Microsoft to expand its Copilot AI offering to Viva

A month after unveiling Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft on Thursday announced Copilot for Microsoft Viva, an employee-experience platform built on Microsoft 365 and launched in February 2021.  

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a generative AI technology based on GPT-4, a large language model created by AI lab OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT chatbot. In March, the Redmond company announced a Copilot chatbot to automate various tasks in multiple Microsoft office apps, such as summarising key discussion points in a Teams chat or adding relevant content to a PowerPoint presentation based off documents previously created by a user. 

Copilot in Viva is built on the Microsoft 365 Copilot System and combines the power of large language models with the data in the Microsoft Graph and Viva apps, including Goals, Engage, Learning, Topics, and Answers, Kirk Koenigsbauer, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365 wrote on the company’s official blog, adding that it will "help users to take advantage of next-generation AI to boost productivity and drive improved business outcomes".

According to Microsoft, Copilot in Viva Goals will help to simplify both goal setting and goal management, suggesting draft objectives and key results (OKRs) based on existing Word documents, such as annual business plans or product strategy papers. Once they are created, Copilot will then summarise the status of OKRs, identify roadblocks, and suggest next steps. 

In Viva Engage, leaders will be able to feed prompts into Copilot from which the technology will be able to create posts. Copilot will also be able to offer suggestions to help personalise messages, including the option to adjust tone and length or include relevant imagery, in addition to analysing engagement metrics, assessing sentiment, and recommending responses. 

Copilot in Viva Learning can suggest curated learning collections tailored to specific roles or training needs, while Copilot in Viva Topics allows employees to use natural language to learn more about important topics and see related issues and projects. 

Finally, Copilot in Answers helps users construct specific questions while extracting the key topics to help categorise it and surface appropriate references, resources, and experts that can be cited in the response. 

In addition to Copilot in Viva, Microsoft has also announced that Glint - an employee experience (EX) survey vendor acquired by its LinkedIn subsidiary in 2018 – will formally be integrated with the company’s Viva suite and will help organisations improve employee engagement by providing actionable insights.

Glint provides tools that enable businesses to get real-time feedback from their employees about management, workplace culture, compensation, and more. Additionally, it provides suggestions to help managers improve based on employee feedback so as to minimise the cost and efforts required to recruit and train new employees.

Koenigsbauer explained that the integration will help companies to summarise and analyse thousands of employee comments, making it easier for leaders to explore feedback and ask questions via natural language AI. 

Microsoft claimed just like Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot in Viva is built on the company’s “comprehensive approach” to Responsible AI. That said, Copilot automatically inherits your organisation’s security, compliance, and privacy policies for Microsoft 365. As Koenigsbauer said, “Our work is guided by decades of research on AI, grounding and privacy-preserving machine learning as well as our Responsible AI Standard and core set of AI principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability”. 

The Copilot in Microsoft Viva will begin rolling out later this year and Viva Glint will be available starting July 2023.