Microsoft has announced the public preview of Microsoft Copilot for Finance, the new copilot in Microsoft 365, tailored for business functions and to transform modern finance.
The new offering joins Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Service, which are generally available, to offer artificial intelligence (AI)-driven, role-based workflow automation, suggestions, and guided steps in the workflow.
According to the company, Copilot for Finance can save time for finance to take a more strategic role in offering counsel and insights to the business. This can be done by optimising financial tasks, automating workflows, and delivering insights in the flow of work.
The new offering includes Copilot for Microsoft 365, equipping Excel, Outlook, and other widely used productivity apps with workflow and data-specific insights for the finance professional.
Besides, Copilot for Finance uses essential context from existing financial data sources, including traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, like Microsoft Dynamics 365 and SAP, and the Microsoft Graph.
Copilot for Finance improves financial operations by helping financial analysts to quickly undertake a variance analysis in Excel using natural language prompts.
The offering also streamlines the reconciliation process in Excel with automated data structure comparisons and guided troubleshooting.
Furthermore, it offers a complete summary of relevant customer account details in Outlook and allows customers to turn raw data in Excel into presentation-ready visuals and reports.
Microsoft modern finance lead Cory Hrncirik said: “Our finance organisation is just like any other – looking for technology to help us do our work in a more efficient and impactful way – and we’re excited to track our journey as customer zero of Microsoft Copilot for Finance.”