Copilot Is AI Tool Most Used (If Not Loved) by NeuGroup Members

# AI

# Technology

Copilot’s integration with Microsoft tools including Excel and PowerPoint helps explain its usage ranking among AI competitors in NeuGroup polls.

Polls taken at recent NeuGroup sessions revealed that Microsoft Copilot is the primary AI tool used for work at nearly two-thirds (64%) of 40 member companies. OpenAI’s ChatGPT ranked second at 18% while Anthropic’s Claude was named by 10% of respondents. Copilot’s integration into Microsoft 365 tools including Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook is a major factor in its widespread use by treasury teams. And while some NeuGroup members describe Copilot as too elementary and not as advanced or useful as other AI tools, it’s proving beneficial for others. “I really like that Copilot is embedded into the entire M365 platform,” one assistant treasurer in NeuGroup for Technology Transformation recently told a peer in the group’s online community. He said it helps him find documents, emails and chats as well as compare trade finance contracts and guarantees. In a session about treasury transformation, a member of NeuGroup for Mega-Cap Treasurers said, “Everybody on my team is using Copilot for a lot of different things.” She added that “they are trying to find every single possible tool to improve efficiency, and there is a little bit of grassroots of them to sharing how to use Copilot.” Joseph Bertran , NeuGroup’s head of research, shared with members in the aforementioned online community several uses of Copilot mentioned during 2025 peer group meetings:

Competitive analysis and debt covenant comparisons

Querying investment policies, FX and financial risk management materials for treasury-specific answers

Automating tasks instead of writing Python macros

Integrated with Power BI to summarize treasury and forecasting data

Cash forecasting support

Generating weekly recaps from folders/doc repositories

AI-enhanced dashboards

Implementing treasury process automation

Although some NeuGroup members report having access to multiple AI tools, others are limited to either Copilot in Microsoft environments or Gemini (the response of 3% in the polls) at companies using Google Workspace. At the spring meeting of NeuGroup for Growth Tech Treasurers last week, one participant at “a Google shop” said the company’s leaders have decreed “only Gemini and nothing else for now.” A treasurer whose company uses Microsoft said, “We’ve just been told you can’t use any third party, you cannot download, you cannot use a personal cloud or ChatGPT.” He expressed disappointment with PowerPoint presentations made by Copilot. A member with more choice said, “We have Gemini and we are just getting licensing for Claude internally as well. But the interesting thing will be the cost factor—if the cost ends up being a blocker in the future.” In the same vein, at earlier meetings this year, many members praised Claude but some expressed concern about the expense of employing it at scale for the full spectrum of use cases. AI options built in-house—used as the primary AI tool by 5% of members polled—are also on the horizon for some companies. But limited IT resources create a unique set of challenges for the majority that aren’t in the technology sector.