Microsoft offers a range of Copilot solutions that can help you accelerate your digital transformation and innovation. Whether you want to modernize your applications, optimize your data, or leverage the power of artificial intelligence to increase productivity, Microsoft has a Copilot to assist you in that journey.

Microsoft’s Copilots are specialized services that enable you to better understand your data investments and use resources more effectively. They can help you achieve faster time to value, reduce risks, and increase your return on investment as well as build your capabilities and skills to become more self-reliant and confident in using Microsoft solutions.

Understanding which Copilot you should invest in can be confusing and complicated, but these programs enable your organization to evaluate these options quickly and make the best decision based on your organizational goals and priorities.

Microsoft’s Copilot Programs

Microsoft provides funding options to help your organization discover, evaluate, and adopt various Copilot products across the Microsoft ecosystem. Microsoft currently offers funding to examine and adopt Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot Studio, and role-based Copilots based on the Dynamics modules for Sales, Service, and Finance.

The funding journey walks you through the three major aspects of a technology rollout:

  • Value Discovery – The Value Discovery workshops provide an organization with a background on the technology and opportunities a specific Copilot can provide. This workshop identifies groups and uses cases that help determine the next steps for a technology evaluation.
  • Evaluation Accelerator – The Evaluation Accelerator engagement allows one to pilot the technology through a champions program and evaluate the potential for a wider rollout.
  • Adoption Accelerator – The Adoption Accelerator is meant for an organization rolling out a specific Copilot widely by supporting development, change management, and configuration activities.

Value Discovery

If your organization wants to look at a specific Microsoft Copilot, the Value Discovery Workshop provides the following activities to determine how to proceed forward.

  • An overview of the technology and opportunity that a Microsoft Copilot can bring to your organization — this includes demos on the Copilot that provide an art of the possible to frame potential impact
  • Education on how a specific Microsoft Copilot can interact with other Copilots and bring together your various technology investments
  • Build a business case by identifying groups and use cases that would be most impactful to pilot
  • Investigate your organization’s readiness to adopt these Copilots
  • Create a roadmap on next steps to move forward on your Copilot adoption journey

At the end of the engagement, your stakeholders will have the education and identified areas to move forward in a technology evaluation.

Evaluation Accelerator

Once you are ready to begin rolling out a Copilot with a group of users, the Evaluation Accelerator program will help you establish the change management and reporting foundation to ensure adoption and return on investment. The following activities are included in this engagement.

  • Identify cohorts with champions and other potential users
  • Validation of scenarios to include in your evaluation
  • Building a champions community and training them
  • Build or validate the business case based on feedback provided by champions and users
  • Deliver IT and executive reports on the results of the evaluation

Adoption Accelerator

After the evaluation is complete and your organization wants to move forward with widespread adoption, the Adoption Accelerator provides several options to support the wider rollout. This engagement is more open-ended than the other engagements regarding execution requirements because it’s intended for the organization to decide how to use the funding to ensure its rollout success. Below are just some of the options available in this engagement.

  • Further change management activities, such as training with the champions community and other users
  • Establish success metrics, enabling dashboards, and creating surveys to track success
  • Create plugins and other extensibility options for your Copilot deployment
  • Assigning licenses and other configuration
  • Building a service management plan
  • Activating users on prioritized scenarios to drive adoption

Check Your Company’s Qualification

Interested in funding options? AIS can help you determine your organization’s eligibility to use these programs. Each program has certain requirements on licensing, usage, and more. Contact us and a team member can help you determine which programs fit your organization.