Microsoft wants organizations to compete on Copilot adoption

Microsoft is hellbent on integrating Copilot into the workflows of as many enterprise customers as it can. Recently, it has endorsed the use of personal Copilot licenses in workplace environments, encouraged IT admins to enable web search functionality in Microsoft 365 Copilot, and integrated the AI assistant into OneDrive. Now, it wants customers to monitor and potentially even compete on Copilot adoption.

Microsoft has begun the rollout of Benchmarks in the Copilot Dashboard available in Viva Insights. There are two types of benchmarks available: internal and external. Internal benchmarks allow organizations to compare Copilot adoption, returning users, and active users across various cohorts split by company groups / managers, regions, and job functions.

On the other hand, external benchmarks allow comparisons of active Copilot users against the top 10% and top 25% companies similar to yours or those close to the top 10% and top 25% of overall benchmarks.

Some organizations and their IT admins may have questions around how Microsoft arranges cohorts for external companies similar to their own. It does this by grouping firms which are involved in the same industry, have the same size, or are headquartered in the same region. Every external benchmark contains at least 20 companies, and is based on the information provided to Microsoft when contracting to use its services. If customers want to update their group's information, they should contact their Microsoft-appointed sales representative.

Microsoft has assured customers that it has ensured complete privacy when developing external cohorts. This is because it calculates external benchmarks through "randomized mathematical models", and they also contain approximations so that they can't be linked to a single entity. That said, it is open to feedback to improve this process even further. This is why Benchmarks in the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights is only available in private preview for now, with general availability scheduled for later this month.