The University of Manchester is a technology and innovation leader. It is currently exploring how generative AI can power its own operations.
The University has rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot to three cohorts of users. It is currently investigating the potential of Copilot for Security.
Academic staff report phenomenal time savings, enabling them to do more for students. Back-office functions also report productivity gains. Enthusiasm is high to develop new use cases.
With the right kind of prompt, the right questions, and the right guiding through the exercise, Copilot can be transformative.
Adam Grant, Associate Director for Applications, Data and Strategy, University of Manchester
Building on its storied history of innovation and excellence, The University of Manchester is working to be at the forefront of AI innovation and application. That’s why it recently deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot to enable 300 users and worked with Microsoft Consulting Services for Education to explore the potential of generative AI to drive efficiency and sustainability across its operations.
“The University of Manchester makes an important contribution to the city and to the UK,” states PJ Hemmaway, Chief Information Officer at The University of Manchester. “It’s really important that we do that in an efficient and sustainable way across research, teaching, and learning. To help us, we partner strategically and work very closely with Microsoft.”
“We use Microsoft for the majority of our workloads. We’re big users of Azure, Microsoft 365, and SharePoint. A lot of information is already in our Microsoft stack, so it makes sense to use Microsoft 365 Copilot to access that data in a secure way and provide a second-to-none experience for our colleagues.”
The first phase of the Copilot rollout was focused on exploring the value Copilot could create across different functions and for different users in the University.
“We have a lot of legacy technology in our estate,” says Adam Grant, Associate Director for Applications, Data and Strategy at The University of Manchester. “But during the pandemic, Microsoft helped us with the rapid adoption of Teams. Since then, Microsoft 365 has become absolutely fundamental to the way the University works. So, when a tool like Microsoft 365 Copilot comes along, which gives us an opportunity to innovate unencumbered by legacy technology, we are really keen to get onboard with it.”
“It was immediately apparent that there’s a lot of power in Copilot,” Adam Grant continues. “For some people, it’s about productivity. For others, it’s a creative tool; enabling them to quickly generate content. For the research community, it offers a different set of functionalities. Understanding where Copilot can drive value in the different types of activity that happen throughout the University was an important first step.”
One innovative application of Microsoft 365 Copilot was identified by Professor of Hybrid Learning and Director of Flexible Learning at The University of Manchester, Simon Thomson.
He says, “We know how important multiple-choice questions are in some subject areas for student learning especially as a formative activity, but I don’t have time to write multiple-choice quizzes all the time. I’ve been using Copilot to construct quizzes of 20 questions with multiple choice answers, including the correct answer and three false answers. Copilot is clever enough that I can instruct Copilot to tailor each one to different learning outcomes, Bloom’s Taxonomies, and study levels. Then Copilot can churn out a multiple-choice quiz in about a minute, saving me hours of work.”
He adds, “An administrative burden exists around a number of tasks our teaching staff undertake. Copilot enables us to expedite those tasks so we can do more things we know are good for student learning but didn’t have the time to do before. Now I could write 20 questions every week and it wouldn’t be a burden to me. That’s really benefitting our students.”
The University team is very keen to encourage users to share their experiences to spread best practice. As a super user amongst the educators included in the first cohort of 120 Microsoft 365 Copilot users, Simon Thomson has identified several compelling Copilot use cases.
He says, “In research, asking Copilot to do early analysis of transcript data to pick out key themes helps us move forward more quickly with that process and means we are able to spend more of our time consolidating and deepening our understanding. Copilot can also support the writing of module syllabuses, the development of curriculum content, and fundamental curriculum design functions as well—those are just some of the really quick examples of how I’ve been using Copilot on a day-to-day basis.”
Simon Thomson is now looking forward to using Copilot Agent to create a customised Copilot so other users across the University can interrogate a hybrid learning framework which he has recently developed.
He says, “It's not about using Copilot to do more work, it's much more about Copilot helping me to do better work."
Tricia Sage is a Programme Management Office Analyst and a member of the strategic change team at The University of Manchester. As part of the first cohort of Microsoft 365 Copilot users, she has brought to life some of the advantages for business support teams.
“Meetings are a heavy administrative burden,” Tricia Sage explains. “When we tested Copilot during an hour-and-a-half meeting with some of the senior leadership, we found that the administrative burden during the meeting was reduced by 98%. There are human checks that need to be completed afterwards but, overall, we calculated a cost saving of 48%.”
Major gains were also identified when using Copilot with SharePoint. Tricia Sage explains, “I’m a prolific user of SharePoint lists. Even with decades of experience, Copilot surprised me. It can help to build a microsystem with great speed and efficiency. It writes me code that I can put into different fields. If there’s anything tricky, I can ask Copilot and it saves me from raising a ticket with support—so my use of Copilot is saving time for our IT team too.”
“You do need to understand the application first in order to ask Copilot to do the things within it you want to do, but Copilot enables your imagination to go wider,” she continues. “I think, ‘Well, if I can do this, can I do that?’ and, usually, Copilot can. I ask and it comes back with an answer. You can use the technology to improve, improve, improve.”
“I think we’ve all had our own individual lightbulb moment where it becomes apparent how powerful Copilot can potentially be as a technology,” says Adam Grant.
“For me, it was producing a capability model and set of principles for a particular area of university activity. It would usually take a good few days—or, potentially, weeks—to work through and validate. Using Copilot, I had a first draft within 15 minutes. With the right kind of prompt, the right questions, and the right guiding through the exercise, Copilot can be transformative.”
The challenge the University is now stepping up to meet is how to facilitate this “lightbulb moment” for every colleague in every part of the University.
“Copilot isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution,” emphasises Paul Gregory, Special Advisor to the CIO, at The University of Manchester. “It’s important to get licences into the hands of as many different job roles and grades as possible to really start to understand the use cases and value. Identify champions who are big supporters of Copilot to get involved in feeding back best practice. And share widely the hints and tips of people who are using it differently every day.”
“Microsoft has helped us explain the security and governance issues internally. It has guided us on best practice and given us real-time insights about what’s happening at other universities. That’s been very helpful,” he adds.
The University of Manchester has invested time and resources to produce and share support materials to help users get the most from their use of Copilot.
Paul Gregory explains, “Our SharePoint site includes access to internal training materials and links to external training. Microsoft has produced some videos for us as well to help set the scene and give guidance on what makes a good prompt. We have a ‘prompt of the week’ on our SharePoint intranet site, which is sometimes academic, sometimes administrative. We’ve set up a Viva Engage community which has attracted questions—and answers—from users across the University. And we’ve had support from Microsoft on some of the questions which might have been more difficult for us to answer.”
Skills development is a key area of focus for the university team, especially around prompt literacy.
“There is a learning curve, because you have to put the right prompts in,” admits Simon Thomson. “Everyone needs to develop prompt literacy. The more precise you can be about what you want Copilot to do, the better the outcome.”
He offers the example, “I could prompt Copilot to give me the learning outcomes for a particular syllabus and that would be okay. But it would be better if I specified that I need six outcomes at study level five with a mixture of active learning, etc. Yes, the prompt takes more time to write, but I get a better result and it’s still a lot quicker than me doing it all myself from scratch.”
To aid prompt literacy, The University of Manchester has given all users access to Copilot in Bing. It is encouraging users to login and use Copilot for quick wins when searching the internet. This way, they can build confidence and competency with Copilot prompting.
98% reduction in the administrative burden
The other challenge for the team has been around data governance. Adam Grant explains, “Data is the lifeblood for the future adoption of this kind of AI tooling. One benefit of our adoption of Copilot is that, to some extent, it is strengthening some of the efforts we’re making around data governance.”
“We have recently readdressed our internal rights and policies. And we’ve been clear with users that if they feel content has been shared inappropriately with them, they need to report it and how we can help them fix it,” he continues. “The great thing about Microsoft 365 is it comes with lots of tools to help us manage data security and data governance.”
PJ Hemmaway agrees, “We’ve invested heavily in our security posture, our Microsoft Security Score is a bit higher than average, and that’s given us some data and risk insights already. As we move forward, we want to explore the potential of Microsoft Copilot for Security to accelerate those security improvements we’re making.”
The first cohort of users gave their initial feedback on six months of use in July 2024. More than half said Copilot is helping in three key ways: by providing instant access to information, reducing the need to search for it manually; by enhancing communication by drafting emails, reports, and more; and improving productivity by taking over some tasks, freeing users to focus on more creative and complex tasks.
However, while the majority are excited by the potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot to improve the way they work, two thirds also said they felt the need for ongoing learning to utilise it properly.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm for AI generally,” reports Adam Grant. “When people think about the possibilities of integrating generative AI with something that’s already powerful, like Microsoft 365, people imagine a kind of eutopia and they want to get on board straight away. We want to harness that enthusiasm and buzz to establish a collaborative, creative community, in which we encourage people to push boundaries and work out how its applicable to their own scenarios.”
With this goal in mind, and based on the positive early feedback, the University is steadily increasing the number of Copilot licences from 120 to 200 then 300, enrolling a second and third cohort of users to explore the possibilities. Paul Gregory warns, “When people share their good use cases and productivity savings, all of a sudden, other areas want licences and it creates a bit of a tidal wave.”
The University has found that, because Copilot is embedded in the apps being used every day, it offers a great experience for users.
“For me, the incredible benefit of Copilot is the way it is fully integrated into the Office 365 environment,” enthuses Simon Thomson. “I’ve got to the point now where I’m not even thinking about the fact I’m using AI. I’m just clicking on the Copilot button in the application I’m using, and it is simply facilitating and supporting the work I already do. I don’t have to go anywhere else and then bring the answer in, Copilot helps me right where I need it.”
Almost all users have reported some productivity gains, although these are varied; they range from 15 minutes per day to more than three hours per day.
Paul Gregory reports, “Through our user feedback, we’ve identified loads of small wins—and they all add up. Saving half an hour with Copilot might not sound like much but, when you look at that over 1,000 people, it’s a big saving.”
When the second cohort fed back in August 2024, the biggest productivity gains proportionally were for users who had a small amount of manual or repetitive tasks. They offloaded 40% of that work to Copilot.
However, this proportion reduced to 18% for those with a significant amount of manual or repetitive tasks (up to 75% of their role). Accompanying qualitative feedback showed that some users were overwhelmed by the possibilities of using Copilot across all their Microsoft 365 apps and emphasised the need for practical prompt suggestions and ongoing learning. The team is actively working to address this feedback.
“We’re getting better at the support we’re putting in place,” admits Paul Gregory. This includes continuing to invest in and promote the dedicated SharePoint site and Viva Community and establishing a Centre of Excellence, as well as continuing to emphasise the need for and build resources for prompt literacy.
Tricia Sage recommends, “I’m a strong advocate of owning your own personal development. Experimenting with Copilot has been worth the investment; I wouldn’t want to go without it now. I think the way Copilot stretches your imagination is great.”
The University’s focus is now on how to build on the learning so far. It plans to significantly expand the number of Microsoft 365 Copilot licences available to users and run similar analyses of the potential of Microsoft Copilot for Security, the customisation capabilities of Copilot Agent for advanced users like Simon Thomson. It is already assessing the potential of Microsoft Copilot in Azure and Azure OpenAI Service for research engineers to quickly set up high-performance compute environments for the University’s research community.
“We get a lot of value from our relationship with Microsoft,” says PJ Hemmaway. “Microsoft Security Copilot is an important part of the strategic investment we’re making. And we’re already purchasing more Microsoft 365 Copilot licences. We’re currently in the process of developing our 2030 strategy and Microsoft Copilot will definitely be part of it.”
As the use cases expand, the team’s approach will continue to emphasise creative thinking and continuous learning—and this will guide communication with and resource creation for the existing and new user base.
“There are almost unlimited possibilities with Microsoft Copilot,” says Adam Grant. “The danger is people think, ‘Alright, that’s how I use this,’ and then they don’t continue to explore. We don’t want people sitting back on their laurels. The challenge now is to encourage people to continue to ask: What else can I use this for?”
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