Vodafone claims Microsoft 365 Copilot is saving employees around three hours a week as it prepares to roll the AI tool to over three-quarters of its workforce.
The telco today extended its agreement with Microsoft to deploy 365 Copilot to 68,000 of its 100,000 staff across multiple countries.
After an initial trial of the GenAI technology, Vodafone, working with Microsoft and KPMG, found users had increased productivity, saving time on:
• drafting emails, meeting agendas, and documents
• summarising meetings and identifying action points
• searching for information
These savings amounted to “three hours a week per person on average”.
Vodafone is a partner as well as an end customer of Microsoft 365 Copilot – it uses the GenAI tech in its TOBi online chatbot.
The deployment is by far the biggest Copilot roll-out by a Microsoft partner IT Channel Oxygen has covered to date in absolute terms (Advania UK went further in relative terms when it opted to deploy it to all 1,000 of its staff).
IT Channel Oxygen last week reported on one £70m-revenue reseller that plans to exploit the time-saving properties of Microsoft Copilot to set up its own staff-run farm.
Ingentive CEO Stuart Fenton last month claimed 99% of Microsoft partners weren’t going far enough on Copilot using it only to help clients boost individual or team productivity.
“There’s no question in my mind that these small productivity enhancements on a per-person basis pale into insignificance compared with the extensible potential of AI when you look at organisations that might have thousands of people in customer service,” he told IT Channel Oxygen.
Pilot users pleased as punch
Vodafone said it will now integrate Microsoft 365 Copilot into most areas of its business, including customer service, product development, network management and sales and marketing.
Nearly all the users (90%) involved in Vodafone’s pilot said they benefited from Microsoft 365 Copilot and wanted to keep using it, while 60% said it improved the quality of their work.
“It’s not about doing more work, it’s about doing better quality work and being more customer-focused,” Vodafone CTO Scott Petty stated.
“And it’s about improving the efficiency of the entire business, from the mobile and fixed broadband network and digital platforms, to our retail stores, online services and customer care centres.”
Clare Barclay, CEO, Microsoft UK, added: “It’s great to see Vodafone’s AI leadership adopting Microsoft 365 Copilot at such scale.
“Generative AI is transforming every industry and we look forward to unlocking the benefits this powerful technology will bring to all aspects of Vodafone’s business.”
