Microsoft’s AI chatbot, Copilot, has been steadily growing and adding new features since its introduction last year. (At that time, Microsoft called it Bing Chat.) As with all things AI, it can be difficult to keep up with the updates, changes, and new features, but Microsoft is adding them to Copilot at a steady clip. Here are some of the best features and changes Microsoft has made to Copilot this year.
Copilot has an app now
If you’re still using the Copilot web app, feel free to keep doing so. However, since the beginning of this year, Microsoft has offered Copilot as a dedicated mobile app as well. You can choose to use the experience signed in or signed out, but signing into your Microsoft account gives you access to more features (including bypassing the very strict prompt limit).
Everyone can use Copilot in Microsoft 365 (if you pay)
One of Copilot’s flagship features is its integration with Microsoft 365. Microsoft turned the bot into an AI Clippy, adding AI assistant options to apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. However, Copilot in 365 was only available to business users—the rest of us that use these apps outside of work were out of luck.
That changed early this year, when Microsoft rolled out Copilot support in Microsoft 365 to all Copilot Pro users. As long as you subscribe to the plan for $20 per month, you can try out Copilot in this suite of apps. While it’s a pricey subscription, if you’re interested in Copilot, it might be worth the price, since Microsoft is adding most of Copilot’s new features to Microsoft 365 apps.
You can use Copilot in Outlook
Previously, if you wanted to use Copilot in Outlook, you needed to head to the web app or go the long way through Microsoft Teams. Since last month, however, Microsoft has offered Copilot support in the Outlook app itself. That makes it easier to use some of the new Copilot features in Outlook, like email draft coaching, choosing the tone of a draft (e.g. neutral, casual, formal).
Reference files when prompting Copilot
Since last month, you’ve been able to pull in files from your device, SharePoint, and OneDrive when prompting Copilot. If you want the bot to summarize a Word doc, or to have the context of a Powerpoint presentation when responding to your prompt, just type a / when prompting to pull up the file locator.
New options in Word with Copilot
Personally, if there’s one app that could benefit most from Copilot, I feel it’s Word. Generative AI’s main strength in my opinion is text-based, so having an assistant to help you manage your word processing could be a big help.
This year, Microsoft has given Copilot in Word a boost. Here are some of the highlights:
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Use Rewrite on specific sections of a document.
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Highlight a portion of text to summarize and share.
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Create tables from your text.
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Make new tables based on the format of previous tables in your doc.
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Confidential docs are labeled as confidential when referencing them in new docs.
New features for Copilot in Excel
Microsoft has been adding new Copilot features to Excel, as well. Since the beginning of this year, here’s what you’ve been able to do:
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Request a chart of your data.
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Ask Copilot follow-up questions, including requesting clarifications to previous responses.
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Generate formula column options with one prompt.
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Use Copilot to figure out why you’re running into issues with a task.
Copilot in OneNote
OneNote actually has had quite a few new Copilot features since January. If you have access to Copilot in OneNote and frequently use the app, here’s what you can expect:
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Create notes from audio recordings and transcriptions, then ask Copilot to summarize the notes and arrange them in different ways.
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Create to-do lists with Copilot.
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Copilot can search through information within your organization for added context to your requests.
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Ask Copilot to organize your notes for you.
Copilot for Teams got an upgrade
If you use Copilot in Teams, you may notice now that the bot can now automatically take notes during meetings. If you head to Recap the meeting, you can get a summary of what your team or the call just talked about.
You may also see a new Copilot option attached to the top of your Teams chats. This lets you quickly prompt Copilot inside chats, pulling in documents with the / key. You’ll also see that Teams will alert you when AI is being used in a meeting, such as when Copilot is in use without transcriptions.
Let the AI do the prompting for you
Soon, Copilot will start autocompleting your prompts for you. When you start typing, the bot will offer suggestions for what it thinks you might want to do. If you say “Summarize,” before you can say what you want summarized, Copilot will guess what you want to round up, including things like your “last 10 emails.”
