Copilot Architect Technical Knowledge Base

87% reduction in time-to-answer (4hrs → 30min)

92% accuracy on compliance Q&A test set

Zero PII leakage incidents in 6 months

£2.4M/year estimated productivity savings

45% faster repair request processing

Pilot only - struggled to scale beyond HR/Finance

⚠️ Key learning: Change management > technology

⚠️ Need executive sponsorship for cross-team adoption

Phase 1: FAQ Chatbot (3 months)

Basic RAG over knowledge base, 30% deflection rate

Phase 2: Agent Assist (6 months)

Real-time suggestions in agent UI, CRM integration

Phase 3: Agentic Resolution (ongoing)

Multi-step workflows (account lookups, billing adjustments)

42% deflection rate (21,000 tickets/day saved)

35% faster resolution with agent assist

CSAT: 4.2→4.6 improvement

£12M/year cost savings

40% faster onboarding (6 weeks → 3.5 weeks)

25% increase in PR throughput

78% adoption among developers

💡 Fine-tuning on internal code patterns was crucial

1. Discovery

Sales rep describes customer requirements in natural language

2. Product Search

Semantic search across product catalog + specs

3. Configuration

Copilot suggests compatible accessories, validates compatibility

4. Quote Generation

Auto-generate quote with pricing, terms, discounts from CRM

70% faster quote generation (3 days → <1 day)

15% increase in cross-sell/upsell

92% accuracy in product recommendations

£5.2M additional revenue (better recommendations)

1. Faithfulness Metrics

• Tool: RAGAS framework
• Metrics: Faithfulness score (0-1), Context Precision, Context Recall
• Implementation: LLM-as-judge with GPT-4o
• Threshold: Faithfulness > 0.85 for production

2. Grounding with Citations

• Pattern: Every claim → source document
• Tool: Azure AI Search semantic ranking
• Validation: Claim extraction + source verification
• Example: "According to [Doc #12, p.5]..."

Automated Prompt Optimization

• Tool: DSPy (Stanford)
• Approach: Compile prompts from examples
• Metric: Task-specific accuracy
• Benefit: Auto-generates few-shot examples

import dspy

# Define signature
class QA(dspy.Signature):
    question = dspy.InputField()
    answer = dspy.OutputField()

# Compile with examples
optimized = dspy.ChainOfThought(QA)
compiled = dspy.BootstrapFewShot(
    metric=accuracy,
    max_bootstrapped_demos=4
).compile(optimized, trainset=examples)

Microsoft Prompt Flow

• Tool: Azure AI Studio Prompt Flow
• Features: Variants, A/B testing, evaluation
• Integration: CI/CD for prompt deployment
• Versioning: Git-based prompt management

✓ Solution 1: Temperature Control

• Deterministic: temp=0, seed=42
• Balanced: temp=0.2-0.3 (slight variation)
• Creative: temp=0.7-1.0 (marketing copy)
• API: Use seed parameter in Azure OpenAI

✓ Solution 2: Regression Testing

• Golden Dataset: 100-500 test cases
• Metrics: BLEU, ROUGE-L, exact match %
• Tool: PromptBench, Azure AI Studio evaluations
• CI/CD: Block deployment if score drops > 5%

1. PTU vs Pay-as-you-go

Provisioned Throughput Units (PTU)

• Break-even: ~25M tokens/month
• Savings: 40-60% at scale
• Predictable costs

2. Prompt Compression

LLMLingua, GPTCache

• Compress contexts by 50-70%
• Minimal accuracy loss (<3%)
• Cost savings: 50-60%

3. Smart Routing

Classifier → Appropriate Model

• Simple: GPT-4o-mini (£0.15/1M)
• Complex: GPT-4o (£5/1M)
• Savings: 80% on simple queries

Map-Reduce Pattern

• Map: Summarize each chunk independently
• Reduce: Aggregate summaries into final answer
• Tool: LangChain MapReduceDocumentsChain
• Use case: Document summarization, Q&A over long docs

Hierarchical Summarization

• Level 1: Summarize paragraphs → sections
• Level 2: Summarize sections → chapters
• Level 3: Summarize chapters → document
• Benefit: Preserves hierarchy and detail

Azure AI Content Safety

• Input Filter: Detect PII before LLM
• Output Filter: Redact PII in responses
• Categories: Email, Phone, SSN, Credit Card, Address
• Action: Block, Redact, or Annotate

from azure.ai.contentsafety import ContentSafetyClient

client = ContentSafetyClient(endpoint, credential)
result = client.analyze_text(
    text=user_input,
    categories=["PII"],
    output_type="Redacted"  # or "Blocked"
)

Microsoft Presidio

• Open Source: Customizable PII detection
• Analyzer: Recognizes 50+ PII types
• Anonymizer: Replace, mask, encrypt, hash
• Custom: Add domain-specific patterns

LLM Guardrails

• NeMo Guardrails (NVIDIA): Define conversation rails
• Llama Guard (Meta): Safety classifier
• Approach: Pre-flight safety check before LLM
• Latency: +50-100ms

Input Validation

• Delimiters: Use XML tags to separate user input from instructions
• Example: <user_input>{query}</user_input>
• Instruction: "Only answer based on <user_input>"
• Tool: PyRIT for red team testing

💡 Hybrid Approach (Recommended)

Fine-tune on company style/format (e.g., professional tone, report structure). Use RAG for factual knowledge (policies, data, FAQs).

✓ Use RAG:

• Customer support chatbot (KB updates weekly)
• Compliance Q&A (need audit trails)
• Internal documentation search

✓ Use Fine-Tuning:

• Code assistant (learn internal patterns)
• Marketing copy (match brand voice)
• Structured data extraction (JSON schemas)

✓ Use Both (Hybrid):

• Legal document generation (RAG for precedents, FT for legal language)
• Sales enablement (RAG for product specs, FT for pitch style)

✓ Multi-step workflows

Example: "Book a flight, then reserve hotel, then add to calendar" (3+ sequential steps)

✓ Multiple tool integrations

Example: Search agent (Bing), Data agent (SQL), Code agent (GitHub), Document agent (SharePoint)

✓ Complex decision-making

Example: Route to specialist agent based on query type (technical → engineer agent, billing → finance agent)

✓ Approval gates needed

Example: Expense agent creates report → manager approval → submit to finance system

✗ Avoid agents if:

• Single-turn Q&A (FAQ, documentation lookup)
• Straightforward retrieval tasks
• Budget/latency constraints (agents = 3-5x cost)
• Team lacks expertise to debug agent loops
• Deterministic outcomes required (agents can be unpredictable)

⚠️ The 80/20 Rule

80% of use cases can be solved with simple RAG copilot. Only invest in agents when clear ROI on complex workflows (e.g., "saves 10 hrs/week per employee").

Azure OpenAI Service

✓ Advantages:

• Data stays in Azure (no cross-border)
• SLA: 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Private endpoints (VNet integration)
• Microsoft Entra ID auth (SSO)
• Compliance: SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001
• No data used for OpenAI training
• PTU option (reserved capacity)

✗ Disadvantages:

• Delayed model releases (2-4 weeks)
• Limited regions (30+ vs OpenAI's global)
• Manual application process
• Slightly higher base costs

OpenAI API (Direct)

✓ Advantages:

• Latest models immediately
• Instant signup (API key in 5 min)
• Global CDN (lower latency)
• GPT-4 Turbo with Vision earlier
• More flexible pricing tiers

✗ Disadvantages:

• Data leaves enterprise boundary
• No SLA for standard tier
• Rate limits unpredictable
• Limited compliance certifications
• Data may train future models*
• No VNet/private endpoints

*Can opt-out via API settings

Decision Matrix

Choose Azure OpenAI if:

• Regulated industry (finance, healthcare)
• Already using Azure ecosystem
• Need data residency guarantees
• Require SLA & enterprise support
• High volume (PTU cost-effective)

Choose OpenAI API if:

• Startup/SMB (fast iteration)
• Need latest features ASAP
• Low/unpredictable volume
• Multi-cloud or cloud-agnostic
• POC/experimentation phase

Choose Azure Cosmos DB:

• Already using Cosmos for app data
• Need global distribution (< 100ms worldwide)
• Multi-model workloads (document + vector + graph)
• Strong consistency requirements

Choose Azure AI Search:

• Need hybrid search (semantic + keyword)
• Enterprise search scenarios
• Document indexing with metadata
• Existing Azure ecosystem

⭐ Most popular for RAG

Choose Pinecone:

• Vector-first architecture
• Massive scale (100M+ vectors)
• Multi-cloud or cloud-agnostic
• Simplest API for vector ops

// User waits for full response
POST /api/chat
{
  "query": "What is the refund policy?"
}

→ [2-5s processing] →

200 OK
{
  "response": "Our refund policy...",
  "citations": [...]
}

✓ Best for:

• Simple Q&A (< 5s response time)
• API-to-API calls (no human waiting)
• Batch processing jobs
• Deterministic outputs

✗ Drawbacks:

• Poor UX if > 5s (users perceive as slow)
• Timeout risks for long operations
• Can't show progress

// Stream tokens as generated
GET /api/chat/stream?query=...

→ Immediate connection →

data: {"token": "Our"}
data: {"token": " refund"}
data: {"token": " policy"}
...
data: {"done": true}

✓ Best for:

• Chatbot interfaces (ChatGPT-like)
• Long-form content generation
• User wants to see progress
• Reduces perceived latency

// Submit job, poll for results
POST /api/jobs
{"task": "analyze_document", "doc_id": 123}

202 Accepted
{"job_id": "abc-123", "status": "processing"}

→ User polls or receives webhook →

GET /api/jobs/abc-123
200 OK {"status": "completed", "result": {...}}

✓ Best for:

• Long-running tasks (> 30s)
• Multi-agent workflows
• Batch document processing
• Background email/report generation

💡 Best Practice

Default to streaming for user-facing chat interfaces. Use sync for API-to-API. Use async jobs for tasks > 30s.

⚠️ Tradeoff

Higher setup complexity (graph extraction) but 40-60% better accuracy on multi-hop questions vs. traditional RAG.

Use Cases Unlocked

Implementation Example

from openai import AzureOpenAI
import base64

client = AzureOpenAI(...)

# Multimodal query: image + text
def analyze_image(image_path, question):
    with open(image_path, "rb") as f:
        image_data = base64.b64encode(f.read()).decode()

    response = client.chat.completions.create(
        model="gpt-4o",
        messages=[{
            "role": "user",
            "content": [
                {
                    "type": "text",
                    "text": question
                },
                {
                    "type": "image_url",
                    "image_url": {
                        "url": f"data:image/jpeg;base64,{image_data}"
                    }
                }
            ]
        }]
    )

    return response.choices[0].message.content

# Example: Quality control
result = analyze_image(
    "product_photo.jpg",
    "Identify any defects or quality issues in this product."
)
print(result)
# Output: "The product shows a minor scratch on the upper left
# corner (coordinates: 120, 45). Otherwise, quality appears
# acceptable."

⚠️ Considerations

• Cost: Images add ~$0.01-0.05 per image to LLM call
• Latency: Processing images adds 1-3s vs text-only
• Privacy: Sensitive images (medical, personal) require extra safeguards
• Accuracy: Vision models still struggle with fine details (small text, precise counts)