Accenture rolls out microsoft 365 copilot to 7.4 lakh employees, reports major productivity gains

New Delhi [India], April 28 (ANI): Global professional services firm Accenture is rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot across its workforce of about 7.43 lakh employees marking one of the largest enterprise deployments of generative AI to date, according to a report by Microsoft Source.

The company said the large-scale deployment of Copilot is already showing significant productivity gains, with 97 per cent of employees reporting that routine tasks can be completed up to 15 times faster, while 53 per cent noted notable improvements in efficiency.

Accenture began its Copilot journey in 2023 with a pilot involving a few hundred senior leaders before scaling it up in phases to tens of thousands of users and eventually the broader workforce. The rollout was supported by a structured adoption strategy focusing on data governance, training, and real-time feedback on how employees used the tool across applications such as Outlook, Teams and Word.

Copilot is a personal digital colleague," says Tony Leraris, Accenture's chief information officer. "It changes the way our people work, the way they research, ideate, analyze and execute many daily activities."

The company adopted a people-first approach to implementation, combining leadership training, group sessions and internal knowledge-sharing platforms to drive adoption. Tailored communication for different roles was also key to ensuring effective usage across departments.

Within Accenture's marketing and communications teams, Copilot is being used to draft, edit and align content with brand guidelines, while also helping reduce duplication and improve consistency across global teams. The tool has enabled employees, including those in non-technical roles, to take on more complex tasks and experiment with new workflows.

The deployment also extends to client-facing operations. At Avanade, AI-powered tools built on Copilot are helping sales teams generate insights faster, with early data showing a 43 per cent increase in sales opportunities among active users.

Accenture emphasised that the success of such AI initiatives depends not just on technology adoption but on investing in people and enabling them to effectively integrate these tools into their daily workflows. (ANI)