Microsoft UK channel partners Softcat and Advania UK have both adopted its Copilot technology to further their AI initiatives.

Softcat has integrated with Copilot for Microsoft 365, providing all employees with licenses. The goal is to provide first-hand expertise to corporate and public sector customers who are embarking on their own AI journeys.

“As a business, we are committed to being at the forefront of AI technology adoption and advocacy, and our investment in Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a testament to that,” said Graham Charlton, chief executive officer at Softcat. “By embracing this technology we can provide our people with the tools they need to stay ahead of the competition in an ever-evolving market, as well as supporting our customers in their own adoption.”

Richard Ellis, general manager, small, medium and corporate at Microsoft UK, said: “Softcat’s decision to fully embrace Copilot for Microsoft 365 underscores its commitment to innovation and excellence. By equipping its entire workforce with this advanced technology, Softcat is well-positioned to drive significant productivity gains and offer unparalleled support to its customers on their AI journeys.”

Advania UK has announced its own workforce-wide adoption of Microsoft Copilot for over 1,000 employees.

The Advania leadership team made the decision to standardise on the tech after noticing “radical improvements” in employee productivity and creativity with Copilot. Internal results “inspired confidence” that the AI companion would give Advania’s teams a clear competitive advantage in their daily work advising and digitally transforming hundreds of clients across the UK.

Every Advania team can now use the full Microsoft AI platform, including Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot Studio, and private ChatGPT deployments, to address complex client challenges, including efficiency, building out new digital capabilities and workforce productivity.

Geoff Kneen, chief executive officer of Advania, said: “Our pilot deployments revealed the tremendous potential to improve employees’ experience and productivity by using Copilot for automating repetitive tasks. More exciting was the power it gave our employees to accelerate problem solving.

“We witnessed individuals coming up with creative ways to solve the little niggles that distract them from doing their best work. We had to go workforce-wide, the potential was too compelling to delay roll-out.”

On top of the standard use cases such as summarisation, sifting through stuffed inboxes, and jump-starting content creation, Advania’s teams have already identified dozens of more complex use cases for Copilot. These include digesting and responding to complex RFPs, analysing data and producing presentation-ready graphs, analysing sentiment of client communications, and improving interactive client workshops. The productivity gains are fuelling higher quality systematic outputs and improving business processes, said Advania.

Advania is looking to share its experiences as broadly as possible, participating in a multi-portfolio working group, organised by global financial services leader and Advania partner, Goldman Sachs.

“As one of our most certified partners in the UK, I am pleased that Advania has committed to bringing the value of Copilot for Microsoft 365 to all of its employees, said Orla McGrath, GPS lead at Microsoft UK. It has been an early mover in the adoption of Microsoft’s generative AI technologies, and I know the experience gained from its own use of Copilot will quickly inform how it helps its thousand-plus clients across the SMC, enterprise and public sector segments achieve even greater value from this transformative technology.”