NetDocuments yesterday (22 May) unveiled an integration with Microsoft Copilot, as Microsoft’s Build 2024 developers conference continues to drive new announcements.
From directly inside Copilot and using the NetDocuments Copilot extension, lawyers can find documents and information using natural language requests. Examples given by NetDocuments include a user pulling up a list of recent documents edited by a colleague, or contracts drafted for a client, without leaving Microsoft 365 applications like Outlook, Teams, and the Microsoft 365 app.
Srini Raghavan, vice president of Microsoft Teams ecosystem, said: “NetDocuments’ new integration extends the capabilities of Microsoft Copilot to deliver users a seamless interaction between Copilot and the NetDocuments platform right within Microsoft Teams, improving productivity and collaboration.”
At Hogan Lovells, global chief information officer Gareth Ash told Legal IT Insider: “As a major customer of NetDocuments, we are of course pleased to see the NetDocuments integration with Copilot. We need to evaluate the details, but it could answer a lot of questions.”
In an email exchange with Legal IT Insider yesterday, NetDocuments’ CEO Josh Baxter said that this announcement is founded upon NetDocuments continued deep partnership with Microsoft. “This week has significance in that our Copilot integration was recognized at Microsoft’s Build developers conference,” he said. “We are providing our customers with a series of NetDocuments-Microsoft integration ‘experiences’ enabling greater productivity for legal professionals who work in Microsoft 365 applications like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Teams.”
He added: “As you know, we are driven to help our customers do their best work. Here this means providing a seamless way for our users to interact with NetDocuments directly from Copilot. For example, lawyers can ask questions or find documents or answer questions and instantly get results alongside links to matching content stored in NetDocuments. Our work with Copilot is a continuation of the GenAI strategy we developed with our customers over the past year, which began with launching PatternBuilder MAX last summer. Our customers are increasingly comfortable with AI and will be able to leverage our offerings together with Copilot as part of a comprehensive AI strategy. This approach also ensures the NetDocuments’ content access and security controls always remain in effect.”
Baxter pointed out that NetDocuments’ participation in Microsoft’s Cloud Storage Provider Program Plus (CSPP+), will also enable it to include real-time desktop co-authoring in Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Dan Hauck’s blog post, including client testimonials from Ice Miller and Gilbert + Tobin, is worth a look here: https://www.netdocuments.com/blog/build-a-winning-future-together-netdocuments-and-microsoft
It seems that there is a battle going on who has the best partnership with Microsoft. First iManage with an article about copilot integration , now its NetDocuments. It all seems that they are afraid of firms looking dedicated to Microsoft instead of a proprietary storage of content somewhere else. We all know how long it took to have support for Co-authoring for both, We all see the pace Microsoft is developing with focus to have all in M365.
We all know that it will take some time to have support for the next cool thing of Microsoft. But how long will firms have the patience to wait for this.
Microsoft will be equal to all partners, no difference, no extra attention or collaboration. Its all marketing and therefore probably a battle between the marketing departments of both. its although nice to see that they both do something with copilot