Inside Copilot Adoption: What Works, What Doesn’t

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM 👉 Full Show Notes https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/738 Kevin McDonnell, Director of Modern Workplace at Avanade, shares practical insights from the frontlines of AI adoption in enterprise environments. From building habits around Copilot to leveraging agents and notebooks for real productivity gains, this episode is packed with actionable strategies for tech professionals driving applied AI. 🎙️ What you’ll learn Build lasting habits for Copilot adoption across teams Use Copilot Notebooks to centralise and query project knowledge Apply researcher agents for deep context handovers and task tracking Improve document quality with Copilot’s QA and formatting tools Drive change through value measurement and targeted training ✅ Highlights “Companies were paying to be on the preview for Copilot.” “You have that initial excitement… if you don’t build the habit, that will tail off.” “We’ve seen between 45 minutes and an hour a day of time saving.” “People are reinvesting that time into quality.” “I use Copilot to rewrite it, then spend longer on the real minutiae.” “The researcher agent gave me a list of tasks I need to hand over.” “Whiteboard can group ideas into common themes in minutes.” “Copilot Notebooks let me store chats and documents in one place.” “I can ask questions grounded on that notebook’s content.” “Before meetings, I get an audio summary to refresh key points.” “Measure what matters by John Doerr—absolutely fantastic.” “If you bury your head in the sand, you’re going to be left behind.” 🧰 Mentioned Microsoft Copilot – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot Home Assistant – https://www.home-assistant.io Measure What Matters by John Doerr – https://www.whatmatters.com Microsoft MVP YouTube Series - How to Become a Microsoft MVP - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzf0yupPbVkqdRJDPVE4PtTlm6quDhiu7 ✅ Keywords copilot, microsoft 365, avanade, ai adoption, researcher agent, copilot notebooks, whiteboard, viva topics, productivity, document qa, home assistant, inkbird Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption is a Microsoft Press book for leaders and consultants. It shows how to identify high-value use cases, set guardrails, enable champions, and measure impact, so Copilot sticks. Practical frameworks, checklists, and metrics you can use this month. Get the book: https://bit.ly/CopilotAdoption Support the show If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin . Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith