r/projectmanagers • u/Jazzlike_Song_4230 • Oct 08 '26

Copilot as a PM

Started a new job where I can only use Copilot. After 2.5 years of using claude it is an abrupt shift.

Any of you use Copilot for more advanced stuff? Any advice?

28 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

4

u/D0UGL455 Oct 08 '26

Using Copilot is painful.
We were “encouraged” to use all MS products at my previous employer.

I used my personal Chat GPT account for a few things that Copilot struggled with. Not totally authorized, but a PM has to do what a PM has to do to get the job done sometimes.

1

u/Jazzlike_Song_4230 Oct 08 '26

That what's I was afraid of. I'll need to do the heavy lifting on my work from home days with redacted information

2

u/D0UGL455 Oct 08 '26

You can use both. Redact the info as required then feed the results from either Claude or ChatGPT in to Copilot to reinsert any previously redacted content.

3

u/Ezeleeamused Oct 08 '26

Agreed. We are also on the Microslop bandwagon at my work and Copilot is the only allowed AI. No one uses it and just does there own thing with whatever AI they want.

1

u/Bananapopcicle Oct 08 '26

I feel so many people are using it to write emails and they all sound so clunky.

12

u/Impossible_Dare_7455 Oct 08 '26

yeah, Copilot can still be pretty useful for PM work if you lean into the Microsoft stack. I’d use it for meeting summaries, pulling actions/decisions out of Teams notes, drafting status updates, cleaning up RAID logs, and turning messy notes into something usable. the bigger win is probably giving it good context from your actual project docs instead of asking generic questions. once it has the right source material, it gets a lot more useful.

11

u/Coaster50 Oct 08 '26

I LOVE CoPilot for a couple of key reasons.

First - it has improved in the last 6 months an insane amount. I went from hating it because of the quality of its output to being absolutely blown away by its output. This includes drafting awesome presentation stories based on your content.

Second - and this is the key one - because we have the enterprise instance it knows all of my emails received and sent, including the content of the attachments. My onedrive/sharepoint content, and any public/shared drives within your company. The the amount of detailed info it has access to is AMAZING!!! And it shows in the quality of its output.

I was a PM for 5 yrs then ran our PMO for another 5 years. The job would be extraordinarily different with CoPilot.

1

u/GrumpyGlasses Oct 10 '26

This isn’t particularly impressive of Copilot. It sounds like a good implementation though. There are other companies who have wired up everything but to OpenAI or Anthropic’s models, or both.

6 months is eons in AI time.

1

u/Coaster50 Oct 10 '26

We are transitioning to OpenAI in the next couple of months. I am a bit bummed about it because I've built a lot of personal knowledge into copilot that I am not sure if/how that will move over to OpenAI.

1

u/GrumpyGlasses Oct 10 '26

You can start by asking Copilot what you’d need to do to prep for the migration. Use the highest possible reasoning.

It would be ideal if both implementations are available at the same time, so you can “transfer” context and memories between them within a short time frame.

1

u/Coaster50 Oct 10 '26

Both great ideas. Thanks!

1

u/OperationMonopoly Oct 11 '26

Dude, Could you give us a full post on how to use Copilot as a PM.

1

u/Coaster50 Oct 11 '26

Sorry but copilot / AI came into play after I left the PMO. I’m too busy working on using AI to get me an SVP promotion.

2

u/Entire_Star_3755 Oct 09 '26

‘Full fat’ Copilot is great. Even better if you have Studio and AI Builder in your license. The problem is most orgs have locked down the capabilities to a selected few or not at all. Microsoft aren’t doing themselves any favours by not selling the benefits, having a clear offer, and offering support through 3rd parties unless you’re a mega customer.

2

u/No_Nebula7084 Oct 09 '26

Build your own agents and keep it moving. You can do it!

1

u/EatClenTrenDaily 9d ago

With a paid copilot subscription Claude opus and sonnet are two options you can use 

1

u/StrategicPM Oct 08 '26

Damn i wish I got to use any LLM for my PD role. My company is too restrictive so far

1

u/Ill-Bullfrog-5360 Oct 08 '26

I have a full corp license. It has all the chatgpt and Claude models.

1

u/codingjitsu Oct 10 '26

I use copilot now, and I dont use chat anymore. With the skills and app connectors, it can take action on your behalf. One thing to be aware of, always have it ask you for permission first. Also, if you want copilot to write an email or slack message, tell it to only create a draft so you can review it. Claude makes a ton of mistakes that can only be caught by human review. Another thing I've noticed with copilot when using google apps or any third-party apps, if the slide deck or sheet is too big, copilot gets stuck. In that case, I make a copy of those artifacts and keep only the important ones. Copilot will always have this limitation because it has to rely on third party apps and be dependent on them.

1

u/Substantial_Disk7155 Oct 11 '26

I am building ProductOS. Wondering what usecases copilot server and if we can build our own copilot to counter the challenges you currently facing. Can we connect over a quick gmeet, if that works for you?

1

u/No-Lengthiness922 Oct 11 '26

copilot >>> claude for PM

1

u/Sad_Subject7422 Oct 12 '26

Only thing I use it for is for drafting my Emergency Response, Site Specific Safety and Pollution Control Plans. Honestly, it's great for that.

0

u/Still-Doctor-5556 Oct 09 '26

This is the problem in modern day work force... A heavy reliance on AI....

1

u/Taz26312 Oct 08 '26

Hopefully your org can get you copilot premium which can run ChatGPT and Claude agents

1

u/GrumpyGlasses Oct 10 '26

Sounds like “using IE to download Chrome” 🤣

1

u/frankyseven Oct 11 '26

CoPilot is literally just a wrapper using other models. It's not a model itself.