Microsoft Education United Kingdom

University of Manchester

IT Operations Automation · Real-time Analytics · System Migration

The challenge the University is now stepping up to meet is how to facilitate this "lightbulb moment" for every colleague in every part of the University.

"We have a lot of legacy technology in our estate," says Adam Grant, Associate Director for Applications, Data and Strategy at The University of Manchester.
"We use Microsoft for the majority of our workloads. We're big users of Azure Microsoft 365 , and SharePoint . A lot of information is already in our Microsoft stack
Building on its storied history of innovation and excellence, The University of Manchester is working to be at the forefront of AI innovation and application.
One innovative application of Microsoft 365 Copilot was identified by Professor of Hybrid Learning and Director of Flexible Learning at The University of Manchester, Simon Thomson.

Reported impact

Business outcome

The University has rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot to three cohorts of users. It is currently investigating the potential of Copilot for Security.

  • Compliance
  • Cost Reduction
  • Productivity Improvement
  • Risk Reduction

Solution

The challenge the University is now stepping up to meet is how to facilitate this "lightbulb moment" for every colleague in every part of the University. With the right kind of prompt, the right questions, and the right guiding through the exercise, Copilot can be transformative. Adam Grant, Associate Director for Applications, Data and Strategy, University of Manchester Building on its storied history of innovation and excellence, The University of Manchester is working to be at the forefront of AI innovation and application. That's why it recently deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot to enable 300 users and worked with Microsoft Consulting Services for Education to explore the potential of generative AI to drive efficiency and sustainability across its operations. "We use Microsoft for the majority of our workloads. We're big users of Azure Microsoft 365 , and SharePoint .

Data flow

Source content is gathered from the organization's documents and knowledge repositories, Azure OpenAI Service interprets or generates responses from that content, and the resulting answers or assessments are surfaced to employees or citizens through the application workflow.

Solution architecture

3 components · 2 layers
  1. Compute
    • Azure OpenAI Service Runs the large-language-model features for classification, summarization, retrieval, or conversational responses in the solution.
  2. Serving
    • Microsoft 365 Copilot Assists employees inside Microsoft 365 apps with drafting, summarization, analysis, and task execution.
    • Microsoft 365 Provides the collaboration and productivity applications where employees consume the new workflows.

Architecture clues

  • Adam Grant, Associate Director for Applications, Data and Strategy, University of Manchester
  • Azure OpenAI Service: Runs the large-language-model features for classification, summarization, retrieval, or conversational responses in the solution.
  • Building on its storied history of innovation and excellence, The University of Manchester is working to be at the forefront of AI innovation and application.
  • Microsoft 365 Copilot: Assists employees inside Microsoft 365 apps with drafting, summarization, analysis, and task execution.
  • Microsoft 365: Provides the collaboration and productivity applications where employees consume the new workflows.
  • With the right kind of prompt, the right questions, and the right guiding through the exercise, Copilot can be transformative.

Evidence from the source

Adam Grant, Associate Director for Applications, Data and Strategy, University of Manchester
Building on its storied history of innovation and excellence, The University of Manchester is working to be at the forefront of AI innovation and application.
The University has rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot to three cohorts of users. It is currently investigating the potential of Copilot for Security.
The challenge the University is now stepping up to meet is how to facilitate this "lightbulb moment" for every colleague in every part of the University.
With the right kind of prompt, the right questions, and the right guiding through the exercise, Copilot can be transformative.
Transparency Evidence & methodology 81/100 reference value · 89% confidence · 1 source

Review how this reference was scored and trace each normalized claim back to its documented source.

01

Scoring methodology

How scores are calculated

Customer Reference Value measures usefulness as a customer reference. Evidence Confidence measures the quality and traceability of available evidence, not independent verification.

Customer reference value81/100
  • Problem clarity20/20
    Measures whether the customer's operational problem is specific enough to compare.
  • Implementation depth20/25
    Rewards named components, data flow, integrations, and architecture detail.
  • Outcome specificity16/20
    Measures whether the reported benefit is concrete rather than a generic claim.
  • Quantified impact15/25
    1 metric describe measurable impact.
  • Deployment scale10/10
    Rewards evidence of a live or scaled deployment and meaningful integration scope.
Evidence confidence89%
  • Source authority20/25
    The main evidence is an official vendor-published customer story.
  • Claim traceability21/25
    10 of 12 key fields link to a named source.
  • Direct evidence20/20
    5 direct source quotes retained.
  • Date provenance10/10
    The publication date comes from the source page or publisher.
  • Source transparency8/10
    1 source reference document publisher, URL, authority, retrieval, and supported fields.
  • Implementation specificity10/10
    Rewards source-backed components, data flow, quantified impact, and a specific outcome.
02

Traceability

Sources & provenance

Field coverage shows which facts each source supports. Dates are shown only when documented by the source.

  1. Microsoft

    University of Manchester customer story

    First-party
    https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/19241-university-of-manchester-microsoft-copilot
    Source type
    Vendor-published customer story
    Published
    Oct 21, 2024
    Supports
    • Customer
    • Business problem
    • Solution
    • Products
    • Solution components
    • Data flow
    • Integrations
    • technical area
    • use case category
    • Business outcome
    • outcome category
    • Metrics
    • Architecture
    • evidence quotes
    • Publication date

Date evidence

  • Published on source page Oct 21, 2024 · Microsoft · First-party
    Open date source
Not separately sourced Industry, Region, Company size. Treat these normalized attributes as lower-confidence until a dedicated source is added.