Microsoft has integrated its generative AI-powered 365 Copilot into its employee engagement and experience platform, Viva. The Copilot in Viva is built on the Microsoft 365 Copilot System, combining OpenAI’s GPT-4 with Microsoft Graph data from various sources. The technology aims to streamline workforce communications and create better organisational alignment by drafting OKR recommendations based on existing Word documents, summarising the status of OKRs, identifying blockers and suggesting next steps.
Viva Engage with Copilot can also suggest post ideas for company intranet pages, and Copilot in Viva Glint can help summarise thousands of employee survey comments. According to Microsoft, Copilot in Viva will begin rolling out to customers later this year.
A new Microsoft Work Trend Index Special Report revealed that high employee engagement correlates with stronger financial performance, making employee engagement a key part of overall performance. Highly-engaged companies focus on clarity via intentional employee communications and goal setting, and use data to build a powerful “feedback flywheel” to continuously improve over time.
AI can support these goals, and the new Copilot features for Viva focus on creating better organisational alignment by streamlining workforce communications.
Kirk Koenigsbauer, CVP and COO of the experiences and devices group at Microsoft, emphasised the importance of building Copilot into the flow of work. Microsoft 365 Copilot runs through the company’s OpenAI implementation built on Azure, which brings the “commercial rigor” that organisations want. The compliance, management and security capabilities of the implementation ensure that customer data remains private and secure.
Overall, Microsoft is betting on the power of generative AI in Viva to understand and engage workforces, streamlining communication and creating better organisational alignment. The integration of Copilot in Viva aims to help organisations build powerful feedback loops to continuously improve their employee engagement and overall performance.
