Many companies allow the use of AI tools like "Copilot" and "Gemini." Are you utilizing them effectively?
Personally, I mainly use ChatGPT and Claude Code in my private life, and to be honest, I wasn't making much use of Copilot at work. However, in recent years, Copilot has evolved remarkably, and the output for company documents and chats has changed dramatically.
This prompted me to look into how overseas companies are using it, so I researched global case studies thoroughly.
First, a bank in Dubai announced that it saved 39,000 hours per year using Copilot: Commercial Bank of Dubai. If you calculate based on one person working 2,000 hours a year, that's roughly the work time of 19 people.
Looking at the numbers, you might think the scale is just different. But when you look inside, they weren't doing anything special. Reading audit documents, aggregating Excel data, comparing contracts, taking meeting notes—tasks found in any company.
The difference was how they "handed off" tasks to Copilot.
For example, meeting preparation. Most people search for emails just before a meeting, open past minutes, and look for materials. If you hand this off to Copilot, it looks like this:
1Please prepare for today's meeting with Company XX.2Refer to relevant emails from the past 30 days, past Teams meetings, and related documents within my access range.34Please summarize the following:56Progress so far7- Decisions made last time8- Requests from the other party9- What we have promised10- Issues not yet resolved11- 5 questions to confirm today12- Things to decide today1314Please keep it to a length that can be read in under 3 minutes.15Do not guess content that cannot be confirmed; write "No information."
This is what it means to "hand off." It's not just "summarize" or "write an email." You are entrusting a whole chunk of work. In this article, I will provide 20 ways overseas companies are actually handing off work in a copy-pasteable format. I will also write about the breakdown of the 39,000 hours and how to decide which of your tasks to hand off.
To be clear, all figures in this article are self-reported values from companies listed in Microsoft's Customer Stories. They are not audited by third parties. Please read with that in mind.
Breaking Down the 39,000 Hours
The breakdown published by Commercial Bank of Dubai is divided by department.
Audit Department: 56 hours saved per month. They have Copilot read regulatory documents to find contradictions and draft risk lists.
Accounting Department: Up to 12 hours saved per week in manual report creation. They have it analyze trends from Excel data and even create the structure for PowerPoint presentations.
HR Department: 20 hours saved per month.
Board Secretariat: 15 hours saved per month. They process a large volume of meeting summaries and task extractions.
Legal Department: They have it compare contracts with the company's standard templates and extract only the differences.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/24341-commercial-bank-of-dubai-microsoft-365-copilot
When you line them up, you see that none of these are "tasks that create something new." It's just four things: reading, comparing, searching, and summarizing.
And the most effective thing this bank did wasn't actually the tool settings. They held three "Prompt-a-thons." Each department brought ideas for what to make Copilot do in their work and shared successful writing styles as "Super Prompts" within the company. The usage rate among initial participants was 85%.
In other words, 39,000 hours weren't hours created automatically by a smart AI, but the result of employees decomposing their work and handing it off.
Similar things are happening at other companies.
XP Inc., a Brazilian financial services firm, announced a cumulative reduction of over 9,000 hours in meetings and minutes. They stated internal audit efficiency improved by 30%.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/20560-xp-microsoft-365
At Somerset Council in the UK, 87% of users felt the effects, reporting an average efficiency gain of 10 hours per month.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/22699-somerset-council-microsoft-365-copilot
As long as you think of it as an "AI to ask questions," its uses won't increase
This is the most important part, so let's organize it first. If you think of Copilot as an "AI you can ask anything," you'll quickly run out of uses. Summarize this. Write an email. Give me 10 ideas. It usually stops at these three.
What makes Copilot different from other generative AIs isn't its intelligence. It's the ability to use information within the company as material.
Microsoft 365 Copilot creates answers by referencing emails, chats, meetings, and documents within your original access range via Microsoft Graph.
Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/microsoft-365-copilot-architecture
In other words, Copilot is an "AI that can go find information placed inside the company that you are allowed to see."
Keeping this in mind changes how you hand off tasks.
Usage by asking: "Tell me how to write meeting minutes."
Usage by handing off: "From today's meeting content, extract decisions, pending items, assignees, and deadlines, and even create a follow-up email for participants."
The former is asking the AI for knowledge. The latter is entrusting the work itself.
If you break down daily work, it mostly consists of these 7 actions: Searching, Reading, Summarizing, Comparing, Writing, Inputting, and Sharing. Copilot is strong in these 7. Conversely, "deciding" and "taking responsibility" remain on the human side.
Note one point often misunderstood regarding permissions: installing Copilot doesn't mean employees can see all information in the company. It only uses information they originally have access to. Conversely, for companies where SharePoint permission settings are too broad from the start, fixing that is the priority.
Map of 20 Hand-off Methods
From here, I'll present 20 items, divided into 4 groups.
Meetings and Emails (1-6): Places where you can start today and see effects the fastest.
Excel and Document Creation (7-11): Work involving numbers. The area with the largest potential for time reduction.
Sales and Customer Support (12-15): Integrating Copilot into "business systems." The difficulty level goes up a notch here.
Internal Questions and Systematization (16-20): Replacing tasks where the same questions are asked repeatedly with dedicated AIs. This is the goal for overseas companies.
If you don't have time, just look at 1, 2, and 7. These three will completely change meetings and Excel.
Handing off Meetings and Emails (1-6)
1. Have it summarize the background 3 minutes before a meeting
Until now: Search emails just before a meeting, open past minutes, scroll through Teams, and panic thinking "What did we decide last time?"
Hand-off: Have it summarize relevant emails, meetings, and documents into a background, discussion points, and suggested questions. The prompt at the beginning is this.
Overseas Example: Hargreaves Lansdown uses Copilot for preparation before customer meetings and document creation after. They aim to reduce documentation work from 4 hours to 1 hour, with early estimates showing 2-3 hours saved per week.
2. Stop desperate note-taking during meetings
Until now: Listening, taking notes, and thinking of the next question simultaneously. Doing three things at once, and all end up half-baked.
Hand-off: Have it extract key points, decisions, and next actions from Teams meeting content. The key is to explicitly state "Do not create things not discussed in the meeting."
▼ Copy from here
``text
Please organize this meeting into the following 5 items:
1. Conclusion
2. Decisions made
3. Things not yet decided
4. Who does what
5. Things to do by next time
Do not invent assignees or deadlines not mentioned in the meeting.
Write "Not set" for things not decided.
``
▲ To here
3. Don't stop at minutes; have it write the follow-up email
Hand-off: Entrust this entire flow in one prompt.
``text
Based on this meeting, please organize the following:
1. Decisions
2. Pending items
3. Actions by assignee
4. Deadlines
5. Preparation for next time
Finally, create a follow-up email to participants within 300 characters.
Do not supplement content not in the meeting.
``
Overseas Example: Unifonic in the Middle East has sales reps use Copilot for summaries and task extraction, sending next-step emails immediately after meetings. They report 2-3 hours saved per person per day.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/23690-unifonic-microsoft-365-e5
4. Convert long emails into only "what I need to do"
Hand-off: Instead of a summary, have it output your next action.
``text
Please organize this email thread.
1. What is happening
2. Current discussion points
3. Requests to me
4. Deadlines
5. What I should confirm in the reply
Finally, create a draft reply of about 150 characters.
``
Overseas Example: Zurich Insurance in Switzerland uses it to summarize long threads and create replies. They estimate a reduction of about 14,000 hours the following year.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/23452-zurich-schweiz-microsoft-365-copilot-for-sales
5. Have it summarize the day's work first thing in the morning
``text
Please organize today's schedule and important work related to me.
1. Today's meetings
2. Things to prepare before meetings
3. Important emails requiring a reply
4. Work with approaching deadlines
5. Things to do today
Please prioritize each as High, Medium, or Low.
``
Overseas Example: HELLENiQ ENERGY in Greece has it create a daily briefing from the calendar. 70% of users reported productivity gains.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/24670-helleniq-energy-microsoft-365-copilot
6. Sort "what happened?" after a holiday by importance
``text
Regarding the period I was away from [Date] to [Date], please organize information from emails, Teams, and meetings I can access.
1. Important decisions
2. Requests related to me
3. Things with deadlines
4. Problems occurring
5. Things requiring a reply
Please list them in order of importance.
``
Handing off Excel and Document Creation (7-11)
7. Turn Excel from a "tool for aggregation" to a "tool for thinking"
Hand-off: Specify the order of viewing. This makes a decisive difference.
``text
Please investigate the following regarding this Excel data:
1. Month-over-month change
2. Year-over-year change
3. Items that increased significantly
4. Items that decreased significantly
5. Abnormal values
6. Top 3 good items
7. Bottom 3 bad items
Then, summarize in this order:
Facts → Hypothesis of cause → Data to confirm further → Next action
Show numbers in a way that can be cross-referenced with the source data.
``
8. Don't stop at analysis; have it create the PowerPoint structure
``text
I will explain these analysis results at the management meeting.
Please create a 5-slide PowerPoint structure.
Slide 1: Conclusion Slide 2: Important numbers Slide 3: Significant changes Slide 4: Hypothesis of cause Slide 5: Next steps
For each page, create a title and content. Do not change numbers from the source data.
``
9. Standardize reconciliations and reports that are almost the same every month
Overseas Example: U.S. Venture introduced Copilot for Finance for regular credit card and bank statement reconciliation. They saved over 30 hours a month in the accounting department.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/20600-us-venture-microsoft-365-copilot-for-finance
10. Have it organize long request documents before a human reads them
``text
Please read this RFP (Request for Proposal).
Organize the following by item:
1. Mandatory conditions
2. Deliverables
3. Submission deadline
4. Points likely to be evaluated
5. Missing information
Things we need to prepare
Attach where in the document each item was written. Finally, create a proposal structure draft.
``
Overseas Example: Petrochemical Industries Company in Kuwait shortened RFP-related work from over a week to less than a day.
11. Create a draft for a new proposal from past successful proposals
Overseas Example: Industrialized Construction Group in the US shortened proposal response time by 80% by creating new proposals from past ones and templates.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/23620-icg-microsoft-365-copilot
Handing off Sales and Customer Support (12-15)
12. Hand off from information gathering before a business meeting
``text
Please prepare for the next meeting with Company XX.
1. Current transaction status
2. Issues appearing in past emails
3. Previous promises
4. Things not yet resolved
5. Questions to ask this time
6. Things that could be proposed this time
Write "No information" for items that cannot be confirmed.
``
13. Don't make CRM input a "task to do later"
Hand-off: Stop going to open the CRM; update it from within Outlook and Teams where you always work. Specifically, link email recipients to cases and record meeting notes directly to the CRM using Copilot for Sales.
Overseas Example: KPN in the Netherlands connected Salesforce with Outlook/Teams. 69% of sales reps reported improved proposal quality.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/24202-kpn-microsoft-365-copilot-for-sales
14. Don't classify 100 customer voices with humans alone
``text
Please classify these customer surveys into groups of similar opinions.
For each group, organize the following:
1. Number of cases
2. Representative opinions
3. Whether it's a good or bad opinion
4. Possible causes
5. Improvement measures
Do not delete opinions with few cases; leave them in a separate section.
``
15. Contracts are for "finding differences," not "making judgments"
``text
Please compare this contract with our standard contract.
Classify by clause into:
- Same
- Different
- Missing
For "Different" or "Missing," indicate what is different, the risk on our side, and questions for the person in charge. Do not make final legal judgments. Always show the basis.
``
Overseas Example: Vodafone in the UK uses it this way in the legal department. Users report an average of 4 hours saved per week.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/19346-vodafone-microsoft-365-copilot
Handing off Internal Questions and Systematization (16-20)
16. Have a dedicated AI answer "the same questions" to HR
Overseas Example: Marlabs built an Agent across multiple HR systems, processing about 80% of inquiries and shortening response time by over 60%.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/26644-marlabs-microsoft-365-copilot
17. Eliminate "where is it written?" for newcomers
Overseas Example: Banco Ciudad in Argentina created an Agent to support internal procedures like cards and loans, accessible from Teams. They redirected 2,400 hours annually to high-value work.
18. Make paper manuals searchable in 3 seconds
Overseas Example: At Rumo, a Brazilian railway logistics company, drivers used to carry 4kg of paper manuals. Searching for procedures took over 4 minutes. They created an Agent to search in 3 seconds, saving 7,644 hours annually.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/25656-rumo-microsoft-copilot-studio
19. Turn prompts used more than 3 times a week into an Agent
Overseas Example: State Farm in the US has a system where employees can create Agents. Over 3,000 Agents were created, with 41 passing risk review for production use.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/26947-state-farm-microsoft-power-platform
20. Gather information in one place. If you don't, the other 19 won't work
Overseas Example: Hyundai Glovis in Korea focused on consolidating information into OneDrive and SharePoint, judging that Copilot couldn't be utilized if data remained on local disks.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/25103-hyundai-glovis-microsoft-365
Deciding which work to hand off by score
You don't need to do all 20. Use this formula to decide:
Priority = Frequency + Time Required + Routine Level + Data Readiness - Risk
(Score each 1-5 points)
For example, weekly meeting minutes: Frequency 5, Time 4, Routine 5, Data 5, Risk 1 = Total 18 points. High priority.
6 Common Terms for Company Sharing
If you want to align language within the company, these 6 are enough:
- MTG: Organize meetings into "Decided, Pending, Assignee, Deadline, Next Action."
- MAIL: Turn emails into "Key points, Request, Deadline, Reply draft."
- DOC: Decompose documents into "Summary, Points, Risk, Action, Basis."
- LEGAL: Compare contracts/regulations by "Difference, Risk, Missing, To confirm."
- SALES: Organize customer info into "Status, Previous promise, Issue, Next move."
- DATA: View numbers in order of "Abnormality, Change, Hypothesis, Visualization."
Finally, just one thing to do tomorrow
You don't need to do all 20 from tomorrow. Open your schedule for tomorrow, pick one meeting, and try the first prompt in this article just once. That's enough. If you feel it's more useful than expected, expand to the 2nd (notes) and 7th (Excel).
If you have Copilot but don't know how to use it, it's not an AI problem—it's a work decomposition problem. Instead of asking "What can Copilot do?", ask: "What tedious work takes more than 2 hours every week?" The parts you can hand off to Copilot are usually right there.
