On 20 March 2026, Braintree hosted an exclusive Microsoft Copilot Business Breakfast at The Maslow Hotel in Sandton, bringing together more than 150 C-suite executives, IT decision-makers, and business leaders from across South Africa. The morning event offered a rare opportunity to experience Microsoft Copilot in action — from live demonstrations to frank conversations about AI readiness, governance, and the practical realities of deployment at scale.

Setting the Scene for AI-Powered Work

Guests arrived to a thoughtfully curated environment — round tables set for collaboration, screens showing live Copilot integrations across Microsoft 365, and a palpable energy that comes with standing at the edge of a genuine technological shift. Braintree's CEO opened with a direct challenge to attendees: "The question is no longer whether AI will change how you work. It's whether you'll lead that change or be led by it."

Microsoft's regional team followed with a deep-dive into Copilot's current capabilities — from intelligent meeting summaries and email drafting in Teams and Outlook, to advanced data analysis in Excel and automated slide creation in PowerPoint. What resonated most was the emphasis on Copilot as an assistant that learns the language and priorities of each business, not a one-size-fits-all automation tool.

Conversations That Mattered

The panel discussion was a highlight for many attendees. Three business leaders from the financial services, retail, and logistics sectors shared their early Copilot deployment stories — the wins, the friction points, and the unexpected ways AI had already begun reshaping team workflows. The common thread: organisations that treated Copilot as a change management initiative, not just a software rollout, were seeing measurably better adoption and ROI.

Breakout sessions allowed attendees to get hands-on time with Copilot scenarios relevant to their industries, with Braintree solutions architects on hand to answer the deep-technical questions that rarely make it into vendor presentations. By the time the event wrapped up, the conversation had shifted from "should we adopt AI?" to "how quickly can we do this responsibly?" — which felt like exactly the right place to end up.