University of Manchester

When the University of Manchester became the first university in the world to provide Microsoft 365 Copilot to all students and staff, they had three main goals: equip students with skills for future employment, strengthen teaching and research, and address the emerging digital divide through equitable access to AI.

They knew that to achieve this, they had to do more than just deploy licences: they had to boost staff and student confidence in using it.

Working together with Microsoft, Hable joined the project to not just boost this confidence through training, but to drive widespread Copilot adoption across the university. That approach led to a 75-percentage point increase in confidence, with the proportion of people rating themselves as “confident” or “very confident” in using M365 Copilot rising from 19% to 94%.

In over 200 years of university history, I genuinely believe what the UoM team, Hable, and Microsoft are building together is one of the most comprehensive technology learning programmes this institution has ever seen.

- Paul Gregory, Programme Director, University of Manchester

The programme began with a series of on-site engagement days delivered between Microsoft and Hable to shape the ACM approach, by building a deeper understanding of how teams were working, how they felt about AI, and where the key opportunities and concerns lay. At the same time, our in-house Creative Communications team ran Comms Discovery Workshops to map how information was already shared across the university, identify the most trusted channels, and pinpoint where engagement was strongest.

After gaining these insights, we designed and delivered a full internal communications campaign to different audiences across the university to build awareness, clarity, and excitement around Copilot. The focus was around helping people understand not just what Copilot is, but what it really means for them; brought to life through a range of engaging assets, including animated videos, one-pager myth-busters, posters and other designed materials. Recognising the growing importance of in-person engagement, on-site days were also planned to give university staff and students the opportunity to see Copilot in context, ask questions, and build confidence in a supportive environment.

Learning was introduced alongside this communications activity, with role-based and persona-specific learning pathways developed (Professional Services, Teaching & Research) for better relevance and practical application. This led to highly relevant learning sessions, designed around real use cases, covering everything from getting started with Copilot and writing effective prompts through to applying it in meetings, presentations, and other everyday tasks. To reinforce this and support self-serve learning, we created a suite of handy bitesize video content, allowing people to revisit information and continue building their confidence over time.

In phase one, our learning approach reached almost 3,000 attendees across nearly 50 sessions, with an average satisfaction score of 4.6 out of 5. However, the true impact of the programme was measured by the shift in how people felt about using Copilot: confidence in using M365 Copilot grew from 19% of participants rating themselves “confident/very confident” to 94% of participants. That’s a 75-percentage point shift.

This engagement between Hable, Microsoft and University of Manchester demonstrates what can happen when people are given the context, the support, and the confidence to integrate new technologies into their work in a way that feels natural and valuable.

For the University of Manchester, Copilot was not just deployed, but was embedded in a way that empowered people to start using it with confidence in their day-to-day roles, setting the stage for longer-term impact and adoption.