Microsoft has announced the upcoming release of Copilot, an AI chatbot capable of performing key tasks for financial industry workers. First, a preview of Copilot for Finance will be released, after which the chatbot will be released. The cost of the service will be announced later.
Microsoft already has Copilot for corporate users of the Microsoft 365 office suite, and has also released Copilot for sales and customer service workers.
Any large company consists of many departments in which employees perform specialized work. “We want every department to be equipped and empowered with (the AI chatbot) Copilot,” Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president at Microsoft, told CNBC on Wednesday.
Copilot for Finance will be able to perform a range of actions to solve specific problems in Excel and Outlook. Copilot for Finance will reportedly initially be able to perform variance analysis, reconcile data in Excel, and speed up the data collection process in Outlook. To this end, the chatbot can use information stored in SAP and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Copilot for Finance's capabilities will be expanded later in the year, Lamann said. He also said that Japanese advertising agency Dentsu is already planning to use Copilot to solve financial problems.
Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Cory Hrncirik said that thanks to Copilot, employees will spend less time on routine work, switching to solving more pressing problems. About 2,000 people on the company's financial planning and analysis team spent 1 to 2 hours reconciling data each week, he said, but with Copilot it takes about 10 or 20 minutes.
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