Vodafone Rolls Out Microsoft Copilot to Support Innovation
As part of an extension to its strategic agreement with Microsoft, Vodafone is rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot AI software to thousands of employees across multiple countries.
Copilot will be implemented across the organisation to further improve productivity, innovation and digital efficiency. It also stands to free up time spent on monotonous tasks to allow employees to focus on more varied and interesting work, which includes enhancing services and supporting Vodafone’s 350 million customers worldwide.
Copilot is Microsoft’s AI assistant tool for Microsoft 365 applications and services and is built into its Windows 11 operating system.
Both organisations announced a 10-year strategic partnership in January 2024 and have committed to increasing Gen AI offerings in recent months. Their scaled digital platform offerings support more than 300 million businesses, public sector organisations and consumers around the world.
Bolstering enterprise Gen AI
Vodafone is already using Microsoft’s Gen AI technology to deliver a range of more personalised services to customers. One of these updates is supercharging TOBi, Vodafone’s online chatbot in 13 countries that speaks 15 different languages.
Microsoft’s AI tool will now be integrated across most areas of Vodafone’s business operations, including customer service, product development, network management, sales and marketing. As a whole, Copilot aims to support Vodafone’s strategy of becoming the best-in-class telecommunications company in Europe and Africa, in addition to becoming a leading platform for business in Europe.
Scott Petty, Chief Technology Officer at Vodafone, comments: “Our AI journey is focusing on three areas: operational efficiency inside the organisation, rewiring the business to provide an enhanced customer experience and unlocking growth opportunities through new products and services that we can create around Gen AI.
“Copilot will help drive all three.”
After an initial trial of the technology, Vodafone found - in collaboration with Microsoft and KPMG - that users had increased their productivity. Some of the areas of work employees had saved time on included drafting emails and documents, summarising meetings and identifying action points, in addition to searching for information.
- Drafting emails
- Analysing data
- Summarising meetings and documents
- Generating marketing content
- Creating imagery
Nearly all users (90%) said they benefited from Microsoft 365 Copilot and wanted to keep using it, while 60% said it improved the quality of their work.
The time that was saved worked out to be roughly three hours a week on average. As a result, workforces were given greater space to be more creative and innovative, which Vodafone suggests also improves their work-life balance.
Furthermore, neurodiverse employees that were included in the trial stated they liked the software’s drafting capabilities, highlighting that it reduced the stress of writing documents and emails.
Vodafone’s data-driven success
As a result of this work, Vodafone states it has been given data-driven confidence to extend the benefits of Gen AI to more of its employees.
“It’s not about doing more work, it’s about doing better quality work and being more customer-focused. And it’s about improving the efficiency of the entire business, from the mobile and fixed broadband network and digital platforms, to our retail stores, online services and customer care centres.”
The announcement also seeks to strengthen the relationship between Vodafone and Microsoft, who are committed to transforming customer experience with the power of Gen AI. As a result of this AI, Vodafone seeks to scale up its standalone IoT business, develop new services for small-and medium-sized businesses and continue its data migration to Microsoft Azure.
Vodafone is also planning to invest US$1.5bn over the next 10 years in cloud and customer-focused AI services - which are also developed in collaboration with Microsoft. The digital services generated by the new partnership are being built on unbiased and ethical privacy and security policies under Vodafone’s established framework for responsible AI.
Clare Barclay, CEO at Microsoft UK, says: “It’s so exciting to see Vodafone trusting in the huge potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot and adopting it at such scale.
“Gen AI is transforming every industry and it’s going to be fascinating seeing the impact this powerful technology will have across all aspects of Vodafone’s business.”
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