Ask Whitelaw Weber.

What is AI tool that we use daily in our business?

Like many of our clients – and the vast majority of Kiwi businesses – our firm sits firmly in the Small to Medium Enterprise category.

Under 20 full time employees, technical work, and an industry that shifts every time the government tweaks a rule. That means when we find something that works for us, it usually works for our clients too. So, the tools we recommend aren't theoretical – they're tried, tested, and doing real work in our own office first. 

Microsoft Copilot

One of those tools is Microsoft Copilot, which we've built into how we handle search and data crunching. It helps us: 

  • Critique and navigate current tax legislation 

  • Analyse transactions and financial data faster 

  • Optimise and automate parts of our internal workflow 

  • Check its own output – because in our line of work, accuracy isn't optional 

So how does Copilot actually work?

Copilot sits inside the Microsoft 365 tools you already use – Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams – and can read and reason over your own business documents, emails and spreadsheets (with the right permissions in place, of course). Ask it a question in plain English and it pulls from your files, not just the internet. 

Under the bonnet, Copilot doesn't rely on a single AI model. It now draws on frontier models from OpenAI – the same family that powers ChatGPT – and, as of a recent update, Anthropic's Claude too. For a small business, that means access to genuinely top-tier AI, built into tools you're already paying for, without needing separate subscriptions or logins for every provider.

Different models have different strengths – some are quicker for straightforward number crunching, others are stronger at nuanced writing or complex reasoning. Copilot's job is to bring the right one to the task, so you don't have to think about it. 

For SMEs, that's the real appeal: enterprise-grade AI, without the enterprise complexity or price tag. 

We're only getting started with what this can do for our clients. What AI tools are you experimenting with in your business? We'd love to hear about it. 

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