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Microsoft’s AI Copilot in aec360
How Microsoft’s AI Copilot, built into aec360, is helping AEC firms simplify work, speed up decisions, and unlock new value across every team.
AI is no longer an experiment for AEC firms - it’s quickly becoming essential. But while most firms start with generic, out-of-the-box tools, those only scratch the surface of what’s possible.
The real opportunity lies in using tools that reflect how your firm actually works: your data, your documents, your processes. With Microsoft Copilot Studio and the Microsoft Fabric data platform, architecture, engineering, and construction firms can create tailored Copilots that streamline workflows, surface insights, and solve real business problems – all without forcing teams to adapt to a one-size-fits-all approach.
Copilot in Business Development
Business development teams waste too much time chasing down information instead of advancing pursuits. Copilot changes that by surfacing the insights they need, fast, and removing manual tasks that slow momentum.
Microsoft’s AI Copilot in the aec360 CRM module can help business development teams be more productive in their daily work, including:
- Get a real-time summary of key pursuits, complete with value, stage, owner, and close date.
- Instantly spot what’s changed on a pursuit - no digging required.
- Summarize client accounts, active projects, and upcoming meetings in one click.
- Pull background on meeting attendees and get talking points based on past interactions.
- Draft client emails or pursuit updates faster, with AI-generated suggestions tailored to the context.
- Review and act on opportunities without leaving Outlook, Teams, or Dynamics 365.
Copilot in Marketing
Marketing professionals must continually monitor shifting client dynamics while at the same time generating compelling and targeted content that can help unlock new business opportunities. Microsoft Copilot infuses generative AI capabilities into Dynamics 365 Marketing to help marketers:
- Conduct Go/No Go and risk analysis of all RFPs.
- Draft technical and non-technical proposal content based on the previous submissions, project reports, and even timesheets.
- Quickly discover insights about your client base by asking questions using natural language processing.
- Generate segmented marketing lists simply by describing the target market in your own words.
- Accelerate the creation of marketing content and emails through AI-generated content ideas.
Copilot in Project Operations
Project Managers (PMs) are consistently pressed for time and under pressure to meet client deadlines. Copilot saves PMs time spent on chasing down information by delivering real-time insights, drafting project updates, and identifying risks - before they become problems.
Within Dynamics 365, Copilot acts like a digital project coordinator. It pulls together financials, schedules, and task updates and presents them in a format that’s clear, actionable, and always current.
Here’s how project managers are using Copilot to take control of delivery:
- Generate internal-facing project status reports instantly: complete with summaries, financials, open tasks, and budget insights.
- Identify project risks early using AI-powered assessments that flag issues like scheduling delays or budget overruns.
- Get mitigation plans automatically assigned to team members with clear next steps.
- Edit or approve Copilot-drafted status narratives and financial summaries with a single click.
- Automate routine updates so project teams spend more time on strategy, not spreadsheets.
Copilot helps project leaders stay proactive—so they can deliver with confidence, not chaos.
Copilot AI in Finance
For finance teams, every hour spent chasing invoices, formatting reminders, or checking compliance is time lost. Copilot helps finance leaders shift their focus from manual work to financial insight.
Built into Dynamics 365, Copilot analyzes payables, receivables, and vendor data in real time, then presents clear summaries, flags anomalies, and even drafts outreach emails, all without switching tools. Here’s how finance teams are using Copilot to gain efficiency and visibility:
- Summarize AR activity instantly, highlighting overdue balances, last payments, and invoice trends.
- Draft and personalize collections emails—complete with invoice attachments—in seconds.
- Flag invoice or payment discrepancies, like matching errors or unusual delays.
- Review vendor activity and identify outstanding POs or issues without combing through records.
- Accelerate time and expense approvals with AI-powered rules that interpret your policy language and flag exceptions automatically.
Copilot reduces the friction of finance workflows so your team can shift from reactive cleanup to proactive decision-making.
Copilot AI in Power Platform
As many AEC firms adopt Microsoft Power Platform technologies such as Power BI for analytics and Power Apps for low-code/no-code development, new Copilot generative AI features can help accelerate the creation of advanced analytics and custom applications through:
- Auto-generating Power BI visualizations by simply describing in your own words the visuals and insights you’re looking for
- Creating narrative-based analysis summaries and asking questions about your data in conversational language
- Building Power Apps, and the data models behind them, by describing what you need through steps of conversation
Copilot QuickStart for AEC Firms
Talk to HSO about leveraging Copilot to take your AEC firm to the next level
With the integration of Copilot and other AI capabilities into Dynamics 365, aec360 is more powerful than ever. Discover better ways to save your employees time so that they can focus on finding and winning more work and delivering better projects with our 30-Minute Copilot QuickStart.
During this 30-Minute Complimentary Engagement with our experts will:
• Deeper dive into industry-specific use cases
• Considerations regarding data and security
• Industry-specific cloud services
• Introduction to Copilot POC to get your firm started with your first custom Copilot