Redmond tech giant Microsoft on Thursday announced the launch of ‘Microsoft 365 Copilot,’ a productivity tool for the workplace powered by next-generation AI, GPT-4.
The announcement comes three days after Google announced AI features for Google Workspace such as AI-assisted text generation in Gmail, Docs, and other applications.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
According to the Microsoft, Copilot will be integrated with Microsoft 365 applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, and will be visible in the sidebar as a chatbot.
Redmond firm says it is currently testing the tool with select commercial customers.
“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,” says 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,” he adds.
Here are some tasks Microsoft said Copilot can do for users:
- Copilot in Word writes, edits, summarises, and creates right alongside people as they work.
- Copilot in PowerPoint enables the creation process by turning ideas into a designed presentation through natural language commands.
- Copilot in Excel helps unlock insights, identify trends, or create professional-looking data visualisations in a fraction of the time.
- Copilot in Outlook can help synthesise and manage the inbox to allow more time to be spent on actually communicating.
- Copilot in Teams makes meetings more productive with real-time summaries and action items directly in the context of the conversation.
- Copilot in Power Platform will help developers of all skill levels accelerate and streamline development with low-code tools with the introduction of two new capabilities within Power Apps and Power Virtual Agents.
Business Chat
Additionally, Microsoft also unveiled a Business Chat feature that works across all Microsoft 365 apps.
Business Chat brings data from across documents, presentations, emails, calendars, notes, and contacts into a single interface in Microsoft Team to help summarise chats, write emails, find key dates, and more.
Microsoft says it has built Microsoft 365 Copilot with its existing commitments to data security and privacy in the enterprise, grounded in AI principles and Responsible AI Standards, and decades of research.
The company also says the Copilot’s large language models are not trained on customer content or individual prompts.
“Copilot combines the power of large language models with your data and apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet,” says Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President of Modern Work and Business Applications, Microsoft.
“It’s enterprise-ready, built on Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to security, compliance, privacy, and responsible AI. Copilot marks a new era of computing that will fundamentally transform the way we work,” adds Spataro.
Microsoft says it’s testing its Microsoft 365 Copilot with 20 customers right now and will be expanding the preview in the coming months.
“We will share more about pricing and details in the coming months,” says Microsoft in a blog post.
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