Blog / May 30, 2024

Better together: How Microsoft and Moveworks Copilots complement each other

Dave Uppal, Vice President, Partner Ecosystem

microsoft-copilot-vs-moveworks-featured

The rapid emergence of AI copilots has sparked a whirlwind of excitement and uncertainty. With so many offerings flooding the market, it's understandable to feel overwhelmed and confused. How can copilots help you reach your goals? Are they all the same? Do we really need a copilot for every application?!

The thing is — the future of work hinges on empowering employees with these AI tools. The ever-growing complexity of our digital landscape demands it. The workplace is undergoing a dramatic shift, and your team needs AI to navigate this environment.

However, simply adopting more disparate AI applications and introducing new work frictions isn't the answer. You need to find complementary tools that empower your people to perform better.

Recognizing this challenge, Moveworks and Microsoft have forged a key partnership to deliver a secure, scalable, and robust AI experience to the global workforce. Our story is not about competition but rather about collaboration to deliver AI solutions that enhance employee productivity.

Today, we’ll explore how these two AI copilots can work in harmony. If you're seeking to maximize employee productivity in the age of generative AI, this is essential reading. 

Here's what you'll learn:

  • What AI copilots can do in the modern workplace
  • The strengths of Moveworks and Microsoft Copilots and how they work together
  • The benefits of the Moveworks-Microsoft Partnership for businesses seeking a copilot 
  • Why collaboration is crucial for opening up the full potential of AI copilots.


AI copilots are built to streamline work

Copilot is a generic term for a language-based interface that helps users to manage data and workflows. These interfaces can extend an application's functionality beyond its traditional graphical user interface (GUI). In other words, copilots let you use natural language to interact with your apps in new ways, like using plain language instead of clicking through menus.

While copilots come in many forms — chatbots, assistants, GPTs, AI companions, pair programmers — they all share the goal of making applications more powerful and user-friendly.

Acting as a unified layer across various software platforms, copilots open up dozens of use cases for breaking down the silos of individual applications. With a simple request like “I need to plan a vacation,” a copilot could check your calendar for availability, book paid time off through your HR system, and draft an email to your team informing them of your upcoming absence — all within the same conversational flow. 

In this way, copilots are able to streamline complex workflows, reduce context-switching overhead, and enhance overall productivity. Whether you need to analyze data, generate reports, schedule meetings, or collaborate on documents, copilots serve as partners, understanding your needs and then guiding you through the necessary next steps.

Moveworks Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot are complementary

The rise of copilots has brought exciting possibilities for boosting workplace efficiency. Two solutions, Moveworks Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot, offer valuable functionalities, though they excel in different areas. 

Let's explore their strengths to understand how they can work together to create a powerful, complementary system for maximizing your team's productivity.

Moveworks Copilot finds information and automates tasks across all your business systems

Work today is full of friction. Employees often lose valuable time due to data sprawl across hundreds of different applications, each with its own data, workflows, and user interface. 

The Moveworks Copilot unblocks employees by acting as a universal AI copilot for search and automation across all enterprise applications.

Think of the Moveworks Copilot as your personal guide through the labyrinth of enterprise software. Leveraging layers of large language models (LLMs) and a powerful Reasoning Engine, it understands your questions and requests and takes action, whether you need to troubleshoot a program glitch, reset a password, or locate information buried deep within another system.

For instance, a simple comment like “My video keeps freezing on Teams calls” could prompt the Moveworks Copilot to diagnose the issue and walk you through troubleshooting steps across applications. It can even automate a resolution on your behalf — conversationally.

Moveworks Copilot alleviates workplace friction by:

  • Understanding natural language requests 
  • Providing instant answers, eliminating the need for help desk tickets
  • Automating complex, multi-step tasks across various tools
  • Finding information hidden across dozens of applications
  • Proactively resolving IT, HR, and other enterprise-wide issues before they become disruptions

Moveworks sets itself apart by offering a copilot that solves the employee support problem holistically. While other solutions may only address parts of the challenge, be difficult to build and scale, enhance only a single application, or be limited to information retrieval, the Moveworks Copilot is more comprehensive.

In fact, we consider all applications as first-class citizens, with native connectors enabling rapid configuration and deep integration. This architectural approach, combined with our innovative Reasoning Engine, allows the Moveworks Copilot to understand user goals, plan accordingly, and execute automated actions across application boundaries.

By serving as a unified automation layer, Moveworks Copilot keeps everyone focused on their core responsibilities — rather than getting bogged down by technical hurdles or information gaps.

Microsoft Copilot enhances productivity within the M365 ecosystem

Complementing the Moveworks Copilot's enterprise-wide reach, the Copilot for Microsoft 365 is tailored to enhance the experience within the M365 ecosystem. Commonly referred to as the Microsoft Copilot, it acts as your creative partner, helping you get the most out of applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more.

Imagine drafting a report in Word and having Microsoft Copilot suggest an outline or even generate initial text based on your prompt. Or perhaps you're building a presentation in Powerpoint — Microsoft Copilot can lend a hand with slide creation, content organization, and insightful suggestions.

Microsoft Copilot elevates your Microsoft 365 experience by:

  • Streamlining content creation from summarizing reports to mocking up slides to drafting emails
  • Providing context-aware recommendations for research, analysis, and more
  • Offering intelligent writing assistance to enhance your productivity

Like the Moveworks Copilot, Microsoft Copilot leverages large language models like GPT-4, integrating them with Microsoft Graph data and the suite of productivity apps to serve as an AI-powered assistant that enhances creativity and skills within familiar M365 tools. It harnesses advanced AI algorithms designed for understanding, summarizing, predicting, and generating content to elevate everyday workflows.

While tailored for Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot is not limited solely to the Microsoft ecosystem. It introduces API plugins that add custom functionality by connecting third-party application data to Copilot. With API plugins, users can connect the Copilot to real-time information from systems outside of Microsoft. Once this external data is pulled in, users can interact with it naturally and leverage it to run a wider range of actions beyond the M365 suite.

TL;DR: Moveworks and Microsoft work better together

Moveworks Copilot and Microsoft Copilot take distinct yet complementary approaches to addressing employee needs, rooted in a deep understanding of the challenges faced in modern workplaces:

  • Moveworks Copilot: Focuses on reducing employee friction caused by data sprawl across multiple applications. Moveworks was built on the idea of bringing disparate enterprise data together into one ecosystem-agnostic Copilot, which can natively integrate with hundreds of enterprise tools, enabling users to interact with real-time data quickly and easily, while also allowing customers to leverage Creator Studio and integrate with any system that supports APIs for more custom use cases.
  • Microsoft Copilot: Enhances the user experience within the Microsoft 365 suite. It excels at assisting users with creative tasks and streamlining workflows specifically for M365 applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) and can pull data from third party applications with their new API plugins

This is all to say that while Moveworks Copilot tackles enterprise-wide task automation and resolution, Microsoft Copilot focuses on upleveling your Microsoft 365 workflows. Together, they offer a powerful one-two punch, addressing the diverse needs of modern enterprises and empowering you to work smarter, not harder.

Major companies like Toyota, Equinix, Honeywell, and Coca-Cola Consolidated have already seen the benefits of using both Moveworks and Microsoft's AI copilots in tandem. From seamless Microsoft 365 content creation to automated cross-platform workflows, these industry leaders are driving productivity while delivering exceptional employee experiences.

The Moveworks-Microsoft partnership elevates AI’s impact

The complementary strengths of Moveworks Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are amplified by a multi-year partnership between the two companies. This powerful collaboration combines Moveworks' expertise in delivering delightful, AI-driven employee experiences with the scalability, security, and innovation of Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.

The synergy between these leaders translates into seamless Microsoft Teams integration, access to the latest generative AI for building tailored solutions, and enhanced employee productivity by automating low-value tasks. 

Ultimately, it's the customers who emerge as the biggest winners from this collaboration. For existing, joint Microsoft-Moveworks customers, existing Azure Consumption Commitments can be applied towards Moveworks Copilot purchases, providing a cost-effective path to implementing this transformative technology.

By uniting best-in-class technologies and commitments to customer success, this collaboration promises to elevate your organization's productivity, efficiency, and competitive edge to new heights in the era of enterprise AI.

The future of copilots relies on specialized, integrated solutions

The combined strengths of the Moveworks Copilot and Microsoft Copilot highlight a compelling truth — the future of generative AI in the workplace will involve multiple specialized solutions working in concert, not a single platform.

By focusing on their respective strengths, Moveworks' expertise in automating enterprise-wide workflows through natural conversations, and Microsoft's powerful AI capabilities within the M365 ecosystem, these two copilots provide immense value as an integrated solution.

This collaborative approach unlocks new levels of productivity that neither copilot could achieve alone. Employees benefit from the best of both worlds. Think of it like a win-win-win scenario.

To paraphrase Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, “The future AI landscape will involve multiple, specialized workloads, not just one dominant solution.” This philosophy aligns perfectly with Moveworks' mission to provide delightful, AI-driven experiences that empower employees enterprise-wide.

It's this spirit of partnership that will unlock generative AI's full potential to change how we work. As capabilities evolve, the most innovative, integrated solutions will continue emerging from companies willing to openly collaborate in service of the modern workforce's needs.

Envisioning an integrated future for workplace AI

Drafting a presentation aided by Microsoft Copilot, then effortlessly handing off to Moveworks Copilot to pull real-time data visualizations from across your business systems, finally looping back for polished delivery — this flow is possible within one fluid, conversational experience.

This interplay of AI copilots represents the future we're actively bringing to life. Innovations are accelerating capabilities, while the partnership between industry leaders like Microsoft and Moveworks manifests an open ecosystem approach. By embracing specialization over siloed competition, they are unlocking transformative AI experiences tailored to the multi-faceted needs of today's workforce.

Looking ahead, we'll see this trend of complementary copilots only accelerate as customer needs expand. It's an inspiring vision that's quickly becoming reality as innovators choose cooperation over competition to better serve modern employees. This open AI ecosystem is taking shape, powered by those who are most eager to join forces for everyone's benefit.


Moveworks’ generative AI can supercharge your workforce's productivity. Get a demo.

Table of contents


Subscribe to our Insights blog