A UK government department’s three-month trial of Microsoft’s M365 Copilot has revealed no discernible gain in productivity – speeding up some tasks yet making others slower due to lower quality outputs.

The Department for Business and Trade received 1,000 licenses for use between October and December 2024, with the majority of these allocated to volunteers and 30 percent to randomly selected participants. Some 300 of these people consented to their data being analyzed.

An evaluation of time savings, quality assurance, and productivity was then calculated in the assessment.

Overall, 72 percent of users were satisfied or very satisfied with their digital assistant and voiced disappointment when the test ended. However, the reality of productivity gains was more nuanced than Microsoft’s marketing materials might suggest.

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