Microsoft is Bringing its AI Copilot to Even More Apps: Outlook, Teams, OneNote and More

Microsoft’s dance with AI-powered Copilot is getting more and more interesting and now you can find the technology in almost every corner of the corporation’s app empire, starting with OneNote, PowerPoint, and Teams to Outlook.

AI-powered Copilot-branded features have been active for two months now but on a test program with the likes of General Motors, Goodyear, and Chevron. Microsoft collected feedback across its 365-cloud service which enabled it to fine-tune the digital assistant as well as work out of the kinks.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program

In March, the tech giant introduced the world to Microsoft 365 Copilot with 20 enterprise clients like General Motors and Dow. Two months later, Microsoft reports that feedback from the organization was overwhelming and pointed to Copilot’s potential to revolutionize the workspace.

“They point to how it is a game changer for meetings and is beginning to transform the way they create. And, they’ve identified areas where we can do more to help people adapt to this new way of working, like the need for more conversational, multi-turn interactions,” Microsoft said via a blog post on Wednesday.

Following the initial pilot program, the Redmond-headquartered software manufacturer is opening the door to more companies to experience the innovative tool. Around 600 enterprises spread across the world have been picked in an invite-only, paid preview of Copilot.

“The potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot is undeniable, and it’s energizing to explore the possibilities as we couple the ingenuity of our people with the functionality of the tool.” Guy Moore, Workforce Enablement Lead, Chevron said. “Early access has given us visibility into how it can further streamline processes, speed insights, spark ideas, enhance productivity and evolve the way we work. We’re proud to team with Microsoft as we continue to achieve new levels of innovation and advance the future of energy.”

What Copilot is Bringing to Microsoft 365

To grasp the scope of what Copilot brings to Microsoft 365 products, picture OpenAI’s GPT-4 chatbot integrated into your enterprise IT environment so that it can work as a 24/7 assistant, carrying out instructions, answering questions, responding to other queries related to data and other day-to-day tasks.

Copilot can write emails under instructions, and summarize documents, thus freeing up time for employees and increasing their productivity.

However, Redmond is not stopping there, it is taking Microsoft 365 Copilot features to the next level as the goal is “to bring AI to every part of the suite, enabling employees and organizations to unleash creativity, unlock productivity and uplevel skills.”

In the blog post, the tech giant said that integrating Copilot into Whiteboard will enhance Microsoft Teams, by encouraging brainstorming, creativity, and effectiveness.

Copilot understands natural languages and can generate new ideas, arrange ideas into themes, and create designs that build on the ideas generated in addition to summarizing whiteboard content.

With the integration of OpenAI’s innovative image generator, DALL-E, users of PowerPoint can now easily request Copilot, its virtual assistant, to produce customized images that complement their content. This novel feature will enable users to efficiently convey their ideas and enhance their presentations.

The Copilot feature in Outlook serves as a writing assistant that guides how to write emails with greater effectiveness and more confidence. It offers advice on areas such as clarity, sentiment, and tone, which can help users communicate their message more clearly and concisely.

OneNote’s Copilot feature leverages intuitive prompts to assist users in drafting plans, generating ideas, compiling lists, and organizing information.

The objective is to simplify access to relevant information for users of the platform. The feature aims to enhance user experience seamlessly.

One of the key features of Copilot in Loop is its ability to keep teams on the same page and facilitate collaboration.

By providing concise summaries of all the content on Loop pages, Copilot helps to ensure everyone is working toward the same goals and can contribute effectively.

Viva Learning incorporates Copilot as an intuitive chat-based assistant with the ability to craft customized learning plans. This includes identifying suitable training materials, creating upskilling routes, and organizing allocated learning sessions.

Semantic Indexing Capability Coming To Copilot

Microsoft is also enhancing Copilot with more features such as semantic indexing capability which the corporation says can better comprehend the nuances of enterprise data and respond accurately to prompts.

Intriguingly, Microsoft will announce Copilot’s new features in the same week as Google IO, an event where people are expecting the search engine giant to release similar machine learning-powered services.

Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Modern Work and Business Applications, shared that the initial response from the first 20 enterprises to try Copilot was incredibly positive.

The feedback was overwhelmingly in favor of the new feature, with many stating that it has the potential to completely transform the way they work. These results were exactly what Microsoft had anticipated.

“They point to how it is a game changer for meetings and is beginning to transform the way they create,” Spataro said. “And, they’ve identified areas where we can do more to help people adapt to this new way of working, like the need for more conversational, multi-turn interactions.”

Semantic Index in Copilot across all Microsoft 365 apps for E3 and E5 users aims to assist organizations in preparing for the impending integration of artificial intelligence within the work environment, according to Spataro.

This technology will purportedly enhance its ability to interpret user prompts and provide more accurate information in response.

Spataro offered an illustrative scenario: an employee requests a March sales report from Copilot. Instead of merely searching for documents containing those keywords in the title or content, the system intelligently grasps the nature of the request.

It then identifies the specific team member responsible for generating the report and its respective location, ultimately refining its retrieval process for the desired data.

Banishing Drudgery While Unleashing Creativity

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is excited about the capabilities of Copilot and the influence it is bound to have in the workplace by removing “the drudgery of work and unleashing creativity,” he added. “There’s an enormous opportunity for AI-powered tools to help alleviate digital debt, build AI aptitude, and empower employees.”

Microsoft is not shooting in the dark as there is research that supports its case. According to the study, employees tend to spend more than half of their normal workday collaborating on apps like Teams and Slack, which eats up valuable time that would have gone into innovating.

Redmond believes that AI will fix some of these issues and is happy to be at the forefront of the technology.

“The platform shift to AI is underway and will completely transform the way people work,” Microsoft reckoned in the opening sentence of its 29-page 2023 Work Trend Index report.

The AI War Rages On

As AI makes its debut in the workplace, other tech giants are following closely including Google, Meta, and IBM among others. The technology has proved its ability to take over repetitive tasks, allowing employees to focus on tasks that improve their productivity.

Nevertheless, some people are worried that AI will exacerbate layoffs, especially in the IT industry which has continued to suffer in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Some fear adopting AI extensively could mean fewer jobs. Besides, there have been concerns over the technology’s questionable accuracy and the capability of ML systems altogether.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna recently emphasized the impact of AI on employment, suggesting that up to 30% of back-office positions could be rendered obsolete by AI technology, resulting in decreased hiring in those areas within the next five years.

The rapid development of AI has raised concerns, both inside and outside the tech sector. In response to these concerns, several hundred computer scientists, tech leaders, and AI specialists signed a letter in March, calling for a temporary halt to AI system training.

Despite acknowledging potential negative consequences, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella remains optimistic, believing AI will ultimately serve as a powerful, positive force in the world.

“At the end of the day, I think we will all be judged by one thing alone, which is, ‘Do the benefits far outweigh anything that are the societal consequences?'” the CEO said in an interview earlier this week.

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