Tech Insights with Alisha Christian
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Tech Insights with Alisha Christian
Unlocking Business Potential with Microsoft Copilot | James Heasman
Ever wondered how a school-network-hacking enthusiast becomes a Solutions Architect? Dive into the interesting journey of James from Mercury IT, as he sheds light on Copilot, the game-changing virtual assistant that's revolutionising business operations. We explore how Copilot, with its integration into business systems, isn't just another AI tool but a strategic partner in streamlining tasks like managing calendars and crafting documents. Discover how Copilot's unique capabilities—powered by Microsoft Graph and large language models—can transform tender preparations, significantly slashing the time and effort involved.
In our conversation, we also weigh the broader implications of AI tools in the business world, from boosting efficiency to navigating potential pitfalls like security risks and financial costs. James shares invaluable insights on maintaining data integrity and making smart investment decisions when adopting AI technologies. The promise of AI is not just about automation; it's about unlocking creative potential and opening new revenue streams. Don't miss this chance to rethink how your business can thrive on technology—reach out to Mercury IT for a tailored assessment and let Copilot redefine your daily operations.
Welcome back to Tech Insights. Today I caught up with James, our Solutions Architect. James shared with us his insights into Copilot, including what it is, how it works and how to get your business Copilot ready. I hope you enjoy the episode, james, thanks for being here today. Thank you so. You're the Solutions Architect at Mercury IT and we have worked together for a while. However, our departments don't generally overlap too much. Can you share with the listeners a little bit about your role?
James Heasman :Yeah, well, see, I've been the Solutions architect at Mercury IT now for a couple of years, but prior to that I started at a very young age. I've always very interested in IT and what really sparked my interest was actually hacking the school network. So with that obviously I found it really interesting how you can manipulate the network, and from that I got a job into IT at a very young age and just worked my way up the stages, so level one, level two, Then I went travelling and then came to Australia, Got a job at Mercury, started at level two to level three, then to professional services and then, yeah, then solution architect.
Alisha Christian :Well, that's interesting that you started by hacking into the school.
James Heasman :I'd never heard that story before.
Alisha Christian :It's not a side hustle now, is it?
James Heasman :Oh it could be, oh you never know.
Alisha Christian :So today we're here to talk about Copilot, obviously a bit of a buzzword at the moment. Can you share with us just a little bit of an overview of what is Copilot?
James Heasman :Well, copilot is just technically, your virtual assistant. So technically, it's there just to help you with your day-to-day. So help you with your tasks. Your calendar invites, um, it just help you anything you need to get done. Really, it's like someone you need. If you had a job, well, if you, um, if you had a high role and you had a assistant, technically that that's his role, so it's there to stand in that place help you along. The only thing to really remember is it forgets everything. It only remembers that one question. That's it. It will never remember it again, so every response might be slightly different.
Alisha Christian :Oh, that's an interesting fact. I never actually knew that. So can you tell us how Copilot actually works?
James Heasman :Yeah, it's quite interesting how it actually works. So when you put a prompt into Copilot, it sends it off to the groundings. So the groundings could be the internet or Microsoft Graph. So what that does is that graph is technically your Outlook, sharepoint Teams, anything like that and what it will do is it'll look at your information, then send it off to a large language model. Then, once it's got both of them so it's got your data and it's sent it to the language model it will give you back the response you need. So an example say you said look at two documents for me, tell me the comparison. It will load them documents and make sure you have access to the documents. It'll bring it back. It will send it to the language model just to get a response. You'll get it back to your machine and it'll tell you the answer.
Alisha Christian :Well, it's pretty amazing what goes behind the scenes, isn't it?
James Heasman :Yeah.
Alisha Christian :It's pretty impressive for sure. So would you be able to give us some, you know, an example of a business that has Copilot in place?
James Heasman :Yeah. So if they say if they've got the licenses installed and they're using it and what they can really use it for is, as I always say, what they can use it is if they've got a tender they need to do as an example, they've got all the information they need, they've analysed the data that's in there and then maybe they've got a couple of templates to fill out tenders. What you can do, you can make it reference the data you've already done and you finalise it and it's perfect. Make it reference the tender data and technically make a proposal for you. So it makes everything streamlined within the business.
James Heasman :Gosh sounds like an amazing time saver oh yeah, that's the best thing about it. So you can save so much time, and that's where it comes. You know, you start saving time and efficiency. So instead of just maybe doing one tender a day, you might be able to get two done in that time.
Alisha Christian :Yeah, doing one tender a day, you might be able to get two done in that time. Yeah, because to have to do that all manually would be extremely time consuming and tedious.
James Heasman :Probably, yeah, exactly, and that's the value of it, so it's saving you time and making you more efficient.
Alisha Christian :And so what sort of implications are involved with sort of integrating Copilot?
James Heasman :Well, it's natively integrated. So technically, once you buy a license, it's natively integrated into the full Microsoft suite. But the good thing about it is it can integrate into third parties. So you can say, if you've got a HR system that has an API, so technically you can communicate to it, you can integrate Copilot with that and technically make it query that. So it's another grounding for it. So it's got another location to look for data, to get a response, to give you the answer, goodness.
Alisha Christian :It's all a lot going on. How would you say that it compares to like a lot of the other AI tools out there.
James Heasman :Yeah, so obviously Copilot is actually built on ChatGTP, so that was the really founding. But the good thing about it is with copilot business it has access to your data. So the difference between that copilot and native version only has access to the internet and what information is publicly available. But with copilot, business technically has access to everything you give it access to so it can instead of just looking. So if you give an answer of um, give me um, the cash flow of the business, say hypothetically, if you ask it natively with chat gtp or go out to the internet and go, I've got no idea, I don't have access to that data. If it's got a document you can access, it will give you the answer. So technically, that's the fantastic thing about it I mean from internally, that is.
Alisha Christian :That's pretty impressive. However, obviously there's a bit of the security side of things. So how does Copilot lock down your data so that it is safe, I guess?
James Heasman :Yeah, and that's the biggest issue really, you have to do a readiness check. So technically what you do is you look at all your data. You see what data is available, what it can query, because Copilot is like your home PC where it indexes all your data, indexes or knows where it is. So if you go for a search in your browser, say where's FileX, it will find it for you. So Copilot works the same way. It indexes everything it has access to.
James Heasman :And that's where the readiness comes in, because you may have staff members that have access to data they don't know they have access to because they haven't looked for it. But Copilot knows you have access to it. So then it will just index that down and give you the response. So that's why you do the readiness check and then lock down the data and lock down the data so it can't actually reference it. So it's one value of it, but it's a very big journey to go on there. Um, one thing I obviously do say is if, if you're a business owner, you wanted to try it, you can, because technically all the data is yours, so you can play with it, see what data it can see and then just go from there.
Alisha Christian :Really, because I guess that would be a major concern for a business owner as to, yeah, what? Yeah what information can the employees access? What can they share so to be able to, obviously, yeah, lock that privacy down?
James Heasman :Yeah, that is a big part of the journey of Copilot. It's fantastic what it can do but, like you say, it can see everything. It can analyze every bit of data there. So if you can see it, it's going to give you the answer. So if I ask you how much you get paid and you can see that data unknowingly, it's just going to tell you the answer.
Alisha Christian :So yeah, exactly that's a bit scary.
James Heasman :And they're the things you don't want it to do. And that's where it comes down to the whole readiness whereby you use something called purview and you set down lockdown data so you say don't access data, don't access this data, don't reference this data, and it won't give you that answer because you don't have access to it.
Alisha Christian :And I think that's probably from a business owner's perspective is having that access to put those parameters in, because for those that don't sort of know much about Copilot and how it works it could be a little bit intimidating. So that's great that you've been able to explain that that is obviously an option.
James Heasman :It's definitely possible. Yeah, and that's the thing. Like I say, people just go in there, install it and then they realize access to everything and they're like well, I didn't expect this. Do you know what I mean? And Microsoft are very clear with that you need to do your readiness check to make sure you tick all the boxes before you go live.
Alisha Christian :So this readiness check, what does that actually involve?
James Heasman :So what it really involves is we look at all your data and make sure the security is correct. So, and make sure the security is correct, so we look at all the files, all the data you've got in the business, any security labels, and just check absolutely everything really and make sure there's the boundary there. So you know about a copilot can't cross that line. So when you do them searches it is correct. And that's the journey you would take someone on. So you technically go I want to use copilot, let's do the readiness check, let's make sure all your security, your folder, is correct, make sure you have no copyrighted material in there and then from there then you can start the journey of adopting it.
Alisha Christian :Wow, that's pretty cool. So you wouldn't really advise then for someone to just jump right in there and open it up to their employees that's the thing, because there's a few versions like that.
James Heasman :You've got copilot pro, which is technically just for the individual. So if you're as a home user and you want to start using it technically, you can buy a Copilot Pro license and that integrates the Copilot features into the applications. And there's also a free version. So everyone is using Edge. You get Copilot for free. You'll see it on your browser, so technically. But all that grounding is is just Bing. So whatever you ask it, it will just reference whatever's on Google I mean on Bing, sorry and then I'll give you the answer. Then the pro edition integrates with your word, excel, helps you, along with that, anything you need there, and then, once you go into the business versions and that's when it has access to your data.
Alisha Christian :So well, it's good to have that clarification between the two yeah uh.
James Heasman :So, james, tell me what's your favorite feature of the pilot yeah, the favorite feature for me is obviously, obviously helping me just get my day-to-day done. So technically, I may get 20 emails in the morning. I need to action that day. I can ask co-pilot just a summer. Give me a summary what I need to action today, like what do I need to get done? What, what is a priority? Who's at me? Who says high priority? So I know how to start my day really. I go, okay, I've got to get through X, y and Z, and then same with my calendar as well, so I can see exactly what I've got on for the day. It'll give me my timeline, what needs to be done and what I need to do for the day really, and that's what makes my life so much easier.
Alisha Christian :I mean you must love it because you're a pretty busy guy yeah, exactly like you're saying.
James Heasman :And how much you can post emails as well. So say if you're writing an email, you have that mental blank and just, I just don't know what to say.
Alisha Christian :Like, what do I say in this email?
James Heasman :you can start writing the email and then ask people just to point you in the right direction, really, and it'll just rewrite that email for you so and then you can send it and it's corrects your grammar, everything. So you know, you know the email is going to make sense and you're not half asleep, really I mean, I definitely love it as well for that sort of thing and obviously content.
James Heasman :Sometimes you just get stuck and you just need that one word or something to pull it all together yeah, that's another big risk because a lot of people are using just third parties, so technically they they go and Google and go. I just want to use chat GTP, but it is a massive security risk because you could be pasting personal business data into this technically free version and there's been issues whereby the free version is actually recording what you're typing in. So you could be typing in something about all the business, how much money they're making, what their forecasts are, you know what staff's getting X, y and Z, and it technically is recording that data. And that's the risk because people go. I don't want to sign up for a full-blown version of ChatGDP. I'll just go to Google and go ChatGDP AI and you paste stuff in there and it technically could be recording that data.
Alisha Christian :So you've got to be really careful what versions you use Do you think there's enough awareness around that for people using like these ai tools no, I saw some stats the other day.
James Heasman :They're second. They say that 75 of staff actually already using it. So technically they know it exists. It's a buzzword, you know. They know it's ai, it's great, it's making my life easy, but they don't understand how to use it. It was designed to obviously just to point you in the right direction and give you answers to things and realize.
James Heasman :But let's say, people are using it to rewrite technically confidential information and if, and if you're and if you're like, say, if you're using a paypal version, it's protected, but if you're just going to google just typing in, give it to me. Now, technically, people have spun up technically free versions which is just gathering the information. So it's just gathering information on that person, on a company, which then could lead to a company being compromised because you could be giving out employees names, their email addresses, about the company. So then technically, you've got a social engineering advantage really to go to that company.
Alisha Christian :So so be really careful yeah, wow, maybe we need to do another podcast around all the ins and outs of that to help people understand, obviously, yeah, the risk. I mean, these tools are super helpful and pretty cool, but obviously, yeah, it does come with those security risks, doesn't it? If you don't sort of know, yeah, what implications are there? What sort of cost would a business be looking at to add this to their Microsoft tenant?
James Heasman :So the personal version is I think it's around $30, and that's obviously just the individual. That gives you access to your outlook and all your basic needs and, word in excel, the business version there's. There's two skews or two flavors, we call it um, so you've got enterprise and business, but it's technically exactly the same thing, it's just an add-on and the license is around 45 um. So that gives you an idea and every single user needs a license and that's a monthly cost.
Alisha Christian :Okay, I was going to ask you. I thought $45, that doesn't sound too bad.
James Heasman :I'd say the biggest issue at the moment is you have to pay a year upfront. Originally it was meant to be monthly, but they've just done it a year. So I think that's the biggest reason why a lot of uptake hasn't happened. Hasn't happened, um, because, like I said, if you want to adopt this, you can't just run through the whole process, the whole um. You can't run just a proof of concept. So, okay, I want to run a proof of concept, see if it works in our business. It may not work, so you just want to test it, but markstaff don't allow you to test it yet, so they just go, you've got to sign up for it, but if it doesn't work for your business, you're not going to use it. Um, and that's why I think they're trying to push Microsoft very heavily to make it a monthly and a trial basis, so you can give it a try and see if it works your business, and then show value in it, and then everyone just adopts it natively.
Alisha Christian :Yeah, because to pay outright for it for a year and then not use it especially if you've got a few staff that you sort of integrate it for would be a bit disappointing. So at least month by month, it's sort of a bit more of a security net, isn't it?
James Heasman :Yeah, Like I say, I think the way Marks will see it is the return on the revenue on it, or return on the investment, is pretty good. Like if you save a couple of hours a month, technically you've paid for it. Like, say, someone's salary, they technically cover part of them. You're making them more efficient, they're getting more done. It's technically covered. But like you say, it's just that if you can't test it, you don't know what you're going to get. Like people want to try things before you buy them.
Alisha Christian :At the end of the day, yeah, it's definitely unusual that they haven't implemented that yet.
James Heasman :So hopefully we'll see that soon.
Alisha Christian :James, is there any other tips or advice that you'd like to give the listeners you know regarding Copilot or even just AI tools in general?
James Heasman :Yeah, like I say, I recommend everyone just to give it a go as a business. Like I say, if you want to try it, obviously definitely give it a go. Like I say, it's a fantastic journey and I think once you start using it, it's just that unknown beast. If you like, start using it and then you'll love it. At the end of the day it's just the unknown. People don't like it. But once you adopt it and it starts getting formed into your workflows, just adopt it and you'll see the return on the revenue straight away.
Alisha Christian :Yeah, I think that time-saving aspect, especially with those tedious tasks, is I mean, that's a game changer for businesses, isn't it? Yeah, definitely, people can move on and people get more done in a day, which is great.
James Heasman :So, technically, you're making your staff far more efficient. So, technically, you're giving staff more time to get more done.
Alisha Christian :Well, that's it, and then they can focus on the more interesting and creative sides of their job.
James Heasman :Yeah, definitely, and so maybe, using that time to you know, do more for the business and find new avenues to make more revenue.
Alisha Christian :Yeah, excellent. Well, thanks so much for coming on today. It's great to learn a little bit more about co-pilot and obviously, what it can do. Uh, if our listeners want to learn a little bit more, are they just best to reach out to us at mercury and definitely potentially set up a one-on-one with you for an?
James Heasman :assessment. Yeah, definitely reach out. We're always up for you know, take you, taking you on that journey, really, and just we go from there it's pretty exciting.
Alisha Christian :Yeah, definitely awesome thanks.
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