Copilot Analyst: Fast Data Insights with AI

What is the Copilot Analyst?

The Copilot Analyst is a specialized AI agent within Microsoft 365 Copilot designed to analyze data, identify patterns, and derive actionable insights. It’s aimed at business users who want to prepare data-driven decisions without needing deep technical expertise.

What can the Analyst do?

Analyze data from Excel, CSV, databases, or cloud files
Detect trends, outliers, and statistical patterns
Create clear, visualized reports
Save time in data consolidation and interpretation

Use cases for the analysis agent:

Sales analyses (e.g., revenue comparison by region and quarter)
Product evaluations (e.g., top performers by customer retention)
Survey analysis and deriving actionable recommendations
Creating presentations with data-driven insights

But how well does it actually work in practice? Our tests show: the Copilot Analyst Agent has great potential — but also clear limits.

Function 1

Visualizing survey results

Our observations:

With simple prompts, Copilot stays on a descriptive level: it describes charts and summarizes obvious findings (e.g., “59% use the product regularly or occasionally”).
With more complex prompts, Copilot starts placing data in an analytical context: it suggests workflows, explains differences between image and table data, and points out risks like errors from scanned documents.
The Analyst Agent goes significantly further than regular Copilot Chat: it structures responses, identifies methodological weaknesses, and assesses the validity of visualizations.

Function 2

Generating recommendations from survey data

Our observations:

With simple prompts, Copilot delivers generic suggestions (e.g., “improve navigation,” “optimize chat”).
With more complex prompts, it formulates concrete, measurable goals (e.g., “Increase satisfaction by 20% within 3 months”) and identifies statistical relationships such as correlations or biases.
The Analyst Agent structures responses, prioritizes action areas, and even integrates external benchmarks.

Strengths:

Quickly generates actionable ideas
Can prioritize and define measurable goals when prompted well

Weaknesses:

Sometimes superficial or off-target responses
Limited statistical validity with small or faulty datasets

Business impact:

Very helpful for workshops, strategy development, and roadmaps
Results must be validated by human expertise

Function 3

Creating presentations

Our observations:

With simple prompts, Copilot creates plain, unstructured presentations with generic content.
With complex prompts, the quality improves dramatically: the output includes storylines, design suggestions, charts, and interactive elements.
Compared to standard Copilot Chat, the Analyst Agent focuses more on storytelling and audience-specific presentation design.

Overall conclusion

Copilot Analyst is a powerful assistant – if used correctly

Our tests reveal a clear pattern: the quality of the prompt determines the quality of the output.

The Analyst Agent stands out from normal Copilot Chat with greater structure, depth, and business relevance. It recognizes risks, integrates benchmarks, and provides prioritized recommendations — assuming the data is clean and the question is precise.

Important:
Copilot Analyst is not a replacement for human analytical expertise. It delivers valuable impulses, saves time, and adds structure — but final interpretation and decisions must remain human.