Microsoft Copilot vs. AbakusMicrosoft Copilot on its own, or built around your firm.
Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant, built into Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook, Word, Excel, and Teams.
Microsoft Copilot
Abakus
The short answer
Microsoft Copilot is a powerful general-purpose AI. On its own it doesn't know your firm's procedures or which client a question is about, and it can't act inside your tax and practice software. Abakus builds on it with business-grade access, connects it to your firm's data with permissions intact, and adds review steps wherever professional judgment matters.
What Microsoft Copilot does well
- Works inside the apps your team already uses
- Can draw on the Microsoft 365 content each user already has access to
- Covered by Microsoft 365 business admin controls
Where firms hit its limits
- General-purpose: it doesn't know your procedures, checklists, or client history unless someone supplies the context.
- Answers live in a chat window; turning them into filed documents, sent reminders, or updated records is still manual.
- Using client data with consumer AI tools raises privacy and WISP questions that need a business-grade setup to answer.
Microsoft Copilot on its own vs. with Abakus
Microsoft Copilot on its own
Off the shelf, built for every firm
Microsoft Copilot + Abakus
Rules designed around your firm
Knowledge of your firm
General knowledge plus whatever staff provide.
Grounded in your own data, procedures, and documents, with sources cited.
Taking action
Answers in a chat.
Files documents, drafts reminders, and updates records, with review.
Client data
Depends on how each person uses it.
Business-grade setup with no training on your data, scoped to what each user may see.
Checking accuracy
Up to the reader.
Confidence scores, cited sources, and human review steps.
What we build around Microsoft Copilot
Typical automations for firms that use Microsoft Copilot. Each one follows your firm's rules, keeps a human review step where professional judgment matters, and changes in hours when you need something different.
Connections to your tax and practice software, which Copilot can't reach on its own
Workflows that act on answers: file the document, send the reminder, update the record
Firm procedures and checklists organized so answers stay consistent
Review steps before anything reaches a client
Microsoft Copilot: common questions
Is Microsoft Copilot safe for client tax data?
Why not just give the team Microsoft Copilot directly?
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Tax software CompareMicrosoft Copilot is a trademark of Microsoft. Abakus Automations is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft. Product details are summarized from public information and may change.
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