Microsoft has provided a sneak peek of a new AI “copilot” designed for its Microsoft 365 product suite, which includes popular tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
The company has made the AI available for testing to a limited number of business customers, and it will generate a draft within these applications, resulting in faster content creation and enabling employees to focus on other important tasks.
“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, 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.”
Microsoft 365 Copilot combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with user data in the Microsoft Graph and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn words into the “most powerful productivity tool on the planet,” the company said.
In early February, Microsoft incorporated a chatbot powered by ChatGPT into its Bing search engine to enhance its search and answering capabilities. The chatbot utilises generative AI, enabling users to ask questions and receive conversational responses that draw on data collected from web searches.
Microsoft 365 Copilot: A new way to work
According to the tech giant, Microsoft 365 Copilot has been integrated seamlessly into the everyday apps people use, allowing them to stay focused on their work and minimise busy work. Copilot has been integrated into Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Teams, Power Platform, and Business Chat.
In Word, Copilot writes, edits, summarises, and creates content alongside the user in real-time. In PowerPoint, Copilot facilitates the creation of a presentation by turning natural language commands into a well-designed presentation. In Excel, Copilot helps unlock insights, identify trends, or create professional-looking data visualisations in a fraction of the time. In Outlook, Copilot can synthesise and manage the inbox to allow more time to be spent on actual communication.
In Teams, Copilot makes meetings more productive by providing real-time summaries and action items within the context of the conversation. In Power Platform, developers of all skill levels can accelerate and streamline development with low-code tools through two new capabilities introduced in Power Apps and Power Virtual Agents. Business Chat brings together data from documents, presentations, email, calendar, notes, and contacts to help summarise chats, write emails, find key dates, or even write a plan based on other project files.
Overall, Microsoft 365 Copilot enables users to work more efficiently by automating certain tasks and freeing up time for more important work.
