What is Microsoft Copilot? A lot of folks have been asking! I really am not that well versed in the subject, nor have I used it. Having said that, I will do my level best to share the meager information that I have gleaned thus far. Here goes!
Copilot was developed on the ChatGPT platform and announced as an in-development platform at the July 2023 Inspire conference.
When using the power of AI and natural language, you can find better answers to your questions and you could quite possibly create content from those very answers.
There are three versions of Copilot, listed below:
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Microsoft 365 Copilot), which requires a subscription
- Copilot Pro, also a subscription version that provides priority access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo during times of high traffic. (I am not quite sure what this means at the moment but will endeavor to find out for you.)
- And a more general, free Microsoft Copilot
Both Copilot versions are embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. This complete integration allows users to be more creative, and increase productivity, which will work with calendars, email, chats, documents, meetings, and contacts to help users communicate more easily and in a better fashion.
Microsoft Copilot incorporates the tools once known as Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise. It has a seamless visual identity across Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365, and Windows. It is accessible through the same icon in all of them. This version of Copilot allows you to use generative AI to create and complete tasks in the Windows operating system and using Windows apps. You will find Copilot available from your Taskbar as well as using the Windows Key+ C shortcut.
I am still learning and will pass along more information once I have digested it.
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Yes, that is spot on. Microsoft started rolling out Copilot to their Office365 apps all not that long ago. This is on thing our company is on the forefront of using or learning how to use. We had use case about 2 months ago that we explored and got licenses for and fully utilized for the project. Perhaps that was the spur and I’m guessing a couple areas of our organization were interested, and a pilot group of Copilot users was identified and provided licenses for Copilot which I am part of. We have weekly meetings and also started a train the trainer group so we can all learn more how to use it. Slowly the plan is to provide licenses to more people that have the need and will use it in our organization. It’s been an interesting experience.
AI is here to stay. Just like other new and cool technology I’ve seen over my life and career, it’ll just take some time to learn and for organization and people in general to understand it. Also, the technology is growing and the controls around it, especially data privacy. Slowly, but surely it’ll be part of what everyone uses daily in some shape or form.