Microsoft continues to expand the reach of its Copilot generative AI services to other types of businesses. Today, it launched Copilot for Finance as a public preview for Microsoft 365 business subscribers.
In a blog post, Microsoft stated that financial professionals spend a ton of time doing repetitive tasks manually. The new Copilot for Finance generative AI assistant is supposed to help automate a number of these tasks so that financial workers can spend more time on items that cannot be automated.
Microsoft offered up some ways of how Copilot for Finance will let financial workers use it with just some text prompts;
For example, a user can prompt Copilot to “help me understand forecast to actuals variance data.” In moments, Copilot for Finance will generate insights and pull data directly from across the ERP and financial systems, suggesting actions to take and providing a head start by generating contextualized text and attaching relevant files. Like other copilot experiences, users can easily check source data to ensure transparency before using Copilot to take any actions.
The new Copilot works with established systems such as Dynamics 365 and SAP to help with detecting errors in financial records, along with assisting with audits and automating some of the more tedious collections processes.
Microsoft tested Copilot for Finance with one of its own internal teams that worked with accounts receivable. It claimed that using the AI assistant got rid of "the time it takes to compare data across sources" and saved the team an average of 20 minutes per each of its accounts.
Businesses who want to try the public preview of Copilot for Business can do so at this link. There"s even a web-based demo that anyone can check out. There"s no word yet on when the new Copilot will become generally available, nor what Microsoft plans to charge for the service.