Everything you need to know about Microsoft’s Copilot

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly useful in everyday life and work. Microsoft is developing a new tool based on it – the Copilot assistant.

The assistant has attracted the attention of many people working in the Microsoft environment, mainly due to the benefits it will offer its users. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the tool, discuss how it works, and see how it can be useful in Microsoft 365 and Windows 11 apps.

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Copilot in Windows 11

A revolution in Windows 11 has been rumoured for months now, since Microsoft clearly started investing in OpenAI. This has resulted in the development of Bing Chat and several apps that already have an AI assistant built in. So it was only a matter of time before it would appear in Windows 11. And so it happened, as the Redmond giant announced at the Build conference that it was introducing Copilot to the system.

Artificial intelligence is something that will certainly shape the development of the third decade of the 21st century. It will affect more and more areas of our lives, including operating systems. The introduction of artificial intelligence in Windows 11 is something truly revolutionary that will change the way we interact with software.

Microsoft’s Copilot for Windows 11 is a centralised AI tool that is directly integrated into Windows 11. The Redmond giant first announced the feature in a post on the Windows Developer Blog.

Windows Assistant may remind you of Cortana, the built-in “personal assistant” for Windows 10. However, Microsoft has decided to end support for Cortana in Windows 11. In its place is Windows Copilot, a more powerful alternative that uses AI to improve productivity and get things done more efficiently.

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Copilot in Windows 11 is already available to insiders

It took a while to roll out, but the Assistant is finally available to Windows Insider members. They can try it out today. Microsoft has released Windows 11 build 23493 for Insiders on the Developer Channel, with the main purpose of introducing the new app.

The whole adventure starts with calling up the Windows Copilot tool – a special button has appeared on the taskbar to launch the service, and you can also do it with the Windows+C shortcut that was previously used to integrate Teams chat. When you click it, the assistant sidebar is displayed on the screen, which is unchanged across all applications and windows, and is always available as a personal assistant.

This way, the user can perform actions, configure settings, and seamlessly connect to their favourite applications. Here, you can give a command that Copilot will try to execute with precision to the user’s satisfaction. The goal of Windows Copilot is to make every Windows 11 owner a power user who can easily customise Windows settings, improve productivity, and leverage Windows Copilot’s AI capabilities across a variety of apps with powerful plug-ins.

What you can do with Windows Copilot

There’s a lot you can do with an assistant. Imagine being able to control the settings of your Windows 11 PC with an AI-powered conversational chatbot. You can easily switch display settings, such as turning on dark mode, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, by simply telling your PC to do so directly.

Alternatively, you can ask Windows Copilot, for example: “I want to be more productive. How can I tune my PC?”. It will offer recommendations to help you focus and avoid distractions. And with Windows 11 packed full of features you probably don’t use yet, it will have plenty to recommend.

This can include turning on concentration mode for a fixed amount of time, turning on Do Not Disturb, and more. You can also use native Windows 11 features such as the Snipping tool, Snap Assist, and more to perform the actions you want instantly.

More importantly, the assistant can work with your documents. Simply drag and drop a text file onto the Windows Copilot pane and you can rewrite, summarise, or explain the text. Windows Copilot can also browse Spotify for you and play music based on your suggestions.

With the incredible power of Windows Copilot, you can insert images, text, and video into its chat and have it share these materials with your Microsoft Teams group chat. As the developer community continues to work on new plugins, we can expect Windows Copilot to integrate with all of our favourite apps.

In addition to working with Windows features and settings, the Bing Chat integration lets you chat with Windows Copilot about a variety of topics and even ask complex questions. For example, you can ask Copilot to tell you about the current weather in Greenland, the best time to go there, and even explore potential hotel and flight options.

How to open Windows Copilot in Windows 11?

Microsoft initially released the Assistant for preview to Windows Insiders. These are users who have signed up for the Windows Evaluation Programme. They’re the first to receive the latest updates and provide valuable feedback to help make Windows better for everyone.

Is Windows Copilot available on Windows 10?

Microsoft has been pushing for Windows 8 and 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11 for quite some time now, with the aim of ensuring that the majority of users have the best Windows experience possible. At the moment, Microsoft has only announced the assistant for Windows 11, and it is unlikely that Windows 10 will get a taste of Windows Copilot.

What is Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Before introducing the Assistant to Windows, Microsoft introduced it to its Microsoft 365 office suite, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and other apps. It’s called Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a new AI-powered digital assistant developed with ChatGPT version 4 and Microsoft Graphs. Copilot is designed to make it easier for users of Microsoft 365 apps, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and others. The assistant allows you to communicate with the system using natural language, which will speed up and simplify your work. Microsoft 365 Copilot combines powerful language models with data and business apps from the Microsoft 365 suite to provide advanced analytics and streamline business processes.

How will Microsoft 365 Copilot work?

When a user enters a question into a Word text box, the data is sent to Microsoft Graph for analysis and interpretation, and then passed to the ChatGPT language model. Before the solution is shown to the user in the app, ChatGPT sends the data back to Microsoft Graph for additional security and compliance checks.

The latest version of Microsoft 365 automatically syncs with a user’s calendar, email, chats, documents, appointments, and contacts. This allows users to use Copilot to create a presentation or summary based on this data. For example, if a user is working with others on a project, but one of their colleagues is sick and out of the office, you can use Copilot to keep them informed about the progress of the project. Just assign a task to your assistant: “Update (name) on how we updated the product strategy” and they’ll create a progress report based on the morning meetings, emails, and chats.

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Benefits of using Microsoft 365 Copilot

Here are some of the key benefits of using Microsoft 365 Copilot for business:

• Faster and easier workflow: With Copilot, users can communicate with Microsoft 365 in their own language, which significantly speeds up and simplifies the workflow.
• Increased productivity and competitiveness: this tool will allow you to optimise business processes, work with documents and analyse work, which in turn translates into real achievements and increased competitiveness of the company.
• Collaboration: With Copilot, users can assign tasks, communicate, and share resources with other users in Microsoft 365 apps.
• Automation and optimisation: Copilot lets you automate routine tasks such as scheduling meetings, sending emails, updating documents, and creating reports.
• Accessibility: Copilot will be built into Microsoft 365 apps. This means it will be easy to use and accessible to any Microsoft 365 user.
• Save time and resources: With Copilot, businesses can save time and resources that were previously spent on routine tasks that will now be performed automatically.
• Optimisation of business processes: Copilot can streamline business processes and speed up decision-making, which can bring significant benefits to a company in terms of increased efficiency, reduced costs, and improved quality of services and products.

How Copilot works in Microsoft 365 apps

Copilot is designed to make it easier and better to work in the most important apps in the Microsoft 365 suite. Now let’s see what it looks like in practice.

Copilot in MS Word

Microsoft 365 Copilot in MS Word is a tool that lets you interact with the app using natural language, which can make your work faster and easier. Here are some examples of what it looks like in MS Word:

• Suggestions and suggestions: As you create your document, Copilot can suggest additions to words, phrases, and complete sentences, which can help you improve your productivity and accuracy.
• Convert text to different formats: Copilot can help you convert text to different formats, such as bulleted lists, tables, graphs, and more.
• Translation: Copilot can help you translate text into different languages, which can be useful for people working in an international environment.
• Content generation: Copilot also helps you create different types of content, such as summaries, notes, presentations, and more.
• Grammar and spelling checker: Copilot helps you correct grammatical and spelling errors in your text.

All of these features in MS Word are designed to streamline workflows and increase productivity, allowing users to focus on the content of their documents rather than the technical aspects of creating them.

Copilot in MS Excel

Microsoft 365 Copilot in MS Excel will work the same way as MS Word, with the difference being that it has been specifically designed to help you process and analyse data. Here are some ways it will work in MS Excel:

• Fast data entry: Copilot will allow users to enter data into spreadsheets using voice commands such as “Add value to column A” or “Find average in column B”. You can also ask Copilot for various statistics or graphs to get a quick summary of your data.
• Analyse your data: Copilot can help you analyse your data by detecting and removing duplicates, sorting data by different criteria, or calculating values such as average or sum.
• Data visualisation: lets you quickly create charts and graphs that help you clearly visualise data, such as bar charts, pie charts, or line graphs, and create a chart in just a few minutes.
• Work with formulas: It also helps you create and edit formulas, which is especially useful for more complex calculations. You can request a specific formula to be written, or get an explanation of how a certain function works.

Copilot in MS Power Point

Microsoft 365 Copilot in MS PowerPoint will work the same way it does in other Office apps, as an AI-powered assistant designed to help you create presentations. Here are some ways it will work in MS PowerPoint:

• Quickly create presentations: Users can use Copilot to quickly create presentations based on existing templates. The assistant can suggest suitable pictures, layouts, colours and fonts, which saves time and makes your work easier.
• Grammar and spelling correction: helps you check grammar and spelling and correct spelling and grammatical errors, allowing you to create a more professional presentation.
• Create charts and tables: You can use Copilot to quickly create charts and tables. The assistant can suggest appropriate chart types and table layouts to save you time and make your work easier.
• Speed up your workflow: It helps speed up your PowerPoint workflow by automatically creating slides from existing content and suggesting relevant images and graphics, saving you time and making your work easier.

Copilot in MS Outlook

Microsoft 365 Copilot in MS Outlook will act as an AI-powered assistant to help users with many daily tasks, such as:

• Scheduling meetings: Copilot helps you organise meetings, send invitations, choose a convenient time, and add meetings to your calendar.
• Reply to emails: helps you write responses to emails by suggesting appropriate wording or helping you extract relevant information from messages.
• Task reminder: can remind users of important tasks, such as replying to emails or filling out a calendar.
• Mailbox organisation: helps you organise your mailboxes by sorting emails by priority, automatically archiving old messages or sending them to the appropriate folders.
• Increase efficiency: With Copilot, users can save time and increase productivity, allowing them to use MS Outlook more effectively.

Copilot in MS Teams

Microsoft 365 Copilot also works with MS Teams, making it faster and easier for users to use this platform for communication and teamwork. Here are some of the features of MS Teams:

• Instant answers to questions: users can ask Copilot questions about their work in MS Teams, and the tool will provide instant answers, providing the information they need without having to search through documentation.
• Quick response to notifications: Copilot will process notifications about various events in MS Teams and can automatically respond to them or redirect them to the appropriate team.
• Personalisation and suggestions: Copilot will also analyse user activity and customise suggestions based on their individual needs and preferences.
• Communication and collaboration support: lets you send messages, schedule meetings, and share documents in MS Teams, making it easier to communicate and collaborate across your team.
• Automation: helps you automate many routine tasks, such as setting meeting reminders, booking meeting rooms, and generating reports.

Copilot in MS Viva

Microsoft Viva is a platform designed for businesses that brings together many tools and applications, such as Microsoft Teams or Microsoft SharePoint. Copilot will also be integrated with the Microsoft Viva platform, allowing you to use its functionality on this platform. Here are a few ways it should work in MS Viva:

• Help you find information: With Copilot, users can more easily find the information they need on the Microsoft Viva platform. You can ask Copilot about specific issues or topics, and it will provide the most important information about the issue.
• Help with data analysis: Copilot can help you analyse large amounts of data in the Viva platform. You can ask Copilot for specific reports and it will provide you with the most important information about the data being analysed.
• Automate tasks: This also helps you automate certain tasks in the Viva platform. You can use Copilot to perform specific tasks, such as creating a new SharePoint page or filling out a form.
• Faster information processing: With Copilot, users will be able to process information on the Viva platform faster and get answers to specific questions about a given topic in an accessible and concise way.

Another Microsoft AI, or MS Business Chat

Microsoft Business Chat is a communication platform developed by Microsoft that allows businesses to interact with customers through various channels, such as websites, mobile apps, instant messaging, and more. It makes it easy and convenient to receive information about products and services, order goods, make payments, file complaints, and more. Microsoft Business Chat, powered by artificial intelligence, allows customers to use various features such as conversational bots and other tools to automate customer communication.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a tool that will not only increase individual productivity, but also create a new knowledge model for your entire organisation. It works with all of your business data and applications to extract the information you need from your company’s vast amount of data. Working as part of the assistant, Business Chat ensures that knowledge flows throughout your organisation, saving you valuable time searching for answers. The service is available from Microsoft365.com, Bing, and Microsoft Teams and focuses on Microsoft 365 data that is individual to each employee and each organisation.

Microsoft has been gradually rolling out a revolutionary tool called Windows Copilot for widespread testing that is set to change the way we use Windows 11. But it’s already clear that this is a real revolution that Windows and Microsoft office apps have never seen before. It’s a new step towards incorporating AI algorithms into operating systems and applications.

We’ll see what happens, and we’ll be sure to tell you about it on our website.

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