Microsoft, a major force in the tech industry, announced a potent AI tool on Thursday that can help users on all platforms. Including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook. The utility, aptly named Microsoft 365 Copilot, will show up as a chatbot in the sidebar. And be available to assist users whenever necessary.
Microsoft described Copilot as a “whole new way of working” in a statement issued on Thursday. “It works alongside you, embedded in the apps millions of people use every day: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more,” wrote Microsoft 365 head Jared Spataro in a blog post. “Copilot is a whole new way of working.”
Copilot in Outlook can help sort the inbox in minutes. While Copilot in Teams will make every meeting productive by helping with tasks like summarizing key discussion points. And suggesting action items in real-time during a meeting. Microsoft informs that Copilot in Power Platform will help users automate repetitive tasks, create chatbots, and do more.
While Copilot is essentially a chatbot and can help share the work load at offices by taking care of the content part. Spataro cautions that the tool may not always be correct. “Sometimes Copilot will be right, other times usefully wrong – but it will always put you further ahead,” he writes.
In the coming months, Microsoft wants to add Copilot to all its productivity apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, Viva, Power Platform, and more. “Microsoft 365 Copilot’s foundational skills are a game-changer for productivity. It can already create, summarize, analyze, collaborate, and automate using your specific business content and context. But it doesn’t stop there. Copilot knows how to command apps (e.g., “animate this slide”) and work across apps, translating a Word document into a PowerPoint presentation. And Copilot is designed to learn new skills,” writes Spataro.