Summary: Looking for practical ways to use AI at work to stay organized? In this hands-on review, Worktank executive producer, audio engineer, and creative John McDonald spent a week with Microsoft 365 Copilot to see how it cuts busywork and protects focus time. Below are the five ways Copilot helped him stay on top of email, meetings, and deadlines, plus what he learned about working alongside AI so you can put more hours toward the work you love.
Why Look for New Ways to Use AI at Work?
Like me, you’re probably skeptical about how AI can reduce the churn of everyday tasks like emails, chat, and meetings. I started my weeklong Microsoft 365 Copilot deep dive with openness and curiosity, yet: I was unconvinced AI would live up to the promise of giving me back time to do the work I love: editing, audio post-production, and developing video creative. The good news? It works.
The first thing I learned is that AI isn’t tech you simply switch on like a Roomba. You need to shift how you work and make space for tools like M365 Copilot to help. For example, I typically dive headfirst into email every morning. With Copilot, you have to take a step back from that routine and let it do its job of scanning emails and surfacing priorities for you. Now my morning begins with a fresh perspective, clearly showing what I need to focus on today and what I can hold for later.
I quickly found that Copilot set new, firm boundaries for how I work, and that turned out to be one of the most valuable ways to use AI at work day to day.
How Copilot Works
M365 Copilot is built into the productivity tools you already use every day, like Microsoft Teams. It worked best for me when I let Copilot handle activities in the background so I could focus on recording sessions, creative work, and pressing deadlines.
Copilot pulls content from two sources: my company and the web. What’s brilliant about Copilot inside our ecosystem is that the results are fast, spookily accurate, and well summarized. Before Copilot, it wasn’t unusual for coworkers to interrupt me several times a week asking where to find a presentation or doc. Now they can get there faster through Copilot without having to ask me.
5 Ways to Use AI at Work to Stay Organized
By the end of the week, Copilot helped me improve some bad time-management habits, like constantly jumping between work, email, chat, and meetings. Changing well-worn habits takes time, and I’ve had to be patient with my own growth as I learn to trust how AI can tame the day-to-day crunch. Here are the five ways to use AI at work that helped me get ahead the most.
1. Preview the day and week ahead
As an executive producer, I oversee several projects led by individual producers. Even when I can’t attend every meeting, I need to know every project’s status and any areas of concern. With Copilot, I reviewed a morning summary in Microsoft Teams that rolled up my emails, the meetings on my calendar, and a point of view on what was most pressing versus what could wait. Just starting here oriented me to a new way of working that stuck.
2. Summarize a stack of emails and chats
Because I often run hours-long recording sessions, email threads grow tenfold before I get to them. After a session, I used Copilot to pull the most vital details from the time I was offline. Prompting it with “Summarize emails since 9 a.m.” generated an accurate bulleted list of key info, leading with what it considered most relevant to my day. Copilot also let me copy the list into OneNote so I could track action items in one place.
3. Tame your calendar
My first move on Monday morning was to ask Copilot to preview the week ahead. It quickly listed my key meetings and offered to copy them into my OneNote journal. It also handled follow-up questions like “Is any meeting urgent?” It confirmed none were flagged as urgent, then reminded me to review agendas and check with organizers on whether my presence was actually required.
It’s a little cheeky, but I also asked Copilot, “What meetings can I skip this week?” It suggested skipping a few recurring meetings already covered by members of my team, and it even surfaced the actual invitations in its response so I could open and adjust them right away.
4. Find actions and files by name
With the producers and clients I work with most, things get lost in email and calendars fast. Rather than search through specific emails, invitations, or files, Copilot let me prompt with a “/” and a name. Typing “/Marcy Stringfellow” instantly returned activity and action items related to Marcy, along with relevant documents, presentations, and references like “Marcy Stringfellow in chat.” When I had a specific question like “What was the last email Marcy sent me?” Copilot replied with the date, time, subject line, and even a short summary.
5. Keep a Copilot dashboard open
Copilot is neatly nested inside Microsoft Teams, but as the week went on I started keeping the Copilot dashboard open for easy access. I learned quickly that AI doesn’t come with a user manual, just prompts, and prompts are really all you need to get started. The dashboard organized my day around a few core areas: a “What’s New” view that gives me the latest from a specific person, sorted by email, chat, and files; a way to catch up on meetings with notes, transcripts, and action items; task tracking for what needs to be on my radar; and a “How to” area that works like a supercharged tutorial for anything I need help with, like drafting a proposal or building a workback schedule.
AI Starts with You
If you’re old enough to remember the promise of Ask Jeeves, you’ll start to understand the potential of AI and tools like M365 Copilot. Copilot delivers in ways I never imagined: fast, exact, and relevant to everything I do at work. It keeps me organized, focused, and on track, and it stops me from getting bogged down in the details. The biggest lesson is that the best ways to use AI at work start with you being willing to change your habits and let the tool do its job.
We’re excited to kick off a series on how Worktank integrates AI into our production and broadcast solutions, including tutorials on how we use AI in post-production and more pro tips on how Copilot for Microsoft 365 helps with post-event reporting and analysis. If you’d like to learn how the video production pros at Worktank can help you level up your virtual broadcasts, meetings, and hybrid events, contact us online or give us a call at 877-975-8265.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best ways to use AI at work to stay organized?
Some of the most practical ways to use AI at work include previewing your day and week ahead, summarizing long email and chat threads, managing your calendar, finding files and action items by name, and keeping an AI dashboard open for quick answers. Microsoft 365 Copilot handles all five inside the tools you already use.
What is Microsoft 365 Copilot?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI assistant built into Microsoft 365 apps like Teams, Outlook, Word, and OneNote. It helps summarize content, draft text, surface priorities, and answer questions using both your organization’s information and the web.
Does Copilot work inside Microsoft Teams
Yes. Copilot is integrated directly into Microsoft Teams, so you can summarize chats and meetings, catch up on what you missed, and pull up files and action items without leaving the app.
Where does Copilot get its information
Copilot draws on two sources: your company’s content (such as your emails, chats, files, and meetings) and the web. That combination is what lets it deliver fast, well-summarized answers tailored to your work.
Do I need to know how to code or write complex prompts to use Copilot?
No. Copilot works through plain-language prompts. Simple requests like “Summarize emails since 9 a.m.” or “Is any meeting urgent?” are enough to get started, and you can refine with follow-up questions.
How long does it take to see the benefits of using AI at work?
It varies from person to person, since the biggest hurdle is usually changing long-standing work habits rather than learning the tool itself. Giving Copilot room to scan your inbox and surface priorities, instead of diving straight into email, tends to pay off quickly once the new routine sticks.