Meet the needs of your frontline

 

Whether a sales associate in a store, a machine operator in a manufacturing plant, or a care clinician in a hospital, frontline workers account for over 2.7 billion of the global workforce (Gartner 2022). That’s over twice the number of desk-based workers.

 

They are a vital component of the global economy, and yet face some of the greatest challenges like labor shortages and supply chain issues. This puts pressure on the workforce to deliver the same consistent quality, but faster and with less support.

 

But the frontline is also often faced with a technology landscape of siloed information from paper-based processes, legacy systems and different devices all required to do their work. This adds another pressure to frontline workers, who end up spending more time searching for information than creating value in your business.

 

Golden opportunity for transformation

 

There is a golden opportunity for business leaders to invest in technology that will power their frontline workforce to improve worker productivity, business process efficiency, and employee retention. And a key part of the opportunity to uplevel your frontline workers is by transforming the way they work with next generation AI.

 

An image providing statistics about how next-generation AI is transforming productivity across most workforces.

When we talked to customers, we found that AI can help frontline workers in three main ways: 

1. Answers and guidance in the moment: Enable in-the-moment answers and guidance to find the right information they need to make a decision. 


2. Automate common workflows: Speed up everyday processes like reporting incidents or creating tasks to save workers’ much needed time. 


3. Advise workers on what to focus on: Advise and summarize information, from shift handovers to missed communications, so workers can quickly get up to speed on information they need to do their job informed. 

 

We are excited to show you how you can meet these AI needs on the frontline by easily creating a custom copilot that fits your unique frontline use cases using Copilot Studio or by empowering them with the full, out-of-the-box Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.  

 

Create your copilot, your way, for your frontline–with Copilot Studio

 

 

We are empowering you to easily build your own custom copilot, your way to meet the specific needs of your frontline workers. Whether you create a copilot for a singular purpose, like HR or IT support, or as a comprehensive copilot to meet the various needs of your frontline, you can create the right AI assistant to meet the challenges faced on your frontline. 

 

Answers and guidance in the moment

 

We often hear from customers that their frontline workers are struggling with finding the right information in the moment to make a decision quickly. Many of them search across different resources or hundreds of pages of content to find the right answer. In fact, 62% of frontline workers say they struggle with too much time spent searching for information (Work Trend Index, 2022). This hurts their ability to be effective or respond to customers. Create a copilot connected to the knowledge systems you use today like SharePoint, websites or system of records to equip your frontline with the ability to find the right information, guidance and answers at their fingertips. Now AI is helping your frontline workers get answers quickly, spend less time on operations, and improve customer interactions.

 

An image demonstrating examples of copilot prompts retail frontline workers input on the Microsoft Teams mobile app.

Automate common workflows

 

Many frontline workers are also struggling with having to handle multiple processes and tasks spread across systems.  In fact, data from our Work Trend Index shows that over 60% of frontline workers struggle with repetitive and tedious tasks that take time away from valuable work like providing quality customer service and efficiently fulfilling meaningful components of their work. Create a copilot that automates common workflows like task management with intelligent capabilities to increase execution visibility and smooth task completion. This will enable your team to have more operational visibility into the work that needs to be completed, while also enhancing the ability to execute processes faster.

 

An image demonstrating how copilot can automate common workflows like task management in the Microsoft Teams mobile app.

Advise workers on what to focus on

 

We also know that your frontline workers are often faced with a lot of information and work they need to digest and put into action to create the best customer experience and complete work efficiently. But they are often too overwhelmed with the amount of content they need to take into account and miss crucial information that could personalize how they complete work. Create a copilot that advises and shares pertinent information in the moment so they can focus on delivering their best to your customer or the work at hand. Frontline workers will be able to bring more personalized and relevant information into their interactions with customers as well as their tasks to increase customer satisfaction and upselling of products and services.

 

An image demonstrating how copilot can provide a response that advises and shares pertinent information, such as providing a list of customers with the following prompt: “Do I have visit proposals?”

All of these scenarios can be created today in as fast as a few days using Copilot Studio. 

 

Copilot for Microsoft 365: Your AI assistant at work integrated into the Microsoft 365 apps

 

For frontline workers who work in the Microsoft 365 apps millions of people use every day like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more, you can enable them with an AI assistant at work. We are excited to announce that Copilot for Microsoft 365, which works across your entire universe of data at work and is integrated into the Microsoft 365 apps and the web, will now be available as an add-on to all F SKU licenses. This AI addition will enhance frontline worker and manager productivity by combining powerful large language models with their work content and context to help them deliver at a higher level.

 

With Copilot for Microsoft 365, frontline workers can recap a patient visit or a regional sales call on a Teams meeting with intelligent notes or quickly catch up on any town halls and trainings they miss. They can find information quickly, whether searching for patient and customer information or scouring through manuals, with content across Microsoft 365. And they can use Copilot to draft and edit customer responses in Outlook to improve customer response rate and satisfaction. This means frontline managers and workers will be able to spend less time searching for and cataloguing information, and more time on the work and human interactions that are meaningful to your business.

 

Plus, Microsoft Copilot is built on Microsoft’s trusted and comprehensive approach to enterprise-grade security, privacy, identity, compliance, and responsible AI—so you know it’s enterprise ready.

 

Here’s how you can get started and transform your frontline with AI

 

Whether you want to enable your frontline workforce with a custom copilot, or a Copilot integrated with Microsoft 365 productivity suite, you can transform your frontline today with next generation AI to uplevel their productivity.

 

Here are two ways you can get started:

1. Get started today with Copilot Studio and learn more about how you can transform your business processes with a custom copilot.  


2. Learn more about how Copilot for Microsoft 365 can uplevel the productivity of your frontline workforce. Copilot for Microsoft 365 will be available for Frontline licenses in the coming weeks.

 

We are looking forward to seeing how you transform your frontline workforce with AI.