The UK government recently published an evaluation of Microsoft 365 Copilot after running a pilot across 1,000 employees in the Department for Business and Trade. The findings are refreshingly honest—and deeply relevant for founders.
The results show Copilot is very good at what I call the “work hygiene” layer.
Drafting emails, summarising meetings, cleaning up documents—these were faster, easier, and often of higher quality with Copilot. Employees reported high satisfaction:
72% said they were happy with the tool, and many felt its absence when the trial ended.
But when the task demanded nuance or contextual judgement, the cracks showed. Excel analysis was slower and less accurate. PowerPoint decks were created more quickly but to poorer quality, requiring rework.
The conclusion was clear: satisfaction went up, but productivity did not.
For founders, there are three lessons here.
First, AI excels at removing drudgery. That is no small thing. Routine admin has always been a hidden tax on teams. Freeing up even 20 minutes a day compounds into time for deeper work or simply sharper focus. Some pilot users said the time saved let them step away for training—or even a walk at lunch. That matters.
Second, AI amplifies, but it doesn’t substitute judgement. In my own work, I use ChatGPT and Copilot daily. They are brilliant partners for ideation, rewriting, or testing a line of thought. But the final call—the decision that affects people, customers, or strategy—cannot be outsourced. That requires context, empathy, and leadership.
Third, the human multiplier effect. The study found neurodiverse colleagues and non-native English speakers benefitted significantly. This shows that AI’s value is not just in efficiency but in accessibility. As founders, we should recognise this and design adoption in ways that genuinely empower people.
In my book “The Founder Catalyst” [https://mybook.to/foundercatalyst], I argued that leadership is not about doing more, it is about doing what matters. AI gives us breathing space. The question is how we use it. Do we fill the gap with more low-value work, or do we redirect it towards strategy, empathy, and leadership—the places only humans can thrive?
AI today is not a magic productivity machine. It is a capable assistant, still learning.Treat it as such, and it can make your organisation more thoughtful and more resilient. Expect it to replace human judgement, and you will be disappointed.
The full report, “The Evaluation of the M365 Copilot Pilot in the Department for Business and Trade, UK”, is here:
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