsoft Teams Meeting Guide.

Please share your feedback with us—take our survey and let us know what kind of content is most useful to you.

The post How Microsoft is reimagining meetings for hybrid work appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Over the last two years, we’ve all had to radically adjust how we meet and collaborate as most information workers transitioned to remote work. Almost overnight, in-person and hybrid meetings moved online. Even daily interactions with colleagues morphed into online meetings, resulting in a 58 percent increase in Microsoft Teams meetings usage at Microsoft. For better or worse, “virtual coffee chats” became the new normal, and the water cooler moved online.

Researchers at Microsoft and across the industry have worked hard to understand the impact of these changes and to determine how to improve meetings so they achieve their purpose through empowered participants. One of these large studies came to an interesting conclusion: the odds of a meeting being rated as effective are two times higher if attendees say the meeting was inclusive, and more than three times higher when attendees feel comfortable participating.

In other words, inclusive meetings are the most effective meetings. Remarkably, as we’ve adjusted to the new normal of remote work, meeting satisfaction at Microsoft increased by 31 points! The primary reason? Prior to the pandemic, remote participants were less likely to be active participants in hybrid meetings. Now that the playing field is leveled, participants report being more comfortable participating in online meetings. Across the company, we’re learning to be more inclusive and meetings are becoming more participatory.

So, how can you make your meetings more inclusive? Here are some practical tips that we’ve learned running remote and hybrid meetings at Microsoft.

1. Limit meeting invites to necessary attendees

Be thoughtful about who you invite to your meeting. Make sure roles are clear and everyone understands why they are there and how they can contribute. Provide a place outside of the scheduled meeting to engage and view the artifacts or bring others into the conversation. Record your meeting and remember that hybrid meetings don’t always have to be a “point in time” exercise—they can be a gathering place for ongoing collaboration, grounded in the initial conversation but extending beyond the original participants and agenda. This is particularly important for teams that span time zones!

2. Keep meetings short

Research shows that remote and hybrid workers experience increased fatigue from too much time spent in meetings. Fatigue begins to increase 30–40 minutes into video meetings, so keep meetings as short as possible—30 minutes max—or plan breaks in the schedule for longer meetings. Starting and ending meetings on time is a significant stress reducer for your attendees. Also, consider a buffer between meetings.

Could you start at five minutes after the hour to give people time to recharge? Or end five minutes early? You can even set up Microsoft Outlook to automatically end meetings early using the “end meetings early” option under File > Options > Calendar > Calendar Options > Shorten appointments and meetings. I’ve made this a requirement for my leadership team meetings—it’s made our meetings more focused and our days a little less hectic!

3. Always provide an agenda!

Agendas appear throughout the available research as an indicator of a meeting’s effectiveness. Meetings without clear agendas contribute to increased frustration and meeting fatigue, while well-run meetings with clear communication are associated with better perceived productivity. You can even implement a more radical policy in your enterprise, requiring an agenda for mandatory meetings or letting your team know that a meeting without a published agenda should be considered optional.

4. Camera shy? Still consider turning on video

In remote and hybrid meetings, sharing video creates rapport with colleagues. Studies have highlighted the importance of observing body language and facial expressions to build positive group dynamics. However, there are some situations where video may not be appropriate, including large meetings (when you aren’t presenting), when bandwidth is poor, and when video contributes to meeting fatigue. For those cases, update your Microsoft 365 profile with a photo or an avatar that represents something about your personality to help other meeting attendees relate to you when you choose not to share video. If the camera isn’t your thing, try making a commitment to start meetings with your camera on to build some rapport, then turning it off once the meeting is underway. And try to relax—you look great on camera!

5. Send pre-reads and follow-ups

Preparation and clear communication are vital in today’s remote and hybrid work environment. Share any tools or files you’ll use during your meeting in advance, along with the meeting agenda. After your meeting ends, immediately send follow-up materials or notes and be sure to record and transcribe the meeting so those who can’t attend synchronously have access. Focus on capturing well-defined action items with owners and due dates, since an action owner in another time zone might not have been able to attend the meeting synchronously.

6. Establish norms

Make a point of establishing participatory norms for the meeting. For example, should attendees raise their hand, unmute, speak up, or use chat when they have questions and comments? Or, if the agenda is tight, would you prefer them to save questions for the end of the meeting? If you expect everyone to turn on video for a face-to-face conversation, state this in your invitation so no one is caught off guard. Also, inform attendees before starting a recording or transcription.

7. Have everyone join the Teams meeting

As more people globally return to worksites, many meetings will likely have a mix of people joining remotely and from a meeting room. Whether employees are joining from home, on the road from their mobile, from their own desk, or together with others in a conference room, they should feel equally included in the meeting.

You can accomplish this by centering your meeting in Teams rather than in the meeting room. Encourage everyone, even those who attend in person, to join the Teams meeting. From there they can participate in chat, use reactions, and raise their hand when they have something to contribute.

8. Make meetings interactive!

It can be challenging to manage a remote or hybrid meeting, but the more interactive the session, the more likely you are to achieve the desired outcome. Once norms are established, be on the lookout for people who come off mute—it’s normally a sign they have something to add. Look for people who raise their virtual hand and keep an eye on the chat window for questions or shared insights, then repeat them for all participants. Depending on the size of the meeting, it may be beneficial to select a moderator to watch for raised hands and questions in the meeting chat then have the moderator facilitate a brief meeting retrospective to ensure participants felt seen and heard. Chats can add depth to a meeting, especially when participants use emojis or GIFs (when appropriate and aligned to local law or custom). Encourage users to express themselves with live reactions. Finally, consider ways to incorporate additional interactive elements, like a Teams Whiteboard, a poll, or through an embedded app. This recent article from Harvard Business Review includes some fun tips to make meetings more engaging that require no technology at all.

While some of these suggestions may seem self-evident, building a culture that routinely and instinctively implements these best practices is challenging. If you’d like additional inspiration, our peers over at the Microsoft 365 blog recently featured a great article detailing seven strategies for building a healthier meeting culture.

Check out Microsoft’s internal Microsoft Teams Meeting guide.

Learn how Microsoft is using Microsoft Teams and ServiceNow to enhance end-user support.

Read how Microsoft is implementing a Zero Trust security model.

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