Microsoft has announced that it is to help users save time and increase productivity by embedding its AI chatbot ‘Copilot’ into popular Microsoft 365 apps.
Embedded In Popular Apps
Microsoft says that the Copilot chatbot has been embedded in the popular Microsoft 365 apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams. Like Chat GPT, Copilot is a natural language conversational chatbot that can give the same human-like responses to questions.
Business Chat
Copilot is operated in Microsoft 365 by ‘Business chat’, which is the field (like that in ChatGTP) where you ask the chatbot questions and give it instructions using normal language, e.g. to generate a status-update based on the morning’s meetings, emails and chat threads, type in “Tell my team how we updated the product strategy”.
How Will Copilot Help?
Examples of how embedding Copilot into the main Microsoft365 apps can help users include:
– In Word, Microsoft says Copilot can save hours in writing, sourcing, and editing by being able to write a first draft, to edit and shorten it, rewrite it, or give feedback as required, in the same way as you might write a piece using ChatGPT.
– In Teams, Copilot can again save time and effort and make meetings more productive by summarising key discussion points of meetings, including who said what, where people are aligned and where they disagree, and suggest action items, all in real-time during a meeting. It can also recap meetings for you and send you the notes afterwards.
– In PowerPoint, it can create whole presentations for you from a simple text prompt and add any relevant content from a document you made.
– In Excel, Microsoft says Copilot can analyse trends and create summaries and graphs of data, all done in seconds from simple text prompts.
– In Outlook, Copilot can save time by clearing your inbox in minutes, not hours, e.g by drafting emails for you and analysing long email threads in seconds.
– In Power Platform, Copilot can be also used to automate repetitive tasks, even creating chatbots and go from idea to working app in minutes.
Save Time, Increase Productivity and Uplevel Your Skills
Microsoft’s announcement focuses on three main benefits of using Copilot, which are improving productivity, saving time, and upleveling skills, i.e. making you better at what you’re good at and helping you to quickly master new AI functionality.
OpenAI Launches GPT4
Microsoft’s Copilot announcement comes just days after OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT that Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in and has been working closely with) announced the launch of GPT4, an updated version of the AI model that powers ChatGPT.
OpenAI said GPT-4 (which was trained on Microsoft Azure AI supercomputers) outperforms ChatGPT and “can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy, thanks to its broader general knowledge and problem-solving abilities.”
Caveat – It Can Be Wrong
Even though ChatGPT has already become a trusted and valuable tool to businesses in just a matter of months and Copilot and GTP-4 holds even greater promise, OpenAI is covering itself by highlighting one caveat – it can be wrong because it can share disinformation.
Not Yet
Although the launch has been announced, Copilot will initially be available (as a pilot) to just a small number of enterprise customers, and there are no details of pricing and licensing as yet.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Copilot is another big step forward in what seems to be a conversational chatbot revolution that’s transforming the way we can work by saving time and boosting productivity. The power of Copilot will provide a way to get more out the most popular apps in Microsoft 365, adding significant value to the app and creating new opportunities for users. Copilot is another major selling point and competitive advantage for Microsoft and for businesses, Copilot offers an easy-to-use way to save time, boost productivity, get greater insights into their own business and operations to aid better decision making, plus learn more about aspects of Microsoft365. All in all, Copilot could be the next game-changing step in the AI chatbot revolution.