Illustration created with Copilot. 

American University staff, faculty, and students can take advantage of a free artificial intelligence-powered assistant to streamline everyday tasks and save time. 

Copilot Chat, a part of the university’s Microsoft 365 enterprise package, is a secure tool available to all AU community members. 

When prompted to describe its own usefulness, the “AI companion” replied: “I help you think, create, and get things done—but in a way that feels more like having a sharp, curious partner than using a tool.” 

“For the AU community, Copilot Chat can improve productivity by helping draft communications, summarize information, organize ideas, and support routine writing and research tasks more efficiently,” said Jackie Palumbo and James Purchase, members of the Office of Information Technology’s (OIT) change enablement team. 

Below, three AU staff members share how Copilot has become an important part of their workflows. 

Thought Partner

Copilot helps Tameika Scott draft and refine emails, memos, advisory notes, and executive summaries “at nearly warp speed.” 

“Copilot significantly reduces the time it takes to get from a rough idea to a polished, usable draft,” said Scott, the senior director of employee and labor relations in the Office of Human Resources.

Scott uses the tool multiple times a day for specific, targeted tasks. This frees up her schedule to focus on other higher-level responsibilities that technology can’t replicate, such as strategic decision-making and risk analysis. 

Virtual Assistant

Sadea Ramsay, director of digital communication strategy in University Communications and Marketing, relies on Copilot to quickly pull together background information on internal projects. 

Copilot has also proven to be a major time saver by automating repetitive website work and assisting with video scripts. The tool can estimate the length and pacing of voiceover work, flag words that might trip up a narrator, and even generate phonetic spellings. 

Overall, Copilot “helps speed up smaller but time-consuming tasks,” Ramsay said. “Saving 10 to 20 minutes here and there adds up pretty quickly.”

Across all use cases, Ramsay emphasized that maximizing the tool requires an initial investment of effort. “Getting Copilot—or other generative AI tools—to work for you requires some time to make sure it understands what you need through careful prompting,” she said. 

Study Partner

Copilot was a major asset for Ella Appiah, Kogod/MS ’25, who used it to cross-reference her work while completing her master’s degree in data analytics. 

In her business analytics and predictive analytics classes, she often worked through complex problems on her own first, then compared her reasoning against solutions suggested by Copilot and ChatGPT.

“I noticed that Copilot sometimes provided more contextually accurate answers for analytics-specific questions,” said Appiah, who now works as an IT project coordinator in OIT.

Beyond helping her refine her coursework, Copilot proved useful for summarizing lengthy research articles uploaded into the chat and organizing ideas at the start of class projects, saving “a lot of time in the planning stages.” 

Getting Started

AU faculty and staff who want to explore Copilot can access the tool directly through the Microsoft Teams app or by visiting the Copilot webpage.

To learn more about how the tool works and how it can add value to your daily workflow, explore the knowledge articles compiled by OIT.

When using Copilot, all members of the AU community should adhere to the University Guidance on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence.