"A UK government department's three-month trial of Microsoft's M365 Copilot has revealed no discernible gain in productivity - speeding up some tasks yet making others slower due to lower quality outputs. The Department for Business and Trade received 1,000 licenses for use between October and December 2024, with the majority of these allocated to volunteers and 30 percent to randomly selected participants. Some 300 of these people consented to their data being analyzed."
"Overall, 72 percent of users were satisfied or very satisfied with their digital assistant and voiced disappointment when the test ended. However, the reality of productivity gains was more nuanced than Microsoft's marketing materials might suggest. Around two-thirds of the employees in the trial used M365 at least once a week, and 30 percent used it at least once a day - which doesn't sound like great value for money."
One thousand M365 Copilot licenses were deployed between October and December 2024, with most allocated to volunteers and 30 percent to randomly selected staff; 300 users consented to data analysis. The evaluation measured time savings, quality assurance, and productivity and found no overall productivity improvement despite faster completion of some tasks and slower outcomes for others due to lower-quality outputs. Seventy-two percent of users reported satisfaction, yet two-thirds used the tool at least weekly and only 30 percent used it daily. Average usage equated to about 1.14 Copilot actions per user per working day. Word, Teams, and Outlook were most used; Loop and OneNote usage was very low, and PowerPoint and Excel saw peak single-day use by 7 percent of license holders. Top tasks were meeting transcription or summarization, email drafting, and summarizing written content. Commercial pricing ranges from £4.90 to £18.10 per user per month, presenting potential departmental cost concerns.
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