In November 2022, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, a chatbot capable of writing code, answering questions, and generating text based on natural language prompts. This release sparked widespread discussions about AI’s ethical implications and business applications.

Given Microsoft’s significant investment in OpenAI and the fact that ChatGPT was trained on an Azure AI supercomputing infrastructure, it’s not surprising that Microsoft is actively incorporating OpenAI technology into its business services and software, including:

• Azure OpenAI: Allows Azure customers to use large-scale generative AI models with their own data.
• Dynamics 365 Copilot: Introduces AI tools to streamline Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tasks.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot: Incorporates AI tools in familiar productivity applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot

Many roles involve repetitive tasks, such as data entry, which can be time-consuming. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot addresses this by automating these tasks, allowing teams to focus on more strategic activities.

Dynamics 365 Copilot enhances productivity across various departments, including sales, support, supply chain management, finance, and marketing. It offers a chat interface for quick summaries of sales opportunities, updates, meeting preparations, and account-related news. Users can seamlessly integrate Copilot with Outlook and Teams for better data management and utilize its generative AI capabilities for record summarization and email content generation.

For instance, after a sales meeting, a salesperson can use Copilot to draft a follow-up email by extracting key points from the meeting and customer information from the CRM system. This process saves time and ensures consistency in communication.

It’s important to note that Copilot uses only the data accessible to the end-user, ensuring compliance with organizational data governance policies.

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Finance enhances productivity for collections managers and improves collaboration with customers. The AI-generated summary of customer accounts, overdue invoices, and payment history helps prioritize which customers need attention. Personalized customer communication using AI-generated emails saves time and increases overall efficiency by not having to navigate to multiple screens. This helps increase successful collection rates and proactively keeps customers in good standing.

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Finance displays this AI-generated summary on the new Collections coordinator workspace. Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI’s large language model, this will reduce the time reviewing collection details for customers. Collections coordinators can help their organizations to better cash flows by increasing more timely payments.

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Copilot in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management proactively identifies external factors such as weather, financials, and geography that may impact key supply chain processes. Predictive insights then surface impacted orders across materials, inventory, carriers, distribution networks, etc. Supply chain planners can then automatically draft an email generated by Dynamics 365 Copilot to alert impacted partners and mitigate potential disruptions before they happen.

On-hand inventory insights help users make informed inventory decisions, such as for order promising. Users can use natural language to ask about inventory stock levels and availability just as easily as when chatting with a colleague. For example, you can simply type “Find all the 18-inch tires in my store” without remembering any exact specifications, IDs, or navigation paths.

Copilot also assists procurement specialists in making better purchasing decisions in procure-to-pay processes. It empowers users to efficiently manage and assess changes to purchase orders on a large scale, classifying changes by impact and risk associated with these changes, greatly enhancing procurement decision-making.

What’s Next?

The possibilities of AI in ERP systems are endless, and Dynamics 365 Copilot is just the start of an exciting journey. Copilot isn’t here to replace the expertise of service agents or app developers but to augment it. By handling mundane activities, Copilot allows everyone to be more productive by focusing on critical tasks.