Microsoft‘s anticipated special event has come and gone but the Windows company made sure it was worthwhile by announcing Copilot, a new AI assistant for Microsoft 365 apps and services.
“Copilot combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph – your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and more – and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet,” wrote Microsoft in a blog post.
The new AI-powered Copilot is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 and will appear in the sidebar for Office users to easily access their new personal Copilot to help them generate text in documents, use features like PivotTables in Excel or even create PowerPoint presentations based on MS Word.
Microsoft 365 head, Jared Spataro said during the event, “It works alongside you, embedded in the apps millions of people use every day: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more. Copilot is a whole new way of working.”
More Experiences with Copilot
Business Chat is also another experience where users can utilise Copilot. “Business Chat works across the LLM, the Microsoft 365 apps, and your data – your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings and contacts – to do things you’ve never been able to do before,” wrote Microsoft.
Work-life is about to become much easier for Microsoft 365 users as they can now summon Copilot and ask the AI to provide updates on co-workers, bring up information on an upcoming Microsoft Teams meeting, prepare users with updates on related projects and much more.
Excel users can also use Copilot to create SWOT analysis in seconds and when using Microsoft Teams, the AI can transcribe meetings and even remind a user of the things they might have missed if they joined late. Copilot is also available to use in Outlook, allowing users to easily summarise email threads and even create draft responses with toggles to adapt the tone or length of an email.
“Today marks the next major step in the evolution of how we interact with computing, which will fundamentally change the way we work and unlock a new wave of productivity growth,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft. “With our new copilot for work, we’re giving people more agency and making technology more accessible through the most universal interface – natural language.”
Powered by GPT-4 and more
Unlike ChatGPT, which has its own platform and webpage where users can go to use it, Copilot has been integrated into Microsoft’s Office apps and can now be used in Word to draft documents from other files. After which users can edit the Copilot-generated text to their preference.
“To build Copilot we didn’t just connect ChatGPT to Microsoft 365,” says Spataro. “Microsoft 365 Copilot is powered by what we call the Copilot system.” This system combines Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with the Microsoft Graph of data and intelligence and GPT-4.”
And like OpenAI’s GPT-4, Microsoft also said that Copilot will not always be correct. “Sometimes Copilot will get it right, other times it will be usefully wrong, giving you an idea that’s not perfect but still gives you a head start,” said Spataro during the AI event.
Microsoft said that it will bring Copilot to all of its productivity apps and will share more details on pricing and licenses soon.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
