Microsoft, the tech giant, has geared itself to navigate a new course by introducing its AI assistant, Copilot, to its various applications used by frontline workers, from retail to on-field technicians. The intention is to alleviate the administrative load associated with coordinating frontline tasks, claiming that its impact will reverberate wider than just desk jobs, including software development and customer service roles.
Today, we’re introducing Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service, bringing the power of next-generation AI to service professionals on the frontline to speed time to resolution. From creating work orders with the right information and assigning them to the right technicians to equipping the technicians with sufficient support to successfully complete jobs—Copilot will help streamline critical frontline tasks, said Lili Cheng, Corporate Vice President, Business Applications & Platform, Microsoft, in a blog post.
Copilot, a generative AI tool revolutionized by OpenAI’s ChatGPT language model, is set to be integrated into the Dynamics 365 Field Service application, as announced by Microsoft on Wednesday. While the tool is currently in a preview mode, Microsoft aims to employ Copilot more broadly across its product pool, with specialized versions of the AI assistant being developed for Dynamics, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, and Security products, among others.
The integration of Copilot into Dynamics 365 Field Service aims to aid frontline managers in the mundane task of work order creation, thus, saving valuable time for these workers, as explained by Lili Cheng, corporate vice president for business applications and platforms at Microsoft. The AI assistant accomplishes this by pre-populating relevant data, such as summaries of customer escalations, into draft work orders. This means that work order creation can now be automated from within Outlook.
Soon, Microsoft intends to enhance Copilot’s capabilities by adding scheduling recommendations considering factors such as travel time, skill level, and availability. This update is expected to be available in the upcoming autumn season. Moreover, users could access and utilize the Field Service Copilot via Microsoft Teams.
The Dynamics 365 Copilot in Field Service has already been made available for public preview via Outlook, with access via Teams slated to follow soon. Notably, these are included in the Dynamics 365 Field Service license without extra cost.