What is Microsoft Copilot?

Microsoft Copilot is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool integrated within Microsoft 365 applications, including Word, Excel, Teams, Planner, and more. It works alongside you to provide real-time intelligent assistance, support users with various tasks, and increase productivity. With Copilot, you’re always in control—deciding to keep, modify, or discard the results.

“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. With our new copilot for work, we’re giving people more agency and making technology more accessible through the most universal interface—natural language.”

Satya Nadella, Charman and CEO, Microsoft

How does Microsoft Copilot work?

Microsoft Copilot combines large language models (LLMs), including GPT-4 and Natural Language Processing (NLP) and the data from Microsoft Graph, to evaluate and understand human-like data and text to produce human-like results. These LLMs adhere to data privacy laws and are hosted in the Microsoft Cloud. You must enter a prompt to generate an answer, and Copilot will respond as requested. If you don’t like the first response initiated, ask it to create a new one.

Your searches aren’t saved, and each new conversation within Copilot will be wiped clean afterwards. Your interactions aren’t being used to train the LLM.

Benefits of Microsoft Copilot

A study by GitHub Data shows that developers using Copilot experience significant productivity gains:

88% say they are more productive
74% say they can focus on more satisfying work
77% say it helps them spend less time searching for information or examples

How much does Microsoft Copilot cost?

Microsoft Copilot is free to all Microsoft 365 users. You can upgrade to Copilot Pro for £19.00 per user/month if you require more advanced features. Below are the different features available in the free and Pro packages.

Microsoft Copilot vs ChatGPT

Below are some of the key differences between Copilot and ChatGPT:

By integrating Microsoft Copilot into your workflow, you can significantly enhance productivity, streamline tasks, and improve the overall quality of your work. Whether drafting emails, analyzing data, or creating presentations, Copilot is designed to support you every step of the way.

What’s Included	Copilot	Copilot Pro
Use copilot on the web and in Windows, macOS, and iPadOS	✔	✔
Access GPT-4 and GPT-4 turbo during non-peak times	✔	✔
Use text, voice, and images in conversational search	✔	✔
Use plug-ins and GPTs	✔	✔
Get priority access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo even during peak times for faster performance		✔
Build your own Copilot GPTs tailored to your individual needs and interests		✔
Use Copilot in productivity apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook (Microsoft email address required)		✔
Generate unique images and then enhance your creations using 100 daily boosts with Designer		✔

Visit the Microsoft website for help with setting it up.

What Microsoft applications does Copilot work in?

Word

Document Enhancement: Suggests edits, improves style, and offers grammar corrections.
Summarization: Saves time by summarizing lengthy documents.
Drafting: Generates draft templates for business proposals or marketing campaigns based on your input.
Content Expansion: Suggests additional text to enhance sparse sections.

Excel

Data Analysis: Provides insights and analysis on selected data ranges, highlighting areas for further exploration.
Visualization: Creates graphs or charts based on selected data.
Formula Suggestions: Recommends relevant formulas to achieve desired results.

PowerPoint

Presentation Creation: Generates presentations from scratch, including content, layouts, and speaker notes.
Document Conversion: Transforms documents into presentations.
Design Suggestions: Offers design improvements to enhance visual appeal and creativity.

Outlook

Email Drafting: Crafts emails based on your prompts, suggesting greetings, body text, and subject lines.
Draft Analysis: Provides suggestions for improving tone and content.
Summarization: Summarizes long email threads to highlight key points.

Teams

Transcription and Summarization: Summarizes key discussion points, decisions, and areas of disagreement.
Action Identification: Identifies potential actions and assigns them to relevant team members.
Agenda Management: Generates talking points to keep discussions focused.
Chat Summarization: Condenses lengthy chat messages to highlight important points.
Writing Enhancement: Improves message tone and adjusts length as needed.

	ChatGPT	Microsoft Copilot
Focus	Designed for various tasks, including writing, answering questions, and translation.	Assists with coding tasks and integrates with developer environments. Suggests code completions, generates functions, and helps debug errors.
Underlying Technology	Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model, trained on a massive dataset of text and code.	Likely uses a more recent model like GPT-4, leveraging your data in Microsoft Graph to personalize suggestions.
Integration	Stands alone as a chatbot or API for integration into other applications.	Tightly integrated with Microsoft 365 applications such as Visual Studio, Word, and Outlook, accessing code, documents, emails, and calendars for context-aware suggestions.
Other Differences	ChatGPT has a free version with limitations and a paid version with advanced features. Microsoft Copilot is now included in some Microsoft 365 subscriptions.	ChatGPT’s focus on constant updates may give it an advantage in acquiring the latest information. Copilot is still under development and may see its update frequency increase.