Free Training & Career Tips... Subscribe to Get Weekly Career Tips
By Subscribing You are Agreeing to Terms and Conditions
Copilot training teaches your staff to use Microsoft 365 Copilot and ChatGPT for the everyday work they already do — drafting emails, summarising documents, preparing reports, cleaning data and pulling together meeting notes — safely, accurately and in line with your data-privacy rules. BOTI delivers this practical, facilitator-led course to whole teams, in-house at your premises or remotely across South Africa, so the AI tools your business is paying for actually save time instead of gathering dust.
If your organisation has rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot or allowed ChatGPT but staff are barely touching it — or worse, pasting confidential information into tools they do not understand — this course closes that gap. BOTI quotes every programme free.
The business problem: you are paying for AI nobody really uses
Most South African businesses now have AI on every desk: Microsoft 365 Copilot ships inside Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and PowerPoint, and ChatGPT is one browser tab away. Yet the return on that investment is often close to zero, for three reasons:
- Staff do not know how to prompt. They type a vague request, get a generic answer, and conclude the tool “does not work.”
- Nobody trusts the output. Without knowing how to verify what AI produces, people either ignore it or — far more dangerous — copy confidently wrong answers straight into client work.
- There are no guard-rails. Employees paste contracts, salary data and customer records into public AI tools, creating a data-privacy and POPIA exposure no one signed off.
The result is wasted licence spend, inconsistent quality and real risk. Copilot training fixes all three: your people learn to prompt well, check the output, and stay inside clear, safe boundaries — so the time saving is real and the risk is managed.
This is for South African organisations developing their own staff — not individual learners or job-seekers. It is written for the people who own the tooling budget, the productivity targets and the compliance: HR and L&D leads, department and operations managers, and business owners.
Who this course is for
This is a workplace upskilling course for teams, not a technical or coding course. It suits any organisation where staff work in documents, email, spreadsheets and meetings every day:
- HR and L&D managers rolling out Copilot or ChatGPT and needing the workforce to actually adopt it.
- Department and operations managers whose teams lose hours to drafting, summarising and reformatting.
- Business owners and MDs of SMEs wanting a productivity lift without hiring more people.
- Admin, finance, sales-support and marketing teams doing high-volume routine writing and data work.
No prior AI experience is assumed. Delegates need access to Microsoft 365 Copilot and/or ChatGPT (or be about to roll it out) for full hands-on value.
What the course covers: outline and modules
The programme is hands-on from the start — delegates work in the real tools on realistic business tasks, not slides. A typical outline:
| Module | Focus | What delegates can do afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | AI at work: the landscape | Understand what Copilot and ChatGPT are, where each fits, and licensing basics |
| 2 | Prompting that works | Write clear, structured prompts; refine and iterate to get usable results |
| 3 | Copilot in Word & Outlook | Draft, rewrite, shorten and summarise emails, letters and documents |
| 4 | Copilot in Excel | Build formulas in plain English, analyse and summarise data |
| 5 | Copilot in Teams & PowerPoint | Summarise meetings, capture actions and build first-draft decks fast |
| 6 | ChatGPT for everyday tasks | Research, brainstorm, draft and reformat — and where it differs from Copilot |
| 7 | Checking the output | Verify accuracy, catch “confidently wrong” answers and fact-check responsibly |
| 8 | Safe, compliant use | Data-privacy, POPIA awareness and a simple do/don’t policy for company information |
For in-house bookings, modules are tailored to your tools, your templates and your sector — so delegates leave able to apply AI to the work that is actually on their desk. If your team lives in spreadsheets, our deeper Excel + Copilot training extends Module 4 into a full data-focused programme.
A core theme throughout: AI is an assistant, not an oracle. Delegates learn to sense-test results and weigh the privacy implications of putting company data into a tool — so your team leaves faster and more careful, protected from the most common AI risk: a confident, wrong answer reaching a customer or decision-maker.
Want to see the full module breakdown for your team and tools? Request a quote or a free 15-minute callback. Phone 011-882-8853 or use the BOTI booking page — we aim to respond within 15 minutes. Ask for our free Copilot & ChatGPT Prompt Cheat-Sheet, a one-page set of ready-to-use prompts your team can apply from day one.
Delivery formats and national reach
How you deliver the training affects both cost and adoption:
- In-house / on-site at your premises — usually most cost-effective for a group, with the session built around your own tools and templates.
- Off-site at a venue in a major centre — for teams that prefer to train away from daily interruptions.
- Virtual / remote instructor-led — efficient for distributed teams, with no travel cost and a natural fit for tools used remotely anyway.
BOTI delivers across Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria, with remote delivery nationwide. Per-delegate cost falls as group size grows, so in-house delivery is typically most economical once you have several people to train.
Accreditation
Copilot training is a practical, facilitator-led skills programme focused on immediately usable AI competencies. It is not an accredited qualification, and delegates receive a BOTI certificate of completion. BOTI itself is an accredited training provider — Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA ACC/2016/07/0045, and a QCTO Quality Partner — but this particular course sits outside that scope by design, so your team can move fast on the tools without waiting on unit-standard assessment.
Need accredited training in a related area? Ask about BOTI’s accredited IT End User Computing and Microsoft Excel programmes, which carry SETA-accredited computer- and spreadsheet-skills qualifications and pair naturally with this AI upskilling.
Funding: turn your Skills Development budget into AI capability and B-BBEE points
Digital-skills training like this can be funded from money you are likely already spending. As general guidance only:
- The Skills Development Levy (SDL) is 1% of payroll for employers above the threshold. A compliant Workplace Skills Plan and Annual Training Report let you recover a mandatory grant, and AI upskilling is exactly the kind of forward-looking training your Skills Development budget is meant to fund.
- The B-BBEE skills-development target is measured against 6% of the leviable amount — not 6% of payroll — so Copilot and ChatGPT training can also earn points on your transformation scorecard, especially when delivered to staff who advance your specific transformation goals.
Where training supports tenders, note that the PPPFA 2022 regulations score “specific goals” — such as HDI ownership (race, gender and disability) and RDP objectives — rather than a generic B-BBEE level, and the Public Procurement Act 28 of 2024 introduces set-asides. A well-planned skills-development record supports both your scorecard and your bid positioning. This is general information, not financial or legal advice — confirm specifics with your SETA, SDF or B-BBEE verification professional.
Why BOTI
BOTI is an accredited South African corporate training provider with 450 courses and a client base that includes Sasol, Glencore and the City of Johannesburg. We deliver practical, benefit-led training for whole teams — in-house, off-site or remote — built for South African workplaces, tailored to your real tools and documents, focused on adoption and grounded in safe, POPIA-aware use.
AI upskilling rarely sits alone. Most clients pair this course with related programmes:
- Excel + Copilot training — a deeper, data-focused programme for teams who live in spreadsheets.
- Microsoft Excel training — to build the core spreadsheet foundation Copilot works on top of.
- Power BI training — for teams scaling from spreadsheets to interactive reporting and dashboards.
- Skills development training — to structure your WSP and ATR around this and other accredited delivery.
- The full BOTI course range — sales, management, finance, HR, Microsoft and technical training for teams.
Not sure where to start? Our team can map the right path for your departments and roll-out plan.
Frequently asked questions
What is Copilot training?
Copilot training is hands-on training that teaches your staff to use Microsoft 365 Copilot — and, alongside it, ChatGPT — for everyday work such as drafting and summarising documents, writing and shortening emails, analysing spreadsheet data, summarising meetings and building first-draft presentations. The focus is on prompting well, verifying the output for accuracy, and using AI safely with company information.
Do we need Microsoft 365 Copilot licences or ChatGPT access to attend?
To get full hands-on value, delegates should have access to Microsoft 365 with Copilot enabled and/or ChatGPT. If you are still planning your rollout, we can advise on what is needed and tailor the session to the tools you have — just tell us when you book.
Who should attend this course?
Any team that works in documents, email, spreadsheets and meetings every day: HR, finance, operations, admin, sales-support and marketing staff, plus managers who want faster, cleaner output. No prior AI experience is needed — it suits both confident and cautious users.
Is the training accredited, and can it count towards B-BBEE?
This Copilot course is a practical, facilitator-led skills programme, not an accredited qualification — delegates receive a BOTI certificate of completion. BOTI is an accredited provider (Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA ACC/2016/07/0045, QCTO Quality Partner), so if you need accredited training we can point you to related accredited programmes such as IT End User Computing and Microsoft Excel. Either way, digital-skills spend can still contribute to the skills-development element of your B-BBEE scorecard, which is measured against 6% of the leviable amount (not 6% of payroll). Confirm the specifics with your verification agency or SDF — this is general guidance, not financial advice.
Can the course be run in-house and customised for our company?
Yes. In-house and on-site delivery is available throughout South Africa — Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and surrounds — plus virtual sessions for remote teams. For in-house bookings we tailor the modules to your own tools, templates, sector and data-privacy rules.
Request a quote or a 15-minute callback
Stop paying for AI your team barely uses. Request a quote or book a free 15-minute callback and a BOTI consultant will scope a Copilot and ChatGPT programme for your team, group size, dates and delivery format. Call 011-882-8853 or ask for our free Copilot & ChatGPT Prompt Cheat-Sheet so your people can start saving time from day one.