Most people who have Copilot licenses are not using them to their full potential. This is not a controversial statement. Microsoft’s own adoption data across enterprise customers shows a consistent pattern: initial curiosity, a few weeks of active use, and then a drop-off. The reasons are familiar. People get busy. They forget. They find it cumbersome to stop what they are doing, open a chat window, and type out a prompt that gets them the answer they need.
Voice changes that dynamic. Not in theory, but in measurable ways. Microsoft has reported that users interact with Copilot about twice as often when using voice compared to text-only input. That is a significant shift in engagement, and it has direct implications for how South African organisations approach Copilot adoption.
What Voice Looks Like Today
Voice capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot have expanded across several surfaces over the past few months.
On mobile, voice is available in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on both iOS and Android. Users speak naturally and receive spoken responses that are grounded in their organisational data, including emails, calendar entries, documents, and Teams conversations.
On desktop and web, voice functionality has been extended to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows. Users can start a voice conversation to brainstorm ideas, ask questions about documents, or get contextual answers while working in Word or PowerPoint.
In Outlook mobile, a feature called voice catch-up allows users to get an interactive spoken summary of their unread emails. From there, they can draft replies, flag items, archive messages, and delete emails, all without typing.
On Windows devices, an opt-in wake word called Hey Copilot allows hands-free activation. Once enabled in settings, users can say Hey Copilot and begin a voice conversation without touching the keyboard or mouse. The wake word is processed locally on the device. No audio is recorded or stored. Text transcripts from voice conversations are managed under the same data retention policies as typed conversations in the Copilot app.
Why This Matters for South African Organisations
South Africa has a workforce shaped by hybrid work patterns, long commutes, and infrastructure challenges that make flexibility a necessity rather than a preference. Nearly 63 percent of South African professionals have reported improved productivity when working from home, according to research from the University of Stellenbosch Business School. But that productivity depends on the tools people use and how easily they can access them.
In Johannesburg, a typical one-way commute can take well over an hour. In Cape Town, traffic patterns can add significant dead time to a working day. For employees who are mobile, whether travelling between client sites, commuting, or moving between meetings in an office park, voice lets them stay productive during time that would otherwise be lost.
A project manager walking between meeting rooms in Sandton can say Hey Copilot, summarise the document that Thabo shared this morning and get a spoken response without breaking stride. A sales rep stuck in traffic on the N1 can use voice catch-up in Outlook to triage their inbox before arriving at a client meeting. A finance manager working from home during a period of load shedding can use voice on their phone to draft a response to a budget query without needing their laptop or a stable Wi-Fi connection.
These are not edge cases. They reflect the daily reality of working in South African businesses.
The Engagement Effect
The reason voice doubles engagement is straightforward. It lowers the effort required to interact with Copilot. Typing a prompt requires you to stop, think about how to phrase it, switch to the right window, and type. Speaking requires you to open your mouth. The cognitive load difference is significant, and it shows up in the usage data.
Higher engagement drives familiarity. When someone uses Copilot ten times a day instead of five, they learn what it does well, what it does not do well, and where it fits into their specific workflow. That learning loop is what turns an occasional user into a daily one, and daily users are where the productivity returns come from.
For IT teams and adoption leads, this matters because it provides a lever. If your Copilot adoption numbers are flat and you have not promoted voice capabilities, you have an untapped channel that requires no additional licensing, no new infrastructure, and no complex rollout.
Who Benefits Most
Voice is not equally useful for every role, and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise. It is most effective for people whose work involves frequent context switching, high meeting loads, or time spent away from a desk.
Executives and senior managers who move between meetings and need quick summaries or briefings between sessions. Client-facing staff in consulting, legal, accounting, and sales who spend significant time in transit or at client sites. Operations and facilities managers who are on-site and need to stay connected to office-based workflows. People with accessibility needs who find typing difficult or who prefer audio interaction.
For roles that involve deep focus work at a desk, extended data analysis, or detailed document editing, text-based interaction will remain the primary mode. Voice complements text. It does not replace it.
Building the Habit
The challenge with voice, as with any new interaction pattern, is habit formation. People need to be shown how it works, given a specific reason to try it, and reminded to keep using it.
At Braintree, we recommend starting with a single, practical use case. The most effective one we have seen is meeting preparation. Before their next meeting, a user says Hey Copilot, help me prepare for my 2pm meeting with the Absa team. Copilot pulls context from the calendar invite, recent emails with the attendees, and any shared documents, and delivers a spoken briefing. When someone experiences that once and realises they walked into the meeting more prepared than usual, they tend to do it again.
A second effective entry point is email triage on mobile. The voice catch-up feature in Outlook mobile is fast and intuitive. For people who receive more than 50 emails a day, which is common in South African corporate environments, being able to process their inbox by voice while commuting or between meetings saves meaningful time.
The privacy question also needs to be addressed early and directly. Users will want to know whether Copilot is always listening when Hey Copilot is enabled. The answer is no. The wake word detection runs locally on the device. It activates only when it detects the specific phrase. No ambient audio is captured, recorded, or transmitted. For organisations subject to POPIA obligations, this local processing model aligns with data minimisation principles.
What We See Ahead
Microsoft is continuing to expand voice capabilities across platforms and applications. The trajectory is clear: voice will become a standard interaction mode for Copilot, not a secondary one. Organisations that introduce it now will have a head start in building the habits and workflows that make voice productive.
If your Copilot adoption is stalled and you have not introduced voice to your users, this is the most accessible intervention available. No new spend. No complex configuration. A focused communication and enablement effort over two to three weeks can shift engagement measurably.
Talk to the Braintree team about building a voice-first Copilot adoption plan tailored to your organisation and your people.
