The co-pilot will help us navigate among Microsoft programs

According to Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365, Copilot will be an assistant hiding in the sidebar as a chatbot, allowing Office users to summon it to generate text in documents, create PowerPoint presentations from Word documents, and even help with functions such as tables floating in Excel.

The AI-generated text can then be freely edited and customized, making it the perfect tool for those who need a little help getting started on their documents.

One of Copilot’s key strengths is its ability to work alongside the millions of users who use applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and more every day. According to Spataro, Copilot is a brand new way of working that is set to revolutionize the way people use Office documents.

Users will be able to recall Copilot throughout the Microsoft Office application and use it, for example, in Word to create documents from other files. They may even ask him to create a 10-slide PowerPoint presentation from a Word document, or to analyze or format Excel data.

This means that Excel users can use Copilot to instantly create a SWOT analysis or pivot table based on the data. In Microsoft Teams, Copilot can transcribe meetings, remind users of things they may have missed if they joined late, and even summarize points during a meeting.

Spataro stressed that Copilot would not always be correct.

Sometimes Copilot will be right, other times it will be usefully wrong, giving you an idea that may not be perfect, but gives you an edge nonetheless

Spataro said at the Microsoft AI event.

Copilot will also be present in Outlook, thanks to which users will be able to spend less time deleting and replying to emails. Email threads can be summarized and Copilot can even draft replies and customize the tone or length of the email.

Microsoft also plans to launch a Business Chat feature that will work across all Microsoft 365 data and apps. It uses the Microsoft Graph to combine documents, presentations, emails, notes, and contacts into a single chat interface in Microsoft Teams that can generate summaries, view scheduled meetings and more.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled the new Copilot at a special AI productivity event. After recently introducing an AI-powered chatbot to Bing, Microsoft is moving rapidly towards integrating large OpenAI language models into its Microsoft 365 suite.

Microsoft’s announcement comes just days after Google announced similar AI features in Google Workspace, including AI-assisted text generation in Gmail, Docs, and more.

Microsoft says it is currently testing its Microsoft 365 Copilot with 20 customers and will be expanding the preview in the coming months. “We’ll be talking more about pricing and details in the coming months,” Microsoft said today blog post.

Microsoft is rapidly moving forward with the vision of AI powering Office applications, and there will certainly be concerns about the speed of this innovation and the accuracy of AI models, especially as Microsoft 365 users use AI in contact with business data.

We explain how the system makes decisions by noting limitations, linking to sources, and encouraging users to browse, fact-check, and adjust content based on subject matter knowledge

Spataro writes in today’s blog post, drawing attention to the company’s AI policies.

Microsoft recently laid off its ethics and society team within its artificial intelligence organization. This team worked on identifying threats.

Source:
Own study/The Verge