Microsoft on Monday announced that Copilot for 365 is now available to all businesses, including SMBs (after it was made generally available for enterprises in November).
IT Channel Oxygen caught up with six UK partners to ask them how big Copilot will be following its general release.
“Significant tailwind for the entire channel’
Neil Murphy, CEO, Bytes Technology Group
How big will Copilot be?
“I’ve only used Copilot 365, Windows Copilot, Enterprise Bing Copilot… it’s dramatically improved my personal productivity. I’ve produced more detailed work at pace and often with additional supporting information. It’s aided professionalism and presentation. In short yesterday’s announcement is a further game changer for all.
“We expect the dozens of Copilots now available and those about to be launched to gradually seep into the client environment as we go through this year. We’ve already seen a large number of minimum quantity orders from customers. This latest announcement will make a big difference to smaller organisations. This is the beginning of a significant tailwind for our entire IT ecosystem and channel. It’s extremely important though for clients to properly prepare their environment and infrastructure prior to mass implementation. This was NOT written using copilot!!!”
‘It will ramp quite slowly in SMB’
Nathan Marke, COO, Giacom
How big will Copilot be?
“Despite the hype, Copilot is likely to initially ramp quite slowly in SMB. This is due in part to the need for the channel to gear up and understand how to build it into their offerings (which we can help with) and in part because they will then need to prepare their customers for adoption.
“There is also the factor of the licensing only being available on an annual basis. Together, this may mean that pilots rather than rollouts will be the pattern of usage in 2024. Having been a pilot user for the past two months, I am sold on its value (see here), and anticipate a significant uptick as we go into 2025.”
“Every business can kickstart a Copilot programme right away”
Scott Dodds, CEO, Ultima
How big will Copilot be?
“Over the past three months, we have experimented with our own use cases as well as a variety of readiness assessments for our clients.
“This week’s GA launch of M365 Copilot for all license types, with no minimum requirement, will now make it possible for every business to kickstart a Copilot programme right away. Early interactions with our customer base show there is huge potential for every organisation to discover the operational and workforce benefits Copilot can deliver.
“We are genuinely thrilled to be able to share this technology, our practical learnings, insights and best practice we have gained with all our clients. We have developed some simple assessments that IT leaders need to do to ensure data governance is in place, but we know from experience that the process of learning to use Copilot in a individual’s own Microsoft M365 Graph promises to deliver major benefits almost immediately. The difference Copilot can make to accelerating time to market underpins our excitement in working with clients to build valuable RoI from the very beginning of their AI journey.”
“Huge demand, especially in professional services sector”
Richard Kuczma, CTO, Wanstor
How big will Copilot be?
“Copilot is already massive, from something most people weren’t aware of one year ago, Microsoft has built generative AI into multiple products: Dynamics, Power Platform, Github, Windows Desktop itself, saving people time already.
“But the big one will be Copilot for M365; the opportunity to embed generative AI into your everyday productivity tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and more, plus that it crucially has access to your business data to give you the best suggestions and context will be an enormous productivity boost for knowledge workers. We’ve been working behind the scenes for months helping our customers get their data governance into a good state for the adoption of this and can tell you that there is huge demand, especially in the professional services sector.”
“There is a danger point that comes with lowering the entry point to ‘just one license’“
Rob Quickenden, CTO Cisilion
How big will Copilot be?
“When thinking about Copilot for Microsoft 365, this absolutely has the potential to be huge in terms of both impact to the organisation and in terms of value to Microsoft Copilot partners.
“With the entry point lowered to ‘just one license’ there is danger that it will just be seen as a product and organisations may not give enough focus on the people change, technical enablement (make sure data is mature, secure and with good governance). The impact of not treating AIU as a fundamental technology shift, risks organisations getting either a mediocre experience, poor adoption, inaccurate results or an IT security headache.
“Done properly however, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Generative AI in general will fundamental change how we work with technology, will drive efficiencies and I believe yield a high ROI. Outside of ‘dabbling’, a proper technology and people adoption process is needed to yield the true value. Partners have a huge role to play in making this a success for their customers.”
“We absolutely see Copilot as a catalyst for significant growth”
Matt Parker, CEO, babble
How big will Copilot be?
“Last year, Macquarie forecasted that Microsoft will generate an additional $14bn in new revenue every year if just 10% of Office users sign on for Copilot; that’s a big number. Whilst the opportunity for us clearly isn’t quite of that scale, with over 22,000 customers, many of whom are buying Microsoft solutions and services from us for their employees, we absolutely see Copilot as a catalyst for significant growth.
“This isn’t just about new revenue either; we also see it as an opportunity to add more value to our customers, helping them to become more productive. That in turn means there is a loyalty bonus for us – it’s a great win-win, and we are already seeing significant interest from our customers. We have kick-started a Copilot readiness programme that is already one of our most successful customer engagement activities and there’s more to come. Over time Copilot and AI will transform all businesses and we want to be at the forefront of that wave.”
“Copilot brings together our core specialisms in one”
Kelly Simkiss, CEO, Cybit Group
As a long-term expert provider of IT, cyber security and data & analytics services, Copilot brings together our core specialisms in one, user-centric solution. We are very excited about what it can do to support our fantastic customers and that we have all of the skills and capabilities to ensure success.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
