Last week Microsoft released Copilot Pro, their AI product now available for most users. So, should your Not for Profit invest in Copilot Pro now?
Before this, it was only available for large enterprises with 300 or more licenses.
The new license embeds AI functionality within the Office 365 suite, as well as provides more access to GPT4 and DALL-E 3 for AI images.
I’ve been experimenting with these enhancements for about a week now.
Favourite Copilot Pro Features
And some of my favourite features so far are:
- The ability to convert a Word Document to a PowerPoint
- The ability to summarise documents and emails; and
- The ability to use plain language in Excel rather than complex formulas to answer a question.
Having said this, all of the functions I’ve tested and liked still have flaws.
- The conversion of a Word Document to a PowerPoint only created a really, really rough draft. I tried to get it to use my corporate template to at least standardized the look and feel, but Copilot told me that it couldn’t do this yet.
- in summary of documents and emails is better but relies on good paragraph structure in the docs and clarity in the emails to get the best outcome.
- For Excel, if you can describe exactly what you want with the actual headings used in a table, you can probably get a good outcome. I tried it on a harder prompt where I requested it to give me the average license cost of some software per user, and it incorrectly interpreted “user” when I didn’t use the word in the headings – ultimately giving me the wrong answer.
Despite these faults, I could probably justify the investment in Copilot if it were not so expensive.
How much does Copilot Pro cost?
My commercial rate for a Microsoft 365 Business Premium license was AU$362. But I just paid $593 for my new Copilot license. Obviously, the charity rate is substantially lower, but still expensive.
To really get a return on this kind of investment, you would also need to heavily invest in training your team specifically for Copilot.
And, let’s be honest, most of your users probably haven’t mastered the existing 365 suite yet.
Recommendation:
So, should your Not for Profit invest in Microsoft Copilot Pro now?
I suggest you wait.
Wait until Microsoft has improved the product. Then, and based on the current costs, you may consider a license on a user-by-user case basis.
Just make sure to invest in their training, too.
I regularly help Not for Profits with their IT investment decisions. Let me know if you need some help.
P.S. If you found this article helpful, you might want to read this one too:
- Why your NFP’s strategic plan needs a IT strategy
- What is the business case for IT investments in NFPs?
Tammy Ven Dange is a former charity CEO, Association President, Not for Profit Board Member and IT Executive. Today, she helps NFPs with strategic IT decisions, especially around investments.