Copilot Takes AI Assistance to Excel and Beyond
Microsoft’s Copilot, a generative AI tool, is expanding its capabilities and finding a useful place in various Microsoft 365 applications. At the recent Microsoft 365 Copilot livestream, CEO Satya Nadella announced new Copilot features for Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, Word, and OneDrive, as well as the introduction of Copilot Pages and Copilot Agents.
New Copilot Features Enhance Productivity
The addition of Copilot to Excel brings a range of benefits to users. Copilot can now assist with formatting data, applying common formulas, and visualizing data in charts and pivot tables. It also supports text analysis, allowing users to search for keywords and phrases and analyze data accordingly. Additionally, Copilot now understands Python, making it easier for users without coding knowledge to leverage the programming language in Excel.
In PowerPoint, Copilot can generate outlines for presentations based on prompts and pull in data from Microsoft 365 sources. It can also design presentations by incorporating brand pictures or AI-generated images. The “Brand Narrative” feature, which is coming soon, will further enhance the presentation creation process.
Copilot’s capabilities in Teams have been expanded to include conversations happening in the chat, in addition to meeting transcripts. This feature will be available later this month. In Outlook, Copilot can prioritize important emails, provide summaries, and generate recommended responses, similar to Apple’s recent Mail app feature. The prioritizing feature will be available for public preview by the end of 2024. In Word, Copilot’s summarization and data gathering capabilities can be leveraged through the Copilot sidebar to generate drafts within documents.
OneDrive, the cloud storage platform, is also getting an AI-powered upgrade with Copilot. It will help users find and sort through relevant files and provide summaries, streamlining the file search process. This feature is rolling out now and will be broadly available later this month.
Collaborative Response Building with Copilot Pages
With the introduction of Copilot Pages, users can now collaborate on Copilot responses within BizChat. Copilot Pages allows team members to work together on a project, iterate in real time, and add more content from data, files, and the web to their collaborative page. This eliminates the need for independent research within Copilot and encourages collaborative response building. Copilot Pages is available through BizChat starting today and will be available in the free Microsoft Copilot version for users with a Microsoft Entra account in the coming weeks.
Customizable AI Assistants with Copilot Agents
Copilot Agents, unveiled last year, act as customizable AI-powered assistants for automating tasks. Users can share internal knowledge and databases with agents and train them to perform specific tasks in the background. This could include onboarding new employees or troubleshooting on-site problems with machinery. Copilot Agents are now generally available, and Microsoft has launched an agent builder tool to help users easily build agents without engineering expertise. Copilot Agents will be accessible through BizChat and will roll out to customers in the coming weeks.
Overall, the expansion of Copilot’s capabilities across various Microsoft 365 applications, along with the introduction of Copilot Pages and Copilot Agents, demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to enhancing productivity and collaboration through AI assistance. These new features empower users to work more efficiently, automate tasks, and streamline their workflows.