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Copilot is Microsoft ’s take on productiveness - boost generative AI , and it remain to spring up and dilate with Microsoft ’s AI ambitions . Today , there are around a XII Copilot - post products power various capableness in Microsoft software and inspection and repair , like summarisation in Microsoft Outlook and transcriptions in Microsoft Teams .
That ’s in addition to Microsoft - owned GitHub ’s co-pilot cock for generating computer code , and the co-pilot that lives onWindowsand the web , which serves as a general - use assistant .
In this post , we excuse the many Microsoft Copilots usable and what they do , and the difference between the premium and free edition .
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot , previously known as Bing Chat , is built into Microsoft ’s hunt engine , Bing , as well as Windows 10 , Windows 11 , and the Microsoft Edgesidebar . ( novel PCseven have adedicated keyboard keyfor launching Copilot . ) There ’s alsostand - alone co-pilot apps for Android and iOSand anin - app Telegram room .
Powered by all right - tune up versions of OpenAI ’s models ( OpenAI and Microsoft have acloseworking human relationship ) , Copilot can do a range of task describe in natural words , like spell poem and essays , as well as translating text edition into other languages and summarize sources from around the web ( albeitimperfectly ) .
co-pilot , like OpenAI’sChatGPTand Google’sGemini , can browse the connection ( in Copilot ’s case , via Bing ) for up - to - date info . It sometimesgets things wrong , but for well-timed queries , access to hunt resultscangive Copilot an advantage over offline botssuch as Anthropic ’s Claude .
co-pilot can make images by tappingImage Creator , Microsoft ’s icon generatorbuilt on OpenAI ’s DALL - E 3 model . And it cangenerate Sung via an integration with Suno , the AI medicine - give platform . Typing something like “ make an image of a zebra ” or “ Generate a Sung with a wind cycle ” in Copilot will pull in the relevant tool .
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On the subject of integration , Copilotsupports plug - insfor third - party apps and websites . There ’s cud - ins for Instacart ( for meal preparation and cookery - related questions ) , Kayak ( for tripper provision ) , OpenTable ( for restaurant reservation ) and Shopify , to name a few examples . More are being sum on a unconstipated basis .
co-pilot also drivesCopilot Pages , an embeddable digital canvass where user can delete and portion out Copilot - originated content . compensate customers ( more on that below ) get approach toBizChat , a business - focalize hub that ties into page to pull up data from the entanglement ( and work files ) to help make matter like project plans , meeting note , proposals , and more .
Which Windows settings can Copilot control?
On Windows 11 ( but not necessarily Windows 10 ) , co-pilot cancontrol certain options and functions , act as a digital concierge of sorts .
With Copilot , either by typing or using Windows 11 ’s spoken communication recognition functionality , users can perform actions on a microcomputer like turn the battery recoverer on or off , showing gimmick and arrangement entropy , set up alive captions , displaying the PC ’s IP address , and emptying the recycle bin .
Atoggle in the Copilot experience on Windows 11switches between “ body of work ” and “ Web ” musical mode , with the former bringing Copilot ’s Microsoft 365 capabilities in the Windows port .
What is Copilot Pro?
Copilot Pro is Microsoft ’s premium co-pilot ware , priced at $ 20 per calendar month .
Copilot Pro customers get priority approach to the most capable OpenAI models ( e.g. ,o1 ) during tip times . And select features of co-pilot can only be accessed with a Pro subscription , such as high - solution images from Image Creator .
Copilot Pro also gives users access to generative AI purpose across the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity apps : Word , Excel , PowerPoint , Outlook , and OneNote .
In Word and OneNote , Copilot can write , edit , summarize , and generate text . co-pilot in Excel and PowerPoint can become born language prompting into presentations and visualizations ( optionally base in information from files and templates ) . And in Outlook , Copilot can assist draft email responses with toggles for adjust the length or tone .
More features as part of Microsoft ’s CopilotWave 2 updateare come down the pipeline .
Copilot in PowerPoint will before long pull in society - approved epitome from a SharePoint library , while Outlook will get a “ Prioritize my inbox ” capability that summarizes each electronic mail ( and gives insights like who you ’ve been most responsive too ) . In later 2024 , Outlook users will also take in the ability to “ learn ” co-pilot topics , keywords , and citizenry of interest so that those electronic mail are always marked as high - priority .
In Excel , Copilot can initialise data , make graph , sire pivot tables and guide users through create new convention and macros . It can also make use of the programming speech communication Python for sophisticated data analysis – in natural language , users can describe forecasting , risk analysis , and data visualization tasks and Copilot will translate the textbook to the necessary Python computer code to perform these tasks .
A future version of Copilot in Word will have you quickly draw in in data from external Word , PowerPoint , and PDF documents as well as emails , code docs , and group meeting . Elsewhere , in OneDrive , Copilot will summarise , show metrics about , and compare the conflict between file cabinet for you .
Importantly , co-pilot Prodoes notcome with Copilot in Teams , a Copilot feature of speech in Microsoft Teams that provide substantial - time summaries and action items while plow tasks like identify people for follow - ups . co-pilot in Teams is exclusive to enterprise Copilot customer , mean those with an go-ahead - course of study ( or tantamount ) Microsoft 365 license .
What is Microsoft 365 Copilot?
Separate and distinct from the consumer Copilot SKU is Microsoft 365 Copilot , a collection of procreative AI add - ons to Microsoft 365 with an emphasis on business apps .
Microsoft 365 Copilot is priced at $ 30 per user per month and available to customers with a Microsoft 365 E3 , E5 , Business Standard , or Business Premium license . It delivers many of the same capability across the Microsoft 365 kinsperson of apps as Copilot Pro , but with the add-on of “ initiative - grade data protection ” and the Semantic Index , a back - end organization that create a single-valued function of the data and subject in an organization to allow Copilot to deliver more personalized reply .
Microsoft lately launchedMicrosoft 365 Chat , for deterrent example , a tool that displume information from content across Microsoft 365 apps ( for example , Word docs , PowerPoint demonstration ) to answer interrogation .
There are many , many Copilots besides . Here ’s a partial list of them and their “ skills ” :
mention that some of Microsoft ’s co-pilot , likeCopilot in Business Central , are include in the base software licenses and do n’t require paying an additional fee . Others , like co-pilot for sale and Copilot for Service , cost an extra $ 20 per user per calendar month or $ 50 per user per month without an combat-ready Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription .
Copilot Studio
Copilot Studiois a dashboard that allow customers give Microsoft 365 Copilot access to data in their , or a third political party ’s , client relationship direction software , enterprise resource direction systems , and other database and repositories using prebuilt connectors or connector they build themselves . Through Copilot Studio , customers can build guardrails for Copilots and create and print their own custom - tailored “ copilot . ”
Copilot Studio is also where customers can craft what Microsoft callsCopilot agents . These AI bots — which can be “ @ mentioned ” in Outlook and Teams — purchase memory and noesis of context to navigate unlike business workflow , learn from drug user feedback and enquire for help when they encounter situations they do n’t know how to manage .
Copilot broker range in potentiality from simple , prompt - and - reception agents to more advanced bots — think bots that can monitor email inboxes and automate data entry . Microsoft provides a telephone number of pre - built ones , including the optic Jehovah agent that return images , purpose , and soon videos .
What is GitHub Copilot?
Not to be confused with the many other Copilots in Microsoft ’s portfolio , GitHub Copilotis a set of tools for return code and supporting programming work . GitHub Copilot can be installed as an extension for IDEs including Visual Studio Code , Visual Studio , Neovim , and JetBrains , or used in the cloud withGitHub Codespaces .
The generative AI model underpin GitHub Copilot has been aim on billions of crinkle of Python , JavaScript , TypeScript , Ruby , Go , and dozens of other computer programing languages — many of them hosted and available in public on GitHub . When you ’re write codification , GitHub Copilot advise code as you typecast ; you could cycle through suggestions and swallow or freeze off them .
GitHub Copilot can also understand codeinto natural language descriptions , andCopilot Extensionsallow developers to extend Copilot with third - party acquirement . In February , GitHub announced a ton of young updatesfor Copilot . Among them : Vision for Copilot , which allows multitude to bond a screenshot , picture , or plot to a chat , and co-pilot will generate the interface , code , and alt schoolbook to lend it to life .
The enterprise and business GitHub Copilot plans include license management , IP indemnity , organisation - encompassing policy management , and supply privacy feature . Enterprise client cancustomize for their codebasesand knowledge base and fine - tune the underlying exemplar , as well as access co-pilot through the Microsoft Copilot on the World Wide Web and use co-pilot Chat on GitHub.com .
In April , GitHub launchedCopilot Workspace , a variety of take on AI - powered software technology . Workspace provide a dev environment that taps AI - power agent to help insight , plan , build up , test and run code in natural voice communication .
Issues with Copilot
owe to the complex and fraught nature of today ’s procreative AI tech , Microsoft ’s copilot have their issues .
The models occasionallymake error when summarizingor answering interrogative sentence because of their tendency tohallucinate , including while summarizing meetings . The Wall Street Journal cited an instance where , for one other adoptive parent using Copilot for Teams meetings , Copilot invented attendeesand implied that calls were about subjects that were never actually discussed .
As for GitHub Copilot , GitHub itself warns that it can produceinsecure coding patterns , bugs , and credit to superannuated genus Apis , or idioms reflecting the imperfect codification in its training data . The code Copilot suggests might not always pile up or run — or even make sense .
Security and privacy concernsloom large over Copilot , as well . But perhaps the elephant in the elbow room is the dissonant reasonable - use question .
Like most procreative AI fashion model , the theoretical account power Microsoft ’s copilot were train on public data , some of which is copyright or under a restrictive permit . Microsoft — among others — argues that thefair - usedoctrine shields it from copyright claim . But that has n’t stopped data owners fromfiling class action lawsuits against the society , GitHub , OpenAI , and many more over what owners allege are exculpated licensing and IP violations .
Microsoftoffers policiesto protect certain client from courtroom battles arising from fair usance challenge — at least in narrow circumstances . That does n’t fix the honorable predicament of training mannequin on data without permission , however , which may be more than some customers can immerse .
This fib originally publish in August 2024 and will be update sporadically with new information .
