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Case-ception: How CoPilot Turned Once Case Study Into Another
While this isn't exactly a full case study, it's a bit of one. Many of our clients know Mike, one of our senior technicians - and this is story about his putting together a case study creating another. As many folks know, Mike is a pretty busy guy. He's also been the technician that's led Ridge Support's move into the camera system space. As such he was tasked with putting together a case study about it.
The Problem: Collation and Time Constraints
Of course, Mike is a technician and not a salesman/marketing guy. He faced a situation many people in many industries do: gathering, validating, and synthesizing data scattered across multiple platforms. The pertinent information was siloed in emails, dispersed across Teams conversations, and buried within documents stored on OneDrive and SharePoint. This fragmented ecosystem made it difficult to construct an accurate, comprehensive narrative, and led to slow progress on an item that was sent to the back burner.
The Solution: CoPilot’s AI-Powered Information Management
When the case study was brought back to the forefront of his things to do, he decided to do a test. Ridge Support had been testing out a product many had asked about: CoPilot, Microsoft's AI assistant available in the Microsoft Office Suite. So, he gave it a rather generic prompt to put together items without even giving it a client name. In fact, what he asked it exactly was, "Create a case study showcasing my client's recent camera upgrade project. The case study should follow a problem-solution-result structure, be no more than 800 words."
CoPilot’s automated collation and cross-checking functionality dramatically reduced the time Mike spent searching for information. It acted as an intelligent assistant, highlighting inconsistencies and resolving errors quickly, while presenting a clear project scope and even was able to determine the stakeholders for a client that he hadn't explicitly given it.
Mike's experience revealed a core truth: by delegating the heavy lifting of information management to AI, he was able to complete a task that wasn't exactly in his normal wheelhouse without his normal work supporting customers suffering. Rather than being bogged down by the logistics of data collection, he was empowered to craft a nuanced, insightful case study that served both internal and external audiences.
Conclusion: Embracing the Future of Digital Knowledge Work – With Caution
This case study demonstrates how integrating AI tools like CoPilot into daily workflows redefines what workers can achieve. By breaking down information silos and automating data collation across platforms, CoPilot transforms research from a challenge into an opportunity for creativity and innovation. As digital transformation accelerates, such solutions will become essential in enabling professionals like Michael to produce work that is not only faster, but also richer and more impactful. The resulting draft was about 80% done with only minor errors needing to be cleaned up.
That said, it was a shock to Mike some of the information it was able to pull on it’s own without him needing to tell it specifically or clarify. This once again points to the fact that organizations who are looking to implement CoPilot (and frankly those who aren’t, too) need to be on top of their data access policies and groups – otherwise that data may be accessible to people that it’s not meant to be available to.
As we've noted in previous issues of the Tech Talk News newsletter, it's also important that someone verifies the information included in the result is accurate. While it was not a major problem in this instance, AI hallucinations are a real thing.
If you're interested in learning more about CoPilot and how it might be able to be implemented in your organization, please feel free to reach out to our team and we'll be happy to discuss what would be needed.
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