5+1 tips for leadership to maximize the benefits of Copilot

The best time to start leveraging AI was yesterday, and the second‑best time is now. You can get started quickly, as long as you, as a leader, take a few practical considerations into account to ensure you get the most out of Copilot—both in leading people and in developing its use.

Adopting and leveraging AI is first and foremost a change journey and a matter of business development. The benefits are realized in the business—and they rarely happen by accident. This idea, which also underpins our highly popular Copilot adoption service, has only been reinforced through numerous customer engagements. Here, we share a list of tips to help keep the focus on the right things and the pace at a healthy level.

There are plenty of use cases that apply across industries as general ideas for making everyday work more efficient. But the most valuable ones—the ones that truly fit your processes, customers, and language—are found within your organization. When Copilot has been adopted in a way that enables employees to use it confidently and encourages experimentation, the results are often surprisingly impactful.

A few examples where open‑minded thinking led to great outcomes:

• In healthcare, creating meeting notes was transformed with Copilot. A nurse was responsible for writing meeting notes in English, which was time‑consuming and burdensome. The nurse came up with the idea of using Copilot in Teams: she dictated the notes and asked Copilot to turn them into a concise and accurate written version in English. This saved hours per week that could be spent on patient care.

• In retail, a member of the executive team used Copilot in OneNote while driving. He dictated strategic thoughts aloud, OneNote transcribed the speech into text, and Copilot helped shape the content into a coherent strategy document.

• In media, a journalist prepared for an interview by asking Copilot to generate interview questions based on background material from a communications agency and previously published articles on the topic. The interview was recorded, and Copilot helped create a draft article structure based on the discussion. The actual writing remained with the journalist, but the process became significantly more efficient.

When collecting use cases, make it easy: one place for ideas, a lightweight way to assess benefit versus effort, and a clear model for sharing. Often, the best way to get started is a combination of “quick wins” and a few more ambitious cases where you dare to rethink how things are done.

New use cases and areas for business development can be identified, for example, using design thinking methods across business units, teams, or other selected groups. A common approach is to identify problems that can be solved or eliminated with the help of AI.

It’s worth keeping two paths in mind: (1) cost savings and smoother operations—less friction and repetition—and (2) entirely new ways of working. A problem is not always required. A successful Copilot use case often emerges simply by thinking about an existing task in a new way. In principle, a perfectly functional way of working may be unnecessarily complex in an AI‑driven world, but no one has thought to question it before.

A good rule of thumb: if work involves a lot of reading, summarizing, drafting, weighing options, or searching for information across multiple sources, Copilot often excels. If, on the other hand, the task is a clear “if X then Y” type of automation, it’s worth looking alongside Copilot at workflows and automation (for example, Power Platform). Often the best outcome comes from a combination: first make the process sensible, then use automation and AI to accelerate it.

Leading by example is a prerequisite for a successful change journey. A lot is lost if leadership is not personally involved and actively setting direction. This means quite concretely allocating calendar time: learn to use AI yourself, find your own use cases, and embed Copilot into your own day‑to‑day work. When you share your own successes (and sometimes missteps), you give others permission to experiment.

Leadership should also be involved in developing solutions. Set up a steering group for Copilot initiatives, or at least a regular forum where business units and leadership stay on the pulse: what was learned, what delivered value, what fell flat, and where to invest next.

At the same time, agree on ground rules: what information can be entered into Copilot, how confidentiality is handled, how references and fact‑checking are done. When the boundaries are clear, everyday AI use becomes surprisingly worry‑free.

Testing technical functionality and the technical steps of deployment can be done effectively within IT. Broader piloting and the search for Copilot benefits should be carried out as widely as possible. IT provides a wealth of insights, but it’s also home to many “power users” who know all the tricks and shortcuts. In business units and support functions, natural language and Copilot’s ability to brainstorm, summarize, and suggest alternatives can deliver the greatest benefits.

Pilots work best when they include a variety of roles and work profiles: lots of customer interaction, lots of documents, lots of meetings, lots of analysis. Remember to include those who are more skeptical—their feedback often leads to the most important improvements.

And remember: not everything needs (or should) be solved with Copilot. In some cases, it’s more sensible to automate, create new workflows, or change ways of working to be more efficient. After that, Copilot can significantly boost performance when it gets to build on a “good process.”

The pace of development is rapid and with new features and capabilities, it’s worth being prepared to act agilely. New opportunities for leveraging Copilot appear constantly. To stay informed, organizations need to know what’s coming in product updates—but internal knowledge sharing is just as important.

A useful use case discovered in one place may be scalable, multiplying the benefits across the organization. Make it visible with “use case of the month,” short demos, an internal channel for sharing the best prompts and learnings, and a central place for shared guidelines.

As the whole grows, it’s also important to keep a governance perspective in mind: access rights, data protection, auditing, and how potential Copilot extensions (such as custom agents) are published and kept up to date. Usage can be easy—even if there’s smart order behind the scenes.

Copilot is a tool designed to support and develop business. Still, when learning new features and testing use cases, there’s no need to keep things overly tight or rigid. People need the freedom to experiment and sometimes even be a little playful.

A positive, learning‑oriented mindset is a surprisingly big success factor. When experimentation is allowed and failure is treated as data, more insights emerge, and they truly stick in everyday work. AI is transforming working life, so it’s worth trying many different approaches. Sometimes the best ideas and the ways of working that truly take root are born precisely in those moments when experimentation is shared with laughter.