The goal of this blog post is to provide some field experience tips and coaching to help you get the best out of using Copilot in Word. For this you need to have either a Copilot Pro license or a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license and be signed into Word (or Word Online).
In this example, our Goal is to take a Marketing Analysis document we have been sent, and to draw out key information we can use in a “sales meeting” that we have coming up. The document contains lots of information relevant to different parts of the business.
I have provided a link to the document I used (courtesty of Microsoft) so you can either follow along or reference the videos included in this post. Welcome your comments – so please let me know how you get on.
Scenario: Using Copilot to pull key info from a Marketing Report
Instructions:
To work on this example with me, speak to your marketing team and obtain a Market Analysis Report for other similar document. For this example, I am using a public sample document Microsoft have shared called “Mystic Spice Premium Chai Tea.docx” which you can access here. The password for the link is “Copilot”. Once you have done that, save the file to your OneDrive so you can use it to test out and experiment with these prompts.
Open the document you obtained (or use my link above) in Word and then
Open the Copilot pane by selecting the Copilot icon in the top right of the “ribbon”
Enter the prompts below and follow along.
The Starting Prompt
Enter the Starting prompt “Summarise this Word Document” or click the suggested prompt to do the same thing…
In this simple prompt, we have started with what I call the “Alexa Prompt” – we are asking a simple question with a basic goal “to summarise the Word document”.
Using a standard/simple Copilot prompt to Summarise a Doc in Word.
This has done we asked but since we gave no context or information about what we wanted and why we needed it, Copilot has just read throught the document a pilled out key bits of information from each section.
The “better” prompt
To improve on this, we are going to repeat the prompt, but this time, we will add some more context to help Copilot understand the purpose of the summary and tailor the response for us accordingly.
Write a new prompt: “Summarise this document and create a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow’s Sales meeting“.
Here we are giving Copilot some more context specific about what information we want. It now knows why we need the information (for a sales meeting) and it knows to keep the ouput brief.
Using a more specific Copilot prompt to Summarise a Doc in Word.
If you run the prompt yourself (or check the video above) you will see that this time Copilot has pulled out specific around Market Trends and Demand inluding stats around CAGR. It has told us about the key competitiors, distribution and sales channels and also Sales Strategy, Outcomes and the Challenges in selling.
The Super Prompt
For the final prompt (I call it the “super prompt”), we are going to be even more specific with the ask to get just the information we need.
Use this prompt “Summarise this word document but focus on the Competitive Analysis section only. Provide a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow’s Sales meeting. Please keep the summary to 5 key points and use simple language.”
If you compare the output of this prompt to the previous ones, you will see that since we have been specific about where we want Copilot to focus, the response we get is specific to what we have asked. It’s still a summary, but it is focussed on the just the Competitor Analysis section and we have kept the response concise and in simple language. It knows to keep this simple and make it relevant to sales…
Follow along – or check out the video below where I run the prompt.
Our “Crafted” Super-Prompt in Copilot in Word
So there you go – we have started with a simple prompt and I have hopefully shown you that by thinking about what and why we want the information and also the audience the response is indended for, Copilot can produce information just the way we need it.
Summary and Lesson
So, I am pretty happy with that result. To recap – here is what we did to perfect our prompt…
We started with our Goal (which was to summarise the document)
Added some Context (that we want the information for a sales meeting)
Specified the Source of the information (we asked to focus on competitive analysis), and
Set clear Expectations, (we asked for five key points using simple language).
Our Final Prompt:
"Summarise this word document but focus on the Competitive Analysis section only. Provide a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow's Sales meeting. Please keep the summary to 5 key points and use simple language".
This prompt has all the details it needs to give us the results we need. It has a Goal, Context, Source, and Expectations.
Microsoft has announced plans for a new artificial intelligence (AI) hub in London, which will be focused on leading edge product development and research. This will be led Microsoft AI Lead Mustafa Suleyman (confounder of DeepMind) who Microsoft hired last month.
This annoucement comes less than a month since Microsoft unveiled a new consumer AI division.
There is an enormous pool of AI talent and expertise in the UK, and Microsoft AI plans to make a significant, long-term investment in the region. (London).
Mustafa Suleyman
This is great for the UK and for London and will help both Microsoft and the UK become an AI and technology superpower leveraging the hub of tech talent, access to leading and world class universities and research centres with ability to attract the best talent for the next generation of development of AI.
Microsofts AI Future in the UK
This announcement builds on Microsoft’s recent commitment to invest 2.5 Billion into data centre infrastructure and improving AI skills across the UK.
Microsoft’s AI investment in the UK includes building a major new data centre in West London and installing 20,000 high-powered processors in the UK by 2026.
Microsoft’s new UK hub will be run by Jordan Hoffmann, (another former employee from DeepMind) and will collaborate closely with OpenAI which powers Microsoft’s AI driven Copilot System framework.
The Windows Insider team have released Windows 11 Build 26040 to Insiders in the Canary Channel, which is the first new build for this channel in 2024.
This build is full with improvements and fixes, but the main call out feature of this build is the addition of support for Voice Clarity on PCs that do not have dedicated NPUs. Until now, this was a feature that had been exclusive to select Surface devices with NPUs, but Microsoft are now making this available across all Windows 11 devices.
Voice Clarity uses advanced AI powered audio processing to help your voice be heard more clearly on online calls, and voice recordings even in noisy environments or when you move around the room. Voice Clarity also improves the quality of the voices you hear, making them sound more natural and realistic using a combination of echo cancelling, background noise suppression and removal of reverberation all in real-time.
Note: My understanding is that this new native OS based Voice Clarity will only activate "when the OEM device does not offer Communications Mode processing.". This means that if your device already has a noise-reduction technology (such as the Surface Pro 9) compatible with Communications Signal Processing Mode, the Windows 11 software-based Voice Clarity will not be activated and it will instead use the technology enabled by the NPU.
Other changes in Canary build 26040
Other noticeable changes in this build include:
Changes to the Windows Setup experience with a cleaner and more modern experience.
Improvements to the screen casting services
Moving of the Copilot in Windows button to the right side of the Taskbar making it easier to access and closer to where the Copilot pane opens.
Support for USB 80Gbps has been added to support the new devices shipping with the newest Intel Core 14th Gen HX-series mobile processors.
A New Task Manager icon – that matches the design language of Windows 11. There’s new option to show the GPU temperature in the Performance tab.
Read the full Windows Insider Blog
Full releases notes for the latest Canary Build can be found here, along with release notes for the Dev and Beta builds which also had new builds this week.
Microsoft need to take urgent action to bring the awesomeness of Copilot Pro to their huge Microsoft 365 Family subscriber base without breaking the bank.
I was really excited to hear that Microsoft had annouced Copilot Pro bringing the power of Copilot into the heart of the consumer version of Microsoft 365 Family or invidual for £19 per user per month
Whilst I’m keen to try this out to see how this could benefit consumer users and families. I became rather shocked when I did the quick calculations on the cost for our family of four!
Family of four – A Thousand Pound a Year.
Yes, you read that correctly..
There is no doubt this will be an awesome addition to anyone using Microsoft 365 apps, but one thing you need to be aware of is how Copilot Pro is licensed for Microsoft 365 Family subscribers.
Firstly, let me say that Microsoft 365 Family is a bargain. For just £79 per year (I actually paid £59 on) for a family subscription which covers up to 6 people with full access to Microsoft 365 apps (online and full desktop and mobile apps which can be used in up to five decives each), 1TB storage for OneDrive, Microsoft 365 Family Safety and more. It’s great great value.
On a previous blog, I showed how you can add Copilot Pro to this subscription for £19 a month (which is £228 a year) which is a multiplier of X3 based in the £79 RRP price) which sounds staggering but could “probably” be justified….
But it gets worse…
Why… Well if you want all your family members to have access to the features of Copilot Pro (for example your kids for school and uni), you need to buy a Copilot Pro license for every member of your family you wish to use Copilot Pro.
This means an extra £19 per month for every family member on top of the Family Microsoft 365 subscription. We are a family of four!
12.5x the price
In my family of four, assuming my wife and two children needed / wanted a Copilot Pro license, our £79 a year subscription would increase by 12.5x to a staggering £991 a year…
Wow…. Just wow.. That’s a lot of cash.
Of course not all the family may need a Copilot Pro subscription and at this price I imagine just the primary user would buy a license and then “use the same account” to access Copilot Pro.
Whilst this would t work in a corporation, as a family this is much viable.
Microsoft – please make this affordable for Families.
I get the hype and excitement about Copilot in Microsoft 365. I have been using it for a week where I work and beielve me, it is truly remarkable.
In the consumer world however, I just cannot see a Microsoft 365 Family subscriber adding a Copilot Pro license for any more than one user.
Of course not all may need it, and of course the free version of Copilot is brilliant for anyone that needs the power of ChatGPT in Windows and the web browser, Microsoft need to think about this key subscription and make the price for Families much much lower…
Microsoft…. Please look at an affordable price for these Family subscriptions.. I’d happily pay a small price per addiotnal user above the primary user but £1,000 for a family of four (in my case) is crazy….
I welcome your comments Microsoft 365 Family subscribers….
You will probably be aware that Chat-GPT offers both a free tier (Chat GPT3) and a paid “plus” tier which costs $20 and upwards and includes more features and the new GPT-4 engine.
The free tier is limited, is based on the “older” ChatGPT-3.5 model and doesn’t include any image creation tools.
The Plus tier costs $20 and gives you ChatGPT-4 (the newest fasted and accurate model) and the ability to create AI images using DALL-E and ability to web search!
However, you can get access and use (legally) all the plus features (and more) including GPT-4 and DALL-E for free – by using Microsoft Copilot in Edge (you may know this as Bing Chat).
How to get all the features of ChatGPT-4 and DALL-E for free.
Microsoft Copilot is the brand Microsoft have given to their AI technology which is all built on the very same ChatGPT technology built by OpenAI. In face Microsoft own a significant portion of OpenAI and have been developing together for years.
Here’s why you really want to take a look.
Microsoft Copilot is 100% Free.
It uses the latest Chat GPT-4 models and you also get access to Image Designer which is built on DALL-E version 3.
It is available as a dedicated app on iOS and Android,
It is built in to Windows 11 (and soon Windows 10)
It is also built into Microsoft’s Edge browser (this is built on Chromium technology – so is essentially Chrome but better!).
Corporate users also get the same free version but with Enterprise data protection, meaning chat data and content is not used to train their consumer models.
Introduction to Microsoft Copilot
Copilot is Microsoft’s AI powered Generative AI tools built on the latest Open AI versions of Chat GPT large language model (LLM) and the DALL-E image creation technology. By using Copilot, users get access to this for free without having to pay the $20 per month subscription fee for ChatGPT Plus.
To get Copilot, you just need to head over the Apple Store or Google Play Store and search for Microsoft Copilot.
You don’t need to sign up, but if you do sign in with your Microsoft account (you can create one for free if you don’t have one) , you get access to more features and can have more detailed and longer conversations with the chatbot. This is definitely worth doing if you plan to use Chat GPT / Copilot more than a couple times a day…
This offers amazing value. Copilot is a free and amazing tool that uses the state-of-the-art AI models from OpenAI, including GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. Copilot gives you access to the same innovation and functionality that Microsoft is embedding into its premium products and services for both individual and business customers. DALL-E 3 is an impressive AI model that can produce stunning photos, artwork, stickers, backgrounds, and other images from your instruction / prompt.
Getting Started With Copilot – What can it do?
Welcome to Copilot. This is the ultimate chat tool for creating and exploring amazing content. If you have used Chat GPT before, you already know how powerful and fun it is. But Copilot takes it to the next level. With Copilot, you can not only use chat to search, but also use it to access and manipulate data from the internet (how cool is that?), and even generate stunning images with your words. And if you use Copilot from the Edge browser, you can also analyse and work on content from any web-page – that’s awesome, right? Don’t believe me? Just see for yourself.
Getting started is super simple – whether you are using the browser, Windows 11, or a mobile app. You can simply use the ‘Ask me anything’ prompt to type your question or instruction (this is called a prompt), upload an image, or paste some text in, or tap the microphone icon to speak to Copilot. Copilot has the ability to reply with audio as well as displaying results on screen which is nice.
The following images show the different starting screen on different devices.
Some things Copilot can help you with.
Copilot (as the prompts suggest) can be used to perform a powerful range of text and image based tasks, research and more. For example, you could use it to help you…
This table, show the outputs of these steps based on the prompts I used. Why not follow along and adapt the prompts to suit your need. You may need to tweak them to get the desired result.
Desired Outcome
Sample Prompt (instruction)
A story about a car that can fly.
“Write me a story about a family that take their new car out for a drive only to find it has the ability to fly. Make the story funny and limit it to 3 paragraphs“.
Drafting an email about a specific topic.
“I need to write an email to my team explaining that we are planning to restructure the team to align to our new coprate vision. Draft me an email that will be both empatetic but also direct about the change that is happening.”
Summarise a document
Open a PDF document in the browser. “Summarise the key points of this document into 3 sections including a summary, key points and a conclusion“.
Compare different things (such as products) and present the information in a preferred (e.g., a table) format.
“I want to go on holiday with my 2 young children over xmas next year where the weather will be warm and sunny and near a beach. Create a table with some different places we could go that are good for children, expected costs per person and the location. Ensure flight times are under 5 hours.“
Rewrite a body of text (document, email body, report).
Instruction: Open a document you are working in word or powerpoint in the browser. Highlight a body of text and select “write” from the context menu.
Text based awesome things Copilot can help with or perform for you.
This table, show the outputs of these steps based on the prompts I used. Why not follow along and adapt the prompts to suit your need. You may need to tweak them to get the desired result. You can create these prompts directly in Copilot or for more control and fun. Just go to. https://designer.microsoft.com .
Desired Outcome
Sample Prompt (instruction)
Create social media content about a [brand launch] or something else.
“Create me an image for social media to promote my new webinar I am launching in March on AI technolog in the retail industry.”
Create an image such as an illustration for the story we just created above.
“I have written a story about a family that take their new car out for a drive only to find it has the ability to fly. Create me some illustrations of a flying car taking off for the story using in coloured pencil sketches for a childrens book.”
Create an image for a blog site or report.
“I need to write a financial report for the return on investment of AI technology in the enegery sector. Create me a modern, line art image I can use on the front cover. Make it look professional with minimum colours”.
Explain an image by asking questions about a local image or doc on the web
Use the upload image box to upload an image from your phone or computer and then ask Copilot to “describe the image or create you some alt-text”.
Recreate an image using AI.
Upload an image and then ask Copilot to create a new image based on this. For example: “Create a new image that uses the same background but adds some farm animals ouitside the building“
Image based awesome things Copilot can help you with or perform.
Here’s a bonus cool prompt you can try.. I have endless fun with this..
Vibrant red eyes, dark green baby dinosaur in a forest with leaves hiding some people his cute but fierce face. BLACK background with faint outlines of forests and mountains in the background. studio photography, close up
Great Designer Image Creator Prompt.
Created with Microsoft Image Designer
Conclusion
Microsoft’s Copilot app is now available for iOS and Android users. It ships with a ton of features, including the capability to generate answers to queries, draft emails, and summarize text. You can also generate images using the tool by leveraging its DALL-E 3 technology. It also ships with OpenAI’s latest LLM, GPT-4, and you can access all these for free.
Wait.. There’s more.
OK, so there is more.. You can also opt to purchase Copilot Pro…. For £19 pupm for individual for Microsoft Family subscriptions you get aceess to event better GPT4-Turbo, faster speeds and much more more.
Last month, and now just a few weeks away from Cisco Live, Cisco have announced they are bringing a new “AI Assistant for Security” to market this year. This is an artificial intelligence tool that combines generative AI technologies with an “unparalleled scope of data” , giving IT/SecOps teams the ability to generate more secure, AI-driven insights that span devices, applications, security, networks, and the internet .
“AI Assistant for Security will help provide better protection to our customers by simplifying management for both seasoned administrators and novice users. Our aim is to inject generative AI and unify telemetry across all Cisco Security solutions to create a more effective experience and safeguard our customers”
Brian Feeney | VP Global security partner sales | Cisco
Cisco AI Assistant for Security marks a major step in making artificial intelligence pervasive in the Cisco Security Cloud. Starting with the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, Cybersecurity professionals will be able to leverages Cisco AI Assistant for streamlining and automating firewall management both on premises and in the cloud.
Firewalls first – more later
Cisco have said that they will launch the AI Assistant for firewall as soon as Spring 2024, with this representing a great opportunity for their partners and customers to start leverage the advantages of AI.
Cisco say this will be included and integrated into their cloud-delivered Firewall Management Center with no additional charge. Longer term, Cisco said they plan to extend it to their other firewall management tools later.
Why? Well, according to Gartner, Configuration complexity and inconsistent rules are among the highest cause of security risks and breaches when it comes to configuring networks and firewalls with misconfiguration being the cause of nintey nine percent (99%) of all firewall breaches.
Image (c) Cisco
The AI Assistant for Security is built on “Ciscos foundation of security, data protection, and privacy, guided by Cisco’s responsible AI principles and framework”. Their AI assistant is trained on Cisco’s huge security-focused datasets, (Talos) which analyses more than 550 billion security events daily and helps IT and SecOps teams in making informed decisions, enhancing their tooling and reporting capabilities, and automating intricate tasks.
“Cisco is harnessing AI to reframe how organisations think about cybersecurity outcomes and tip the scales in favor of defenders. Cisco combines AI with its breadth of telemetry across the network, private and public cloud infrastructure, applications, internet, email, and endpoints. “
Jeetu Patel | VP security and collaboration | Cisco
Cisco say that their Cisco AI Assistant for Security is a major step forward in making artificial intelligence relevant and pervasive in the Cisco Security Cloud – their unified, AI-driven, cross-domain security platform. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center will be the first platform to leverage the AI Assistant for Security to simplify firewall management.
This should make it much easier to manage and maintaining firewall rules and policies, by enabling administrators to “talk to and administer” the platform to with natural language to find policies, understand rules, spot anonomises and even get suggestions for new rules.
How AI Assistant for Security is different to Microsoft SecurityCopilot?
Scope
Cisco AI Assistant for Security and Microsoft Security Copilot are both artificial intelligence tools that are designed to help IT and SecOps teams work do efficiently, smarter and safer users work faster, but the platforms and services are different in several ways when comparing to Microsoft Security Copilot.
Cisco’s AI assistant is designed to work across (initially) their firewall services (with other services that make up the Cisco Secure Cloud portfolio coming later), Microsoft Security Copilot is designed to assist cybersecurity professionals in investigating critical incidents across their entire security portfolio including Microsoft 365, their XDR platform, Azure and Sentinel. Microsoft Security Copilot doesn’t work across physical security devices like firewalls so the two services are potentially good complementing services.
Microsoft has combined the power of OpenAI’s large language model with Microsoft’s own threat analysis footprints which is informed by more than 100 different data sources across Microsoft 365,Azure and hundreds of this party data analysis companies. It uses the combined intelligence of more than 65 trillion threat signals every day to provide company and sector specific insights, alerts and guidance.
Use Cases
Currently AI Assistant for Security is designed to help organisations better configure their security services (starting with firewalls), detect inconsistencies (for example across different sites, service or offices). This will expand over time however and we expect more to be annouced in Feb 2024 at Cisco Live in Amsterdam.
Use cases for Microsoft Security Copilot include for example the ability to allow admins to use prompting language prompting to ask Copilot to acreste an exec level report on an incident response for a particular ongoing investigation. Copilot will pull data across multiple sources based on the set of interrelated and connected tools and services. Another change of prompt for example could the see Copilot provide more information, change how it displays or summarises the report, or even create lessons learned documents or suggest changes in process.
Cost
According to Cisco, the AI assistant for Security will be generally available for firewall customers in the spring of 2024 at no additional cost via the cloud-delivered Firewall Management Center (FMC) and expanding to other management tools in the future.
Microsoft Security Copilot, however, which is currently in paid public preview is expected to cost >$100k when it’s officially availabily later this year.
A better together story?
As you can see the Cisco and Microsoft’s offering in this space is quite different. While Cisco see their AI Assistant for Security as a way of differentiating their brand in the cyber security space and to leap ahead of the competition in this traditional secoery space (think Palo, HPE, Dell, Checkpoint etc), Microsoft Security Copilot is more geared towards collating security signals from the organisations configuration, reports and signals from Microsoft’s own threat intelligence of 65 Trillion signals, the organisations configuration and third party connected signals to provide almost an AI powered cyber security team.
I very much see this as a “use both” better together theme.
Closing Thoughts
According to Gartner, Configuration complexity and inconsistent rules are among the highest cause of security risks and breaches when it comes to configuring networks and firewalls with misconfiguration being the cause of nintey nine percent (99%) of all firewall breaches.
As such, launching this with a “firewall first” approach is a sensible move by Cisco to add more value to their offering through the use of embedding generative AI into their core security product base without adding a surcharge or making it “Premium”. It should help to further position Cisco as a Leader in the security space against the fierce completion. I look forward to this being available and for Cisco to increase it’s reach over time to the rest of their portfolio.
Read more
You can learn more about Microsoft Security Copilot at and Cisco’s AI assistant below.
Microsoft today, 4th Jan 2024, announced that Copilot in Windows is coming out of preview. They also announced the next significant step forward for Copilot in Windows and the future of the AI Powered PC. Microsoft say that the future of Windows, Silicon and Copilot, are the next stage of enabling the significant shift towards “a more personal and intelligent computing future where AI will be seamlessly woven into Windows from the system to the silicon, to the hardware“.
The next technology shift, driven by AI innovation is continuing to grow exponentially and is posed to fundamentally change the way we use and access technology forever.
“From reinventing the way people search with Copilot in Bing, and unlocking productivity with Copilot for Microsoft 365, to reimagining how people get things done on the PC with Copilot in Windows”.
Yusuf Mehdi | Chief Marketing Officer | Microsoft
Microsoft, in their blog, talk about 2023 being the year of the birth of Generative AI, with 2024 being the year of the AI Powered PC.
The AI Powered PC
As significant as the introduction of the Windows Key was in the 1990s, the introduction of a new Copilot key will be the first significant change (in over 30 years) that is coming to the Windows PC keyboard starting with new devices shipping this year.
The Copilot key, which will sit near the space bar and replace the right ALT-GR key on most keyboards, will invoke the Copilot in Windows experience to make it seamless for people to engage Copilot in their day-to-day work or lives and is designed to make it easier for everyone to be part of the AI transformation more easily.
AI – from Chip to the Cloud
In same way Microsoft approaches security – Chip, OS and Cloud, they are taking the same approach with AI. Starting with their own NPUs in Surface and now across their eco system OEM partners, Microsoft say that there is huge momentum from AMD, Intel and Qualcomm, all of whom have launched dedicated NPUs to unlock the power of edge AI processing in their latest chipsets and with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) just round the corner, we expect to see many new innovation and advances coming from Microsoft and the rest of the Windows OEMs this year. This powerful combinations and advances coming to Windows OS, their Copilot Cloud system and advances in NPUs, the next twelve months seem very exciting.
Microsoft say they are committed to the pace of development in Copilot and Windows and are positioning Windows to be “the destination for the best AI experiences”. This combined with the development of their AI Cloud Services and the new local processing made possible by new hardware and silicon, will allow Windows to be an “operating system that blurs the lines between local and cloud processing“. The year ahead promises to be nothing short of extraordinary!
Note: Copilot in Windows is being rolled out gradually to Windows Insiders in select global markets. The initial markets for the Copilot in Windows preview include North America, United Kingdom and parts of Asia and South America. It will come additional markets over time.
Microsoft Surface first?
It’s unknown at the moment what OEMs will start to ship devices with the new Copilot key, but according to leaks and social media, Microsoft is rumoured to be launching updates to the Surface Pro Surface Laptop family this year and these will ship with the new Copilot key.
Our social media feeds will be full of predictions for the year ahead this week, after all, 2023 was an exciting and crazy year in tech with arguably some of the biggest advances we have seen for more than a decade. You can read my 2023 tech review here.
With all the advancements in Generative AI technology and chatbots in 2023, I have focussed my tech predications specifically around the rise and development of Generative AI, since every aspect of IT is going to be “AI infused” this year I believe, and organisations start to enter the next level of adoption maturity – from “what is coming” and “what might be possible” to real business impacts and tangible examples.
#1 AI is going to keep getting better and more “intelligent”.
This is quite a no-brainer really, as we already know that OpenAI has big plans for 2024 and with Google hot on their tail with Gemini, I would expect to see the release ChatGPT 4.5 (or even 5) at some point in the first half of 2024. We could also see image technology like DALL-E shift into video creation for the masses an not just images. There will also be more competition to win the Gen AI race from Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon. This could be the new browser and search engine wars. Microsoft will adopt the later ChatGPT and DALLE-3 tools into their Copilot products.
#2 Business will invest more AI and core technology training.
Outside of using Generative AI to help us write emails and documents, many organisations will be looking to AI to further enhance business automation and data processes to complement and enhance human capabilities.
With the output of most of the AI tools we will use in the enterprise being reliant on the data on which they use as a reference point or to operate, there will be a need to invest in skills around the fundamentals of AI and big data analytics. People will need to learn how to interface with AI, how to write to good prompts that deliver the right outcome and how to leverage these new tools to radially improve productivity and outcomes.
At the more basic levels, there will also be a focus and need to drive good adoption of the base technologies used within organisations as a result of the technologies and processes put in place. From good data labelling and classification, to simply working with and storing files in the right places in Office 365 and to using the new tools such as Copilot in Edge and Microsoft 365, Intelligent Recap in Teams, businesses will need to revisit the level of IT training given to employees, encouraging Centres of Excellence and building technology sponsors or mentors across different teams.
Training users on what tools to use, how to use them and when will be key and is something many organisations still do badly.
#3 We will see more Legal Claims against AI.
Whatever happens in terms of the tech advances of AI, there is no doubt that we see a leap in the number of legal claims from authors, publishers and artists against companies who have been building AI products – after all, we’ve already seen a few in 2023.
The reason for this, is that at the heart of any Generative AI products are large language models (LLMs). The leading AI companies such as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, have worked really hard to ensure their models adhere to and respect copyright laws while “training” their models. In fact, Microsoft are so bold about this, they even put in place a copyright protect pledge to protect companies back in September last year.
Just last week (December 2023), the New York Times filed a huge lawsuit against Open AI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. They claim that their heavily journalism content was being used to train and develop ChatGPT without any form of payment.
OpenAI and Microsoft are also caught up in another lawsuit over the alleged unauthorised use of code in their AI tool Github Copilot and there have already been other examples of lawsuits against developers of generative AI products including Stability AI and Midjourney in which artists have accused the developers of using their content to train text-to-image and image creation generators on copyrighted artwork.
The legal battles of 2023 highlight some of the complex and evolving issues surrounding intellectual property rights with the development and use of AI.
As 2024 gets underway, I suspect we will see more examples (especially if the New York Times case is successful).
#4 The rise of robust governance policies.
As we move from proof of concepts and idealisation to real proven examples of how these AI tools can be used in our daily lives, I think we will see an increase in regional, state and local companies, putting in place robust governance policies, processes and tools including the testing and validation for content generated by AI generated content. This will require new tools for ensuring there are appropriate guard rails and monitoring throughout.
Organisations will need to have clear AI policies in place that map out what AI products and tools they allow, guidance around content and image generation as well as what they view as ethical, responsible, and inclusive use of AI, outside of the policies that the AI companies have in place and the guidance they provide.
Education will also be key to ensure that employees can learn and put to practice, the necessary skills to use AI tools in workplace and to ensure the above checks and policies are implemented. Creating centres of excellence and good practice sharing will also be key to ensure employees and organisations get maximum benefit and gains from using AI.
#5 Expect to see more deception, scams and deep fakes.
We will likely see more deception and trickery for financial gain this year as fake person generators and deep fake voice and videos become more of a widespread tool for phishing and scams. We have already seen cases (and warnings) by banks where voice cloning technologies can already accurately replicate human voices and threaten the security of voice print based security systems. In 2024,we are likely to see this go further to many more areas across personal, corporate and political exploitation and deception.
Left unsupervised and unprotected, the rapid growth and risks of digital deception imposes a huge risk and needs security response and protection organisations to respond. I think we will see more guidance, more safeguards, specialised detection tools, increased awareness and increased use of multi-factor protection. A new method of digital prints to detect such fakes is going to be critical if people and organisations are going to remain confident that these technologies can’t be beaten by deep fakes.
To protect the reliability of information in a fast-changing digital world, it will be essential to have the tools and skills to detect and counteract AI-generated fabrications.
#6 Proliferation of “new” wearable AI technology.
I expect to see a huge increase in products and services around AI wearables or AI-powered wearables. This will further drive the already increasing trend that shifts away from traditional screen-focused devices towards more integrated, context and environment aware devices that provide up-to-date monitoring that fuel data driven insights and decisions into personal and professional lives.
Applications: This could open up huge advances in for example continuous health monitoring devices, such as blood glucose monitors, anxiety detection, cancer scanning, gut health and even AI controlled insulin pumps. In sports we could a new level of performance monitoring and tracking with huge sponsorships deals by leading health and fitness companies. This will/could also lead to more data for unique advertising revenues…
Security comprises and wider privacy concerns are likely to be impacted by this shift especially as these devices (in a similar way to health trackers do today) will have the ability to record and process huge amounts of personal, health and other data. In the case of smart glasses for example, this could also lead to new laws and legislation (and restrictions) to ensure privacy isn’t compromised by recording or capturing video without permission or consent.
#7 Cyber attacks and defence will become “more AI driven”.
With any new technology – security plays a vital role. I think we will see a massive change to the level of attacks and therefore the protection and detection needed from cyber security systems this year. From an attacker perspective, it is likely that the use of Machine Learning and AI will continue to amplify the sophistication and effectiveness of cyber attacks – with more convincing personalised-driven tactics, including advanced deepfakes and intricate, personal phishing schemes, using AI to craft more convincing social engineering attacks that make it increasingly difficult to differentiate between legitimate and deceptive communications – both externally and from within the organisation. We will also see systems customise attacks based on industry, location and known threat protection landscape.
From a defence perspective, the fight against AI attacks will also be AI-centric with new AI-based detection tools and applications that work in real time. Identity will be the primary defence and attack vector. For example, Microsoft’s Security Copilot which is currently in preview promises to be the first generative AI security product to help businesses protect and defend their digital estate at AI speed and scale. These tools, in partnership with people powered response and remediation teams should at least even the fight between the AI powered attackers and the defenders that are needed to keep our businesses, industry and services safe.
Without playing the War Games/Terminator scare games, the treat of bad actors/nation state attackers. organised cyber crime division and opportunity hackers have a new set of tools available to help them. The battle between attackers and the biggest Cyber Security MSPs, Cloud giants and business is going to heat up. We will see victims and we will see scares. The battle against cyber threats is becoming ever more complex and intertwined with AI.
Businesses will need a more nuanced and advanced approach to cybersecurity which will mean simplification, standardisation and most likely reducing the number of different disconnected security products they have and adopting a more defence in depth approach with AI powered SEIM tools or full outsourced Managed Security.
#8 Zero Trust will finally be taken seriously.
To wrap it up – and with the growth of AI in to every part of our personal and work lives, working across more devices, applications, and services, the realm of control that IT traditionally had over the environment will continue to move outside of their control.
With the rise of AI and more importantly AI being used to drive more sophisticated attacks – compromising personal devices that are used to access corporate data, I think we will see more organisation adopting the zero-trust security models whilst consolidating their point product solutions into a more streamlined and unified approach.
Zero Trust is a security strategy – not a product or a service, but an approach in designing and implementing the following set of security principles regardless of what technology products or services an organisation uses:
Verify explicitly.
Use least privilege access.
Assume breach.
The core principle of Zero Trust is that nothing inside or outside the corporate firewall can be trusted. Instead of assuming safety, the Zero Trust model treats every request as if it came from an unsecured network and verifies it accordingly. The motto of Zero Trust is “never trust, always verify.”
We also know many organisation have a huge amount of digital dept when it comes to security – with lots of point products, duplicate products and dis-jointed systems. I think we will see organisations focus more around:
Closing the gaps in the Zero Trust strategy– making sure they have adequate protection against each of the layers
Focus on data protection to minimise data breach risk – things like Data Loss Prevention, encryption, conditional access, labelling and data classification etc.
Doing more with less – by removing redundant or duplicate products and aligning with tools that better integrate with one another and that can be managed holistically through a single pane of glass.
Doubling down on Identity and Access control – moving to passwordless authentication methods, tighter role based access control, time-based access for privileged roles and stricter conditional access policies.
I also think that Generative AI has a huge potential to strengthen both our awareness of data security, and in adding an additional layer of visibility and protection. I expect we will see admin tools become smarter at looking at information over sharing, pockets of risk and potential compromise and having the ability to take action (expect more premium SKUs) to close the gaps, inform information owners or alert Sec Ops teams. I think we will see organisations spend more time looking at risk management and insider risk too.
I could probably go on – as there is so much happening and the pace we saw in 2023 will only continue and if not increase.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this article has discussed some of the major trends and my predictions for AI in 2024, based on the developments, achievements, rumours and general trajectory seen last year.
In short, my predictions, include the improvement and competition of generative AI models, the need for more AI and data skills training, the legal and ethical challenges of AI-generated content, the rise of AI governance and security policies, the increase of deception and deepfakes, the proliferation of AI wearables, and the role of AI in cyberattacks and defence.
These trends highlight the both the opportunities and risks of AI for personal, professional, and societal domains, and the importance of being aware and prepared for the impact of AI in the near future.
The world of Copilot is evolving quickly… You take a couple of days of downtime over the Christmas break to find that Microsoft has launched a new Copilot app for Android which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.
The Copilot app (which is essentially just the Copilot bits of the Bing App), allows users to interact with Copilot like they would with the standalone Open AI ChatGPT. It can be used to ask questions, get help with stuff, creating images using Bing’s Image Creator all from text (or voice) prompts.
Copilot app for Android
Today, the app allows consumer users (you need to sign in with a Microsoft account) to access the app but doesn’t yet allow sign in from commercial Microsoft 365 accounts but presume this will be added in due course.
It is only available on Android today, but has the same functionality as the Bing app, so iOS users can still use that.
Copilot is powered by GPT-4 and DALLE 3, which provide fast, complex, and precise responses, as well as the ability to create breathtaking visuals from simple text descriptions.
Here’s some of the text-based things you can do with Copilot app:
Draft emails or re-phrase pretty much any piece of text
Create stories, scripts, plays, or game ideas.
Summarise complex or long documents including PDFs.
Translate documents of text from one language to another
Proof-read documents and compare against a scoring document.
Create personalised travel itineraries.
Write and update CVs and more.
Here’s some of the image-based things you can do with the Copilot app:
Create images, or complete pictures using text input.
Leverage a different set of styles such as cartoon, photo realistic or pop-art
Generate custom backgrounds images.
Create logo designs for blogs or your new company ideas.
Create illustrations for books.
Create images for blogs, cards, eBooks or social media.
Use or take a photo and have Copilot describe it create a new image based from it.
Example
In the example below, I am using Copilot to create a new image from a photo of some batteries. You’ll see how Copilot also tries to be smart and give some valuable tips about battery disposal.
Getting the best from Copilot
Getting the best results from using Copilot (or any Generative Chat based AI tool), is all about the prompt (the instruction we use to ask Copilot what we want it to do).
Hello, followers and subscribers! As the year comes to an end, I want to take a moment to thank you for your support and interest in my blog. It has been a busy and exciting year in tech and I hope you enjoyed reading my posts which focussed mainly around AI, Modern Work, Cloud Security, Windows and Surface.
In my last blog post before Christmas, I will recap some of the highlights of what I posted about throughout 2023. Let’s take a look at what news and info I shared this year.
If you dont currently read or subscribe to my blog you can tune in or subscribe here.
January 2023
I kicked of the new year with ISE event, some news around Microsoft’sd Secyriuty revenue, the MVP programme and Cisco and Microsoft’s partnership around collaboration.
Cisco and Microsoft Teams partnership: The blog discusses the significance and benefits of the collaboration between Cisco and Microsoft to enable Cisco devices to run both Webex and Teams seamlessly without a reboot¹[1].
Microsoft’s security revenue and market share: The blog reports on Microsoft’s impressive growth in the cybersecurity market, driven by its integrated and comprehensive security portfolio and partner ecosystem.
Teams Premium features and pricing: The blog explains what Teams Premium is, how it differs from the standard Teams license, and how much it costs for different currencies.
Microsoft’s cloud price harmonisation: The blog informs about Microsoft’s plan to align the pricing of its cloud products and services across the globe based on the US dollar exchange rate, and how customers can prepare for it²[2].
Windows Insider MVP award and program: The blog shares the author’s personal experience and excitement of being re-awarded as a Windows Insider MVP, and invites others to join the Windows Insider Program and nominate potential MVPs.
February 2023
In february 2023, we sawe Cisco Contact Centre certified for Teams and a new Teams client announced (which is now generally available). I also found my old RM Tablet PC (running Windows XP tablet and did a quick recap review). Here is a summary of all the things I blogged about in Feb 23:
Microsoft Teams new client: The blog reports that Microsoft is working on a new version of Teams that will be faster, more efficient, and more stable than the current one. The new version will use Webview2 and React technologies and will be available in preview soon.
Webex Contact Center for Teams: The blog announces that Cisco Webex Contact Center has received official Microsoft Teams certification, which means that it can integrate seamlessly with Teams to provide enterprise-class customer service across multiple channels. The blog explains the benefits of this integration for both Microsoft and Cisco, as well as for organisations, partners, and customers.
Yealink DeskVision A24: The blog reviews a new all-in-one collaboration device from Yealink that combines a 24 inch 4K touch-display, a pop-up camera, a speaker, a wireless charger, and a touch screen monitor. The device is certified for both Teams and Zoom and offers a premium desktop collaboration experience. The blog praises the device’s design, functionality, and value.
RM Tablet PC: The blog revisits an old RM Tablet PC from 2002 that ran Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, which was a special edition of Windows XP designed for pen-sensitive screens. The blog credits the RM Tablet PC and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition for introducing and innovating the touch and tablet computing world that we now take for granted. The blog also reflects on the evolution of tablet devices and operating systems since then such as Microsoft Surface Pro.
March 2023
March was a busy month. We saw the Cisco and Microsoft partnership expand, talked about how Cisco Thousand Eyes is a vital tool for troubsleooting and managing the end user expewrience in the world of remote work and SaaS applications, chewed the fat over Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop, covered new AI features coming to Windows 11 and of course, covered the huge announcement about the upcoming Microsoft 365 Copilot. Here’s some of the things I talked about:
Microsoft and Cisco partnership: The blog starts with the announcement of the certification of Cisco Board Pro to run Microsoft Teams Rooms natively, as well as supporting Webex. This is part of the ongoing collaboration between Microsoft and Cisco to provide interoperability and seamless experiences for their customers.
Surface Hub 2S update: The blog then mentions the new version of Windows that will ship with the next generation of Surface Hub 2S devices, called Teams Rooms on Windows. This will feature a new user interface, unified management, and new collaborative features such as FrontRow and Copilot for Teams.
New Teams app for Windows: The blog also covers the new preview version of the Teams app for Windows, which is said to be faster, more efficient, and more streamlined. The new app also includes the foundations for new AI-powered experiences, such as Copilot for Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft 365 Copilot: The blog introduces Microsoft 365 Copilot, a new AI assistant that leverages large language models and Microsoft Graph data to help users with natural language queries, tasks, insights, and content creation across Microsoft 365 apps and services.
ThousandEyes by Cisco: The blog explains how ThousandEyes by Cisco is a digital end user experience monitoring solution that helps ensure optimal performance of SaaS apps and cloud services for employees and customers. It also compares it with Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365.
Windows 11 updates: The blog concludes with a summary of the latest updates and features coming to Windows 11 in 2023, such as Taskbar enhancements, Energy Recommendations, File Explorer improvements, and Moment updates.
April 2023
April saw me talk more about updated to Windows 11 and Windows 365 (including Windows 365 Boot), a review of the gorgeous Surface Pro 9 5G, new AI features in Widnows 11 and Surface and the lauch of Mcirosoft Designer in preview.
Windows 11 Insider builds: New features and fixes for Windows 11, including a revamped widget board, spatial audio support, and Windows Studio Effects.
May 2023, saw Microsoft Announce Fabric – their new data analtics platform for the AI era, Windows Copilot (the neg gen Clippy/Cortana for Windows 11) and a in depth comparison of ChatGPT vs Bing Chat (now, Copilot). Here are the summaries of the blog posts in order:
Windows Copilot: The Cortana that never was. This post discusses the new Windows Copilot feature that will bring AI to the forefront of Windows 11. Copilot will live in the Windows sidebar and offer contextual actions and suggestions based on what’s on screen. Users will also be able to ask natural language questions and Copilot will respond much like Bing Chat. Copilot will also support third-party plugins that use OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology, enabling cross-application tasks and generative AI capabilities.
Bing Chat vs ChatGPT: Why Bing Chat is better. This post compares and contrasts Bing Chat and ChatGPT, two natural language chatbots that use OpenAI’s GPT technology. The post argues that Bing Chat is superior to ChatGPT in several aspects, such as speed, accuracy, quality, capability, and accessibility. The post also highlights some of the unique features of Bing Chat, such as web search, image search, image creation, conversation modes, and integration with other Microsoft apps and services.
June 2023
June 2023, I talked about how Microsoft is helping defend Ukraine from Cyber Attacks from Russia, the death of Internet Explorer and Windows Autopatch. We also looked at the massive changes to Cisco’s Cloud managed network infrastructure solutions.
Here are the summaries of the blog posts in order:
Microsoft shares lessons from Ukraine cyber war. This post talks about how Microsoft helped Ukraine defend against Russian cyberattacks and information operations, and what insights they gained from this experience.
Cisco brings Catalyst to the Meraki cloud. This post announced that Cisco was introducing a new option for customers to manage their Catalyst switches and access points using the Cisco Meraki cloud dashboard. This was announced at Cisco Live 2023.
Microsoft announces Viva Sales. This post introduces a new intelligent service that connects customer data across any CRM into Teams and Office and fills many of the gaps left by legacy CRM platforms. This was the latest additon to the Microsoft’s Viva suite.
Internet Explorer is officially dead: This post marks the end of life of Internet Explorer, the once dominant web browser that was released in 1995. It explains what end of life means for users, and why they should switch to Microsoft Edge or other modern browsers. It also reviews the history of Internet Explorer, its decline in market share, and its legacy features that are still supported by Edge.
Microsoft acquires Milburo: This post reveals that Microsoft has agreed to acquire Milburo, a world leader in foreign threat analysis and research detection services. It states that Milburo will join Microsoft’s Customer Security and Trust organisation, and will enhance Microsoft’s threat detection and analysis capabilities.
Microsoft launches software updates dashboard: This post unveils a new software updates dashboard in the Microsoft 365 admin center that enables IT to get a unified overview of the installation status of Windows and Microsoft 365 app updates across all their devices. It shows how the dashboard provides charts and statistics on update status and end of service, and how it supports both fully managed and monitored only devices. It also provides links to further information and instructions on how to enable the preview.
Windows Autopatch reaches public preview: This post announces that Windows Autopatch, a service to automatically keep Windows and Microsoft 365 up to date in enterprise organisations, has now reached public preview. It describes how Windows Autopatch shifts the update orchestration burden from the IT department to Microsoft, and how it provides features such as testing rings, halt and rollback, and expedited updates. I also covered prerequisites, licensing, and features of the service, and how to join the preview.
July 2023
The second part of the year, kicked off with pricing being announced for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft renaming Azure AD to Entra ID and Bing Chat Enterprise (a commercial grade version of Bing Chat) being made available free to Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise Customers.
Bing Chat Enterprise: A new version of Bing Chat that is secure and private for work, powered by generative AI. It can be accessed from Microsoft Edge, Windows 11, or bing.com/chat. It is free for existing Microsoft 365 customers or $5 per user per month as a standalone version.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Pricing: An AI powered service that brings generative AI features into Microsoft 365 apps and services. It is currently in a closed private preview and will cost $30 per user per month for commercial customers on top of their Microsoft 365 licenses.
Orca AI: A new open-sourced AI model that can imitate the reasoning of large foundation models like GPT-4 in a much smaller footprint. It is designed to solve the limitations of using smaller language models and revolutionise the AI industry.
Microsoft EntraID: A new brand name for Microsoft’s unified access and security offering, which includes two new products: Entra Private Access and Entra Internet Access. These products are designed to provide identity-centric and zero trust network access to any app or resource, from anywhere. Azure Active Directory is also renamed to Entra ID.
August 2023
In August (while many of were on summer holidays), I gave some key tips o Microsoft 365 Copilot based on feedback and questions from customers, talked about Microsoft’s upcoming Surface and Windows 11 event, highlighed key things from Cisco’s latest Network Trends report.
Here are the summaries of the three blog posts on this page:
5 things you need to know about Microsoft 365 Copilot: This post covered the main features and benefits of Microsoft 365 Copilot, a new AI-powered assistant that can help users with various tasks across Microsoft 365 apps. It also discussed the pricing, availability, and preparation for Copilot, as well as the potential drawbacks and limitations of AI-generated content.
New devices? More AI? What is coming to Windows 11 and Surface?: This post speculates on what Microsoft we going to announce at their “special event” on September 21st, 2023. It expects that Microsoft will unveil new Surface products, such as Surface Laptop Studio 2, Surface Laptop Go 3, and Surface Go 4, as well as highlight the recent advancements in AI, such as Windows Copilot, Bing Chat Enterprise, and Windows Studio Effects.
Cisco adds ransomware detection and recovery to their XDR system: This post reports on Cisco’s new solution that integrates their Extended Detection and Response (XDR) system with Cohesity’s DataProtect and DataHawk offerings to provide ransomware detection and recovery support. It explains how this solution can help organisations protect and restore their data in the event of a ransomware attack, and how it fits into Cisco’s comprehensive security portfolio.
Key highlights from Cisco network Trends Report. The blog post discusses the 2023 Global Networking Trends Report by Cisco, which covers some of the emerging networking trends in the multi-cloud world, and how they affect the IT operations and security of organisations and highlights the challenges and opportunities of hybrid work and multi-cloud adoption, such as providing secure access to applications distributed across multiple cloud platforms, gaining end-to-end visibility into network performance and security, and adopting a SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) model that delivers simplified and consistent security and performance for multi-cloud access and hybrid work. I also covered an overview of the Cisco products that can help organisations address many of the challenges of multi-cloud networking and security, such as Cisco SD-WAN, Cisco Umbrella, Cisco Cloudlock, and Cisco SASE.
September 2023
This was a busy month of blogging. I talked about the Meta and Microsoft partnership, availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot for “some customers”, Cisco’s aquistion of Splunk, New AI features in Surface and Windows, Microsoft Copilot “copyright” protection, changes to E5 licensing with more Security included and more.
Here are the key things talked about in each blog post on this page:
Meta AI to use Microsoft Bing: This post discusses the expanded AI partnership between Microsoft and Meta, which will integrate Bing Search into Meta’s AI chat experiences, such as ChatGPT, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
Microsoft Mesh entered public preview in October: This post introduces Microsoft Mesh, a new 3D immersive experience that will be surfaced through Microsoft Teams. It explains how Mesh can help blur the lines between the physical and virtual space, and how to get started with it.
Microsoft unveils the Surface Hub 3: This post explores the features and benefits of Surface Hub 3, the latest all-in-one hybrid meeting and collaboration device that combines the best of Microsoft Teams Rooms, Windows, and Surface Hub. It also compares it to Surface Hub 2S and explains how to upgrade from it.
Cisco to Aquire Splunk: This post reports the news that Cisco will acquire Splunk, a cybersecurity and observability platform, for $28 billion. It describes how the acquisition will help Cisco create the next generation of AI-enabled security and observability solutions.
Microsoft announces Microsoft 365 Copilot availabilty: This post announces the availability and pricing of Microsoft 365 Copilot, a new AI assistant that helps users with various tasks across Microsoft 365 apps and services. It also covers the features and benefits of Copilot in Windows, Bing, and Microsoft Shopping.
Windows 365 get’s top spot in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. – where I discussed that Microsoft had been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for Desktop as a Service (DaaS), which is the provision of virtual desktops by a public cloud or service provider. We covered their Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop platforms and Microsoft’s unique position in this space.
October 2023
October saw me talk more about the ROI of Microsoft Copilot, the new vision for Micrsosoft OneDrive, Teams Town Hall, major updates to Bing Image Creator and the end of support (RIP) for Windows Server 2012!
OneDrive 3.0 Update: This post announces a major update for OneDrive, which includes a new design, AI features, and more. It also explains how to get started with OneDrive Town Hall, a new experience for large-scale events that replaces Live Events.
Teams Town Hall: This post introduces Teams Town Hall, a new feature that allows users to host various types of internal and external events, such as company-wide town halls, all hands, global team meetings, etc. It also describes the advanced production capabilities, the structured approach for attendee engagement, and the unified experience for users that Teams Town Hall offers.
Windows 11 Moment 4 Update: This post highlights the new features and improvements that are rolling out with the latest feature update for Windows 11. It includes a new File Explorer design, Copilot for Windows, a new AI assistant, improvements to the Taskbar, and notable in-box app updates.
Windows Server 2012 End of Support: This post reminds users that support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 ended on 10th Oct 234. It also provides some options for users to upgrade, purchase Extended Security Updates, or migrate to Azure.
Bing Image Creator: This post showcases the new Bing Image Creator, which uses OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 to generate high-quality, creative, and realistic images from natural language prompts. It also explains how to use Bing Image Creator and how it provides improved safety and ethics with content credentials and content moderation system.
Microsoft 365 CoPilot: What is the ROI? – This talked about availability and pricing of Copilot, and went into looking at examples around the ROI. We explored how it can help with productivity, creativity, and decision-making for users who can leverage its features and capabilities and looked at some numbers. We also covered the need to adopt Copilot in the right way – proper planning, training, support, and data management to ensure successful adoption and measurable outcomes.
News about the key annoucements at Microsoft Envision: this was a review of the key things announced at Microsoft’s AI event in London in 2023. I talked about my take on the keynote speeches and what we have and what is coming in this esciting world of AI.
November 2023
Another busy month of news – it never slows down. In November I talked about my hands on experiences with Windows 365, Copilot coming to Windows 10, all the new “Copilots” Microsoft announced at Ignite, new Apps in Teams and did a demo and walk through of Copilkot Studio. I also shared my view on why “everyone” needs a Surface Pro for work!! I also shared details of major updates coming to Cisco’s partner programme in 2024.
Here is a summary of my key blog posts:
Cisco Announce major changes to Partner Programme in 2024. In this blog, I talk about Cisco’s new partner incentive programme that rewards partners for selling Cisco hardware, software and as-a-service solutions, as well as driving customer adoption and growth of subscriptions and a new set of specialisations to help identify and reward key partners.
Intro and demo of Microsoft Copilot Studio: An overview of Microsoft Copilot Studio, a new platform that allows Microsoft 365 customers to build their own generative AI copilots and custom GPTs. I included a step-by-step guide on how to create a simple copilot using a website as a data source, and showed how to test and publish it.
Copilot coming to Windows 10: We see Microsoft announce that Copilot is coming soon to Windows 10 devices – we look at the hardware requirements, the availability, and the benefits of using Copilot on older devices.
In the the last month of 2023 (a short month for many), I closed the year with a post about the Cisco and Microsoft “better together” story and invited people to register for our event in January at our new Client Exdperience Centre, gave tips on writing AI prompts, talked about Google’s Gemini AI (the ChatGPT compete), talked more about Designer and Image Creation, updates to Copilot with GPT4 Turbo, and highlighted the results of the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS. We also talk about Mcirosoft investment in the UK for AI data centres and charges coming for Windows 10 support beyond 2025.
Cisco and Microsoft: Simplifying Enterprise Collaboration. This post discusses how Cisco and Microsoft have partnered to enable Cisco’s Webex video devices to connect to Microsoft Teams meeting services, and how this collaboration benefits customers who use both platforms.
Prompt Engineering: AI prompts that punch! This post provides some tips on how to write and perfect good AI prompts for generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, including how to be specific, provide context, use simple language, and experiment with different variations.
Teams meetings, webinars and Townhalls. What to use when. This post explains the differences and use cases of three distinct formats of virtual events in Teams: meetings, webinars, and town halls. It also outlines the key features and considerations of each format.
Microsoft and Cisco: Leaders in the UCaaS Gartner 2023 Magic Quadrant This post summarises the highlights of the Gartner 2023 Magic Quadrant for UCaaS, where Microsoft and Cisco are both Leaders. It also compares their strengths and weaknesses in terms of messaging, meetings, telephony, contact center, and pricing.
What is Google Gemini and when is it available? This post introduces Google Gemini, a new AI-powered search engine that aims to provide more relevant and personalised results for users. It also discusses the features and benefits of Google Gemini, such as semantic understanding, contextual awareness, and conversational interface. It says that Google Gemini is expected to launch in mid-2024.
Goodbye 2023 – Hello to an AI Powered 2024
That’s it for my year in review! I hope you enjoyed reading it, maybe learned something new or useful from it or saw different perspective.
I want to thank you again for your support and interest in my blog and for being part of my journey. I appreciate your comments, likes, shares, and feedback and I look forward to hearing more from you in the future.
In 2023, we witnessed the dawn of a new era, where AI became an integral part of our everyday lives, enabling us to accomplish things beyond our imagination. This era is as significant as the inception of the personal computer, the start of the world wide web, mobile phones, and cloud in the previous decades. What new opportunities and challenges will AI bring us in 2024?
I wish you all a Happy New Year! May 2024 bring you health, happiness, and success in all your endeavors!
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard and Microsoft Copilot in are becoming increasingly popular among developers, content creators and, now almost any and everyone with the release of Copilot Edge (formerly Bing Enterprise Chat) and of course, Copilot for Microsoft 365.
I often hear “of ChatGPT is better than XYZ or Copilot is better than ABC. The fact is, whilst these tools can yield incredible results, getting started can be challenging, and getting the prompt to do exactly what you “had in mind” takes practice – especially for those who are new to generative AI.
In this blog post, I provide some tips on how to work with generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, including how to write, and perfect, good AI prompts. Prompts are essentially instructions that are used to tell/ask the AI what you’d like it to do…
Understanding how Generative AI works
Generative AI chatbots use complex language models (LLMs), machine learning algorithms, internet data and organisational data (in the case of Microsoft Copilot) to generate text, create, summarise, rewrite or transform content, write code, generate images and even help people build low code workflows or model driven apps in Power Platform. These GenAI tools do this based on user input and context, known as “prompts”.
Whilst these tools are incredibly smart (having been trained on a decade of data, images, writing styles and even the works of Shakespeare, the results are not perfect and can sometimes generate inaccurate or irrelevant content, known as hallucinations.
These hallucinations are usually caused by a lack of understanding of the ask from the user, conflicting requests or poor data upon which they base their response. Remember these tools can access your company data (under the context of the user) and the web.
Writing good AI prompts – the ingredients
To get the best results from generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, it’s essential to write good AI prompts. Here are some AI 101 tips on what good AI prompts look like:
Be specific with the ask: Make sure you are being clear about what you want the AI model to do. The more specific you are, the better the AI model can understand your prompt and provide accurate results.
Avoid using ambiguous language: If what you ask could be interpreted in different ways, you may not get the result you hoped for. Be clear and concise in your prompt to avoid any confusion.
Provide context: this is crucial to ensure that the AI model understands the intent behind your prompt. The more context you provide, the better the AI model can understand your prompt.
Use simple language: that is easy for the AI model to understand. Avoid using complex words or phrases that the AI model may not be familiar with. Slang words are generally OK but take your time to read the prompt back to make sure it makes sense.
Take advantage of turns: A turn is essentially your response to the AI’s answer. You can use this to either rephrase your ask or to fine tune the response and is a good alternative to trying to write long complex prompts in one go.
Make it a conversation: Building on the above, think of how you might ask a human to help you with a task. You can use the “turns” to perfect the prompt and even ask the AI why it gave a particular answer or to explain something you don’t understand. This may feel unnatural at first but soon it’s just IM’ing a friend or co-worker.
Good and bad prompt examples
Here are some examples of good and bad AI prompts. Try these and see how you get along.
I’ve included a video which walks though these and shows the differneces in the results based on the prompts we gave. You’ll see we can be quite specific in what we want. The video also showcases how we can “perfect” our answers through additonal turns.
Goal: Create a product update for the Flux Capacitor 2
Bad prompt: “Create me a product update for the Flux Capacitor version 2”.
Good prompt: “Create me a product update for the Flux Capacitor version 2. This is a fictional product, based on the original flux capacitor used in the film Back to the Future 2. Make up some new improvements that the Flux Capacitor V2 could have over the first version. Be creative with improvements.”
Write a product brief in Copilot.
Explanation – the second prompt is better because we have firstly provided context of the ask (this is a fictional product), been specific with the ask (we have told it what we expect).
Bad prompt: A picture of a person with brown hair as a Lego man.
Good prompts: A person with short dark brown hair, wearing a tuxedo and holding a glass of champagne sitting on a chair outside a large country house on a cold dusk evening in the summer. Lego Style, illustration, 3d rendered.
Explanation: The second prompt is better (well depending on what we want) because again we have given specific asks about what we want, been specific with the ask, provided some context about what we want to produce and described the image we want.
Goal: Write a story about a dog called Benji
Bad prompt: Write a story about a dog named Benji
Good prompt: Write a story about a dog name Benji. Benji a small puppy and lives a family with four people including two young children called Jack and Jill. Benji is a lazy dog but discovers a passion for going for walks to train stations and barking at trains. Creative Style writing.
Explanation – the second prompt is better because we have firstly provided context of the story we would like and have also given a background to the story. We have guided the AI to how we’d like the story to flow and then left it to the AI to write. We have also specified a mode we want it in “be creative”. We can use another “turn” to make the story shorter or to write a catchy title for the story.
Good Prompt: Read this document and create a table that shows the main energy usage across different key areas in order of highest to lowest. Also provide a short commentary after the table that describes more about these areas and whether these are increasing over time or reducing.
Using Copilot in Edge to discuss and extract data from a document.
Explanation: the first prompt simply creates a summary of the document. This is useful (try it), but we haven’t told it what we actually want to see (which might be fine) and usually we have a specific thing we are looking for when we analyse a document. The second prompt is much more specific. It gives the AI clear direction (specific ask) about what we want and how we want the data presented.
Perfecting your “Prompts”
Writing good AI prompts is just the first step in working with generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot. To get the best results, you need to perfect your prompts over time and practice. Don’t think of it as a chore. Enjoy it as you learn… You’ll soon become a pro.
Here’s my tips on how to perfect your AI prompts:
Timing: I find it best to think of a task you need to perform and use a real example to see if you can get what you need. As an example, if I’m doing a customer demo on AI, I tend to use an example relevant to organisation I am working with and make the request about them (or make up a scenario specific to them).
Experiment: Don’t be afraid to experiment with different prompts and see what works best. Try different variations of your prompts and see which ones generate the best results.
Adapt: Generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot are constantly evolving and improving, so it’s essential to adapt your prompts to keep up with the latest changes. This also means the result you get from the same prompt may change a week or month later. The data it’s referencing may also change.
Enjoy the learning experience: Working with generative AI tools can be challenging, but it can also be a lot of fun. Enjoy the learning experience and don’t be afraid to try new things.
Use image creation as a fun way to learn whilst text-based requests are usually caused hat we need to do, practicing on image creation using something like Microsoft Designer is great fun and people tend to share their prompts on social media… Here is an example of one I shared.
Bing Image Creator in Designer.
Conclusion
Working with generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding. By following the tips outlined in this blog post, you can write and perfect good AI prompts that generate accurate and useful results. Remember to experiment, adapt, and enjoy the learning experience.
With practice, anyone can become proficient in working with generative AI tools.
The video I have included hopefully provides more context – feel free to follow along in Copilot in Edge or ChatGPT
Microsoft announced yesterday (5th Dec 2023) that Microsoft Copilot will soon be updating again and is set to include new enhancements which include transition to GPT-4 Turbo, a new advanced Code Interpreter, and the integration of the latest DALL-E 3 image creation model.
At ignite, Microsoft also consolidated their various AI services such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Bing Chat Enterprise etc, under a unified brand – Microsoft Copilot in a view to create a consistent message, branding and look and feel. Microsoft is investing more than ever in their AI quest and has recently revealed plans to introduce a host of new AI features across the board. In early 2024, we can expect to see many upcoming additions to Microsoft Copilot, including the integration of GPT-4 Turbo, a new Code Interpreter, and the latest DALL-E 3 model. We will also see increased plug in and extensibility features which will be accessible via the newly announced Copilot Studio and other developer tools.
Its worth noting that GPT-4 is already used in many places across the Microsoft eco system including Bing, Copilot, Image Creator from Designer, and is already in use in regular web result ranking in Bing.
What new features are coming to Copilot in early 2024?
GPT-4 Turbo – Microsoft has confirmed in their AI blog post that Copilot will soon leverage OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4 Turbo. This will bring signifcant enhancements to chat and allow users to use Copilot to handle lengthier and more intricate tasks. This could launch to early access users users by the end of December with wider availability from early 2024.
DALL-E 3 – the updated image creation model available now in Bing Image Creator and Designer. and Copilot in Edge (Bing Chat). This enhanced image model brings enhanced capabilities and will allow to generate more relasitic, higher quality and more accurately matched images based on user prompts and requests. These features are available now and can be accessed from Copilot in Edge (and Microsoft Designer) to create impressive images through prompts.
Inline Compose is a new feature in Microsoft Copilot for Edge that allows users to highlight/select specific text on a website (such as email compose or a blog) and have Copilot rewrite it or modify it. Copilot will then rewrite the selected text accordingly and provide options to tune the way it rewrites it. This is available now in Copilot in Edge.
Code Interpreter – Similar to what is already available in ChatGPT, Copilot will soon get a Code Interpreter which will enable users to undertake complex tasks such as precise calculations, complex coding, data analysis, visualisations, and mathematical operations. This is currently in provate preview and is expected to be rolled out in early 2024.
GPT-4 powered search – Microsoft have said they will soon be merging the capabilities in GPT-4 powered search with vision – integrating Bing image search and web search data. This integration will enhance image understanding for user queries and provide an improved search experience. This is due in early 2024.
Deep Search – Ok, so I saved the best till last! Deep Search will soon be integrated into Copilot, leveraging the latest capabilities of GPT-4. With this, you can get better search results for complex topics and explore the web in more depth and detail. Deep Search will not replace Bing Search but instead will provide an additional option for users. Note: while regular search results are returned in less than a second, Deep Search may take up to thirty seconds to complete – Microsoft say that although this may seem like a long time compared to normal search, it delivers significant more specific and comprehensive answers. This is due to be released in early 2024.
Deep Search in Copilot – image (C) Microsoft.
No increase in pricing for GPT-4 in Copilot
Like Bing Chat, Copilot remains a free experience with access to GPT-4 and DALLE-3 on its platform. By contrast, ChatGPT and GPT-4 Premium both require paid subscriptions to access either of those abilities from within its chatbot.
What is GPT-4?
GPT-4 is a state-of-the-art generative AI LLM (Large Language Model) that can create natural language text from any input. It is built by Open AI and can be bought or licensed directly or via many Microsoft AI services including Azure Open AI and Microsoft Copilot.
The Gen AI wars have just taken a step up. To compete against the growing popularity of ChatGPT, (and of course Microsoft copilot which is powered by ChatGPT), Google announced that they are upgrading their Bard AI generative AI chat bot with the highly anticipated “Gemini” model, which Google say will create a vastly superior chatbot to OpenAI’s ChatGPT (in its current capacity at least).
As the dominant force in search, Gemini looks to help Google to better compete in the rapidly growing field of generative artificial intelligence and given their advertising reach, it won’t be long before everyone knows what Gemini is – kind of reminds me of the Genesys AI from the later Terminator Film 🙂
According to Google, the model has already made Bard smart enough to overtake OpenAI’s free ChatGPT service in six out of eight benchmarks it used including in math and language understanding.
In contrast, OpenAI’s ChatGPT v3 was released last year at end of November 2023 and has since been used as the primary large language model used by Microsoft Copilot. It has undergone many enhancements and upgrades this year including the most recent ChatGPT 4 turbo models.
ChatGPT can also be purchased and used as a standalone AI and comes in a free, Premium and enterprise SKU for business. Microsoft use ChatGPT4 in their consumer and enterprise grade generative chat services including Bing Chat (now Copilot for Edge) and Copilot for Microsoft 365.
What is Google Gemini?
Gemini is a collection of large language models that can handle various data tasks, as well as read and understand entire pages, including signature blocks, document stamps, process text, images, audio, video, 3D models, and graphs simultaneously.
Gemini comes in three tiers – Gemini Ultra, Gemini Pro, and Gemini Nano.
Gemini Ultra is Google’s most powerful model, pitched as a competitor to OpenAI’s GPT-4.
Gemini Pro is a mid-range model powered to beat out GPT-3.5, the baseline version of ChatGPT.
Gemini Nano, a more efficient model built to run on mobile devices and is expected to come to Google pixel next year.
Google say that Gemini responds in a much more human like way to ChatGPT and has more sophisticated multimodal capabilities and can better master human-style conversations, language, and content.
Image (c) Google
The also say it can understand and interpret images, code prolifically and effectively, and generate data analytics. Gemini can also be used by developers to create new AI apps and APIs⁴.
Gemini is expected to power most of Google’s products and services in the near future, such as Google Workspace, Gmail, Search, Bard, Pixel, and Nest⁴. Some of the services will be included in their products for free whist others will be premium/costed options. It will be part of the Bard Advanced service. I couldn’t find any details around pricing at time of writing.
This is the biggest upgrade to Bard since it launched….. In the coming months, users can also expect Gemini to power other services, including Google Search, ads, and Chrome.
Google
According to Google, the Gemini model has already made Bard smart enough to overtake OpenAI’s free ChatGPT service in six out of eight benchmarks it used including in math and language understanding. They claim:
“Gemini is the first model to outperform human experts on MMLU (Massive Multitask Language Understanding), one of the most popular methods to test the knowledge and problem-solving abilities of AI models.”
Demos and teasers
People can see demos of Gemini’s capabilities on a website that showcases how their new AI model can understand user inputs in a variety of different sources, including text, images, audio, and code. For example, the model can produce a small computer program simulating the movement of a flock of birds simply by showing Gemini a video.
A YouTube video also shows a teaser aimed at parents in which it shows how Gemini can understand math problems written on a sheet of paper and provide correct answers.
Google Gemini does math
Gemini – a threat to Microsoft ChatGPT and Copilot?
In the consumer world, where Google dominates search, this could stop Microsoft from making any form of dent in Google’s search dominance, and area Microsoft has been trying to gain market share in with the power and uniqueness of ChatGPT 4 through Copilot in Edge. ChatGPT already has a strong brand presence in the Enterprise and Commercial space and also leverages Bing as its primary internet search tool, making the relationship between Open AI (the founder of ChatGPT) two-way and plutonic.
What is ChatGPT 4?
ChatGPT-4 is an AI-powered language model developed by OpenAI, capable of generating human-like text based on context and past conversations. At time of writing, it is the most advanced system produced by OpenAI, with broader general knowledge and problem-solving abilities than previous models. It can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy, generate, edit, and iterate with users on creative and technical writing tasks, such as composing songs, writing screenplays, or learning a user’s writing style. It is more creative and collaborative than ever before. It can also generate visual content and solve problems with visual input. GPT-4 is 82% less likely to respond to requests for disallowed content and 40% more likely to produce factual responses than GPT-3.5 on OpenAI’s internal evaluations.
ChatGPT-4 is built on the structure of GPT-4, which is based on a large language model that checks for the probability of what words might come next in sequence. It enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language.
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot is the name for Microsoft’s suite of AI tools built closely around the ChatGPT large language model. Initially announced in March 2023 and now generally available in other product suites include Edge, Power Platform and GitHub, Copilot is now a board room level conversation for most commercial organisations.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 for example brings generative AI into the heart of Microsoft’s collaboration and productivity tool set and combines that with the organisations content, data and objects such as people and relationships into the Microsoft 365 apps and services that people use every day, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and others.
Microsoft Copilot is also not just a single AI model but is described as a platform that also empowers organisations and third-party developers to you to build their own copilots for different domains and scenarios.
Microsoft also recently released Copilot Studio to create custom copilots that can handle specific tasks, such as sales, cybersecurity, healthcare, education, and more⁸. There is then the wider Azure AI Studio which can be used to build generative AI apps, discrete and trainable language models and custom copilots that using natural language prompts.
Summary
As you can see, Google Gemini, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot have their own strengths and weaknesses, and they can complement each other in different ways. The only way to determine which is best for each business use case (and it may not be a simple case of one or the other) is to look at the use case, test and PoC each service (and others) and make your own deductions. Cost and integration, as well as security, control, and governance will also be key considerations as organisations look to develop and adapt their strategy around AI and in particular Gen AI tools within business.
Microsoft has announced its biggest investment in the UK in its 40-year history, with a commitment to spend £2.5 billion over the next three years to expand their AI data centre infrastructure and train one million people for the AI economy.
This investment will more than double Microsoft’s data centre footprint in the UK, and will see them add more than 20,000 GPUs to the UK data centres for AI tasks by 2026. The new AI infrastructure will be located across in London and Cardiff, with future expansion into northern England.
Microsoft is committed as a company to ensuring that the UK as a country has world-leading AI infrastructure, easy access to the skills people need, and broad protections for safety and security.
Brad Smith | President | Microsoft
This investment was announcement at the Global Investment Summit, where the UK government unveiled they were investing £29.5 billion into the most innovative sectors, including tech, housing, science and medicine, renewables, and UK infrastructure.
Microsoft are one of the founding fathers of modern technology and today’s announcement is a turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK.
Rishi Sunak | UK Prime minister
Microsoft’s investment will help bolster the UK’s growing AI sector, which already contributes nearly £4 billion to the UK economy and employs around 50,000 people. Microsoft are also extending their Accelerating Foundation Models Research (AFMR) programme to provide prioritised access to GPUs for science, medical and research purposes.
To ensure the funding drives tangible outcomes, Microsoft are also investing millions of pounds into training, with a goal to train one million people with the skills they need to build and work with AI, including diducated pots of training support for AI start ups with a join goal with the UK government to accerate the UK in becoming a technology, science and AI superpower.
We are proud to be making this significant investment in the UK’s future as a global leader in AI. This is a critical moment for the UK to harness the power of AI to drive innovation, create new jobs and improve lives. We are committed to working with the UK government, universities and businesses to make this vision a reality.
Brad Smith | President | Microsoft
The investment comes as the government agreed a new Online Fraud Charter with tech companies, including Microsoft, to clamp down on attempted fraud taking place on their and other platforms. This represents the first agreement of its kind in the world and will help protect enterprises and consumers from online scams, phishing attacks and fraud.
The pace of change in AI demands action today to build a prosperous future for the UK tomorrow. Today marks the single largest investment in our more than 40-year history in the UK.
As business and the public sector embrace the AI opportunity, we are building the infrastructure that will support the growth they need, training the people who can deliver it responsibly and securing our society against emergent threats.
Microsoft has recently unveiled the introduction of its new Copilot Studio platform, aiming to empower Microsoft 365 organisations to build their own generative artificial intelligence (AI) ‘copilot’ assistants.
Announced at Microsoft Ignite 2023 this month, Copilot Studio was officially announced alongside a plethora of other updates (and new Copilots), as part of their ongoing efforts to enhance and expand artificial intelligence capabilities across their core product offerings.
With Copilot Studio, users will be able to efficiently create, test, and deploy independent copilots and custom GPTs, providing them with a seamless experience in harnessing the potential of AI technology.
Copilot Studio exposes a full end-to-end lifecycle for customisations and standalone copilots within a single pane of glass meaning you can build, deploy, analyse, and manage all from within the same Web experience….and since it’s a software as a service (SaaS), everything you create is live instantly.
Jared Spataro | Head of Modern Work & Bus Apps | Microsoft.
The announcement of Microsoft Copilot Studio follows the roll-out of a similar DIY copilot creation platform from OpenAI last week called GPT Store. Copilot essentially replaces Power Virtual Agents and is available to try now.
What does Microsoft Copilot Studio do?
Microsoft Copilot Studio leverages low-code, no code and provides a web-based platform that completely transforms the way Microsoft 365 customers users approach application development and extension. Of course, one of the key advantages of Copilot Studio is its seamless integration with the wider Microsoft 365 ecosystem and the Microsoft Graph – enabling developers to easily leverage existing data and tools within their organisation, streamlining the development process and maximising productivity. Copilot Studio, like Power Platform is designed for professional developers or users new to AI application development – providing a comprehensive set of tools and resources to support your journey.
Copilot Studio makes it easy to design and prototype AI applications and offers a wide range of templates and pre-built components, empowering even non-technical users to create innovative solutions.
Copilot Studio also brings robust testing capabilities, including integrated debugging tools and simulation environments to help developers easily identify and address any issues before deploying their applications.
Once the AI app is built and tested, Copilot Studio provides a simple deployment process. It provides seamless integration with Microsoft 365 services that allow IT to publish the application to your Microsoft 365 cloud environment or share it with specific users or teams.
How to build your first Copilot in Copilot Studio (follow along).
Once you have signed up for a trial of copilot (it’s in preview), getting started is easy. To login, simply go to Microsoft Copilot Studio
Step 1:Build my Copilot. The easiest way to start is to follow the wizard and point Copilot Studio at a website. For this example, I have used my children’s school.
There are advanced options which include the ability to dive straight into existing data sets and experiences that you have created in Power Platform, but for simplicity, I am following the wizard.
Step 2:Explore the interface: From here you can then see the options expand. You can go straight to the Generative AI Chatbot and start to test it based on the website you have linked it too, or start looking at the options below which include the ability to:
Create Custom Topics for your Copilot.
Create Plugins and Actions to connect to data that is outside the website.
Extend the Microsoft 365 Copilot with data connectors and plugins to your other data.
Step 3: Customise the Generative AI settings: I’m going to click on the “Go to Generative AI” and customise the “sensitivity” of Copilot (I have set mine to medium). I can also further customisations such as adding additional websites for indexing or even upload specific files. The Generative AI model uses the Azure Open AI service. Here I have added another website to index.
Step 4: Testing my Copilot. I can now quickly test my Copilot out by asking a question. In this example I am going to ask it about the schools in the Academy Trust and then dig a little more into the school he attends.
Step 5: Adding Custom Topics: By default, you don’t have much control over the data that comes with the generative answers. This is where topics come into play. These allow you to add in specific topics that you want the bots to be able to speak or answer that have not come automatically from the data, websites, databases or documents you have connected in.
Step 6: Publishing your Copilot: To Publish your Copilot, you have a few options. You can publish to a website (either your own or one can be created for you), to Teams or other locations. To do this, you first need to navigate to Settings –> Channels and choose where you wish to publish your Copilot. For this example, I have chosen a Demo Website.
Once you’ve done that (you can pick multiple), head on over Publish menu on the left and publish your Copilot. You then get a link to test your Copilot. Here is mine below in a simple demo website.
There we go – a very simple first look at the potential of Microsoft Copilot Studio. Next time we will explore a little more. Have a play and look at the potential and possibilities.
How can I try Copilot Studio?
Copilot Studio is available to try now and will be available to all Microsoft 365 customers who have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license.
Summary
Copilot Studio should bring the same ease of use to Gen AI apps as Power Platform did for apps, virtual agents and flow. It’s central hub, intuitive design tools, robust testing capabilities, and simple yet powerful deployment options aim to help accelerate and simplify the design, build, testing and deployment of custom AI applications.
By providing users with the tools to develop their own copilots, Microsoft is fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration. Copilot Studio opens up countless possibilities for businesses, researchers, and developers alike. Whether it’s creating intelligent chatbots, generating realistic text, or automating repetitive tasks, the potential applications of GPTs are limitless.
Similar to its counterpart GPT Store, Copilot Studio puts the power of AI into the hands of those who seek to harness its capabilities. It offers a user-friendly interface that streamlines the process of building custom GPT models and applications. This accessibility ensures that individuals with various levels of technical expertise can participate in this exciting field, expanding the boundaries of what is possible with language-based AI.
The demo build example is a simple first step into building Gen AI led chatbots and copilots using websites and other data sources. This is simple to test and try.
At Ignite 2023 last week, which was heavily centred about AI and Microsoft Copilot which is going to showing itself in pretty much every OS, app and service in the next twelve months, Microsoft also announced that Copilot in Windows (which is in preview on Windows 11) will also be coming soon to Windows 10…. And if you are in Insider you can get it now.
Copilot (preview) in Windows 10
Copilot in Windows 10 is about inclusion.
Microsoft have said that they are revisiting their approach to Windows 10 and will be “making additional investments to make sure everyone can get the maximum value from their Windows PC including Copilot in Windows.”
Whilst the migration effort from organisation to shift to Windows 11 continues as rapid pace, there is still hundreds of millions of devices out there (partuckaurly in the consumer world) that are still running or not able to run Windows 11 due to age or incompatible hardware (see below).
Microsoft have said that Copilot in Windows will be available in the coming weeks for Windows Insiders on Windows 10 in the Release Preview Channel for eligible. This requires those devices to be patched and running Windows 10, version 22H2. It will come to commerical customers first.
Once testing and feedback is complete (the role of the Windows Insider community and the product group), Copilot in Windows will then be rolled out more broadly to consumer level devices running Windows 10 the Home and Pro (version 22H2). This roll out of Copilot in Windows for non-managed Home and Pro devices will be via the controlled feature rollout (CFR).
When will Windows 10 get Copilot?
For supported versions of Windows 10 22H2, with Enterprise, Pro or Education editions that are managed by organisations will get for information when the updates are ready. This will be when the initial testing phase is complete.
Windows 10 users enrolled in the Windows Insider Program can get this now… So head over to Windows Update and download it now.
What are the hardware requirements for Copilot in Windows?
For Windows 10 devices to support Copilot, the following minimum hardware requirements exist.
Memory: 4GB minimum
Display Adapter: 720p minimum resolution
Microsoft put a safeguard hold on your device receiving Copilot if they detect an issue, such as an application incompatibility until further testing with more devices (part of their app assure policy) have been tested and the issue resolved.
Conclusion
There has been huge demand and moans from users that can’t or haven’t been able to move to Windows 11 and with Copilot front and centre of everything a Microsoft it’s great to see it here.
Personally, I love that Copilot is coming to older devices. We have a could of older devices in the family household and whilst they are happily using a Bing Chat (Copilot in Edge), giving older (but perfectly happy devices) a new lease of life with Copilot is welcomed….
P. S – About the AI created title image
I’m getting more impressed by Bing Image Creator every day. What prompt did I use?
“Create me an image showing Windows 10 with Copilot and AI. Make it look like Windows 10 getting a new lease of life!”
I love the image and especially the R2D2 theme it added…..
At Day One of Microsoft Ignite 2023 yesterday [Microsoft Ignite is Microsoft’s annual conference for IT techies, leaders and business decision makers, which is being held digitally and in-person at Seattle this week], the word Copilot certainly dominated almost every session (even those that weren’t specifically focussed on Copilot!).
The dominant themes of the event so far, has been around the role of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) in transforming businesses and empowering users.
With so many Copilots being announced since March this year (Microsoft 365 Copilot, Bing Chat, Security Copilot, GitHub Copilot etc.,) Microsoft used Ignite standardise the Copilot branding. Microsoft promoted the concept of a single “Microsoft Copilot” experience that works across all their apps and services, as well as a new Copilot Studio to allow organisations to build their own Copilots with “One experience across work and life“.
Copilot logo | Image (c) Microsoft
Whilst the branding made sense from a brand perspective, not all Copilots are the same which will no doubt make it difficult for many to understand – the previous names (whilst they did not roll of the tounge) were, IMO, easier to understand.
There are multiple different Microsoft Copilots. And GitHub Copilot and the Copilots used in Windows or Microsoft 365 apps have little in common and in some cases are trained on different LLMs to perform their core functions. Microsoft 365 Copilot is vastly different to Bing Chat for example – both are now simply called “Copilot”.
This blog attempts to summarise the key announcements and insights about the new Copilots from Microsoft Ignite 2023.
Recap: What is a Copilot?
In case you’ve been asleep for the past 8 months, “Copilot” is an AI assistant that helps users with specific tasks or scenarios, such as writing code, creating presentations, searching the web, or chatting with customers. In short, a Copilot can provide suggestions, recommendations, insights, or take in-app actions based on the user’s context, preferences, and goals. Copilot can also learn from the user’s feedback and behavior to improve its performance and relevance over time.
Microsoft has been developing and deploying Copilots across its product line since the start of the year and at Ignite 2023, they announced plans for a load more Copilots – some of which are now in preview, whilst others are still “to come”. Remember these will also be different and serve different purposes but will all fall under the new unified Copilot branding.
Microsoft have also launched a new and adaptive Copilot Website which will adapt to your experience dependent on your license entitlement. This can be found at https://copilot.microsoft.com
copilot.microsoft.com
We know how Microsoft like to name, rename, and then revert again (they did with Intune recently) so I wouldn’t be surprised if a different (or original) naming convention appears in the coming months!
Welcome to the new Copilots
Microsoft announced a bunch of new Copilots at Ignite 2023 which I have summarised below. I’ll share more updates on these are they move into preview or when I attend more of the live sessions.
Microsoft Copilot Studio: This is what will allow organisation to be build their own copilot and plug-ins using similar low-code tool as customers that use Power Platform will be familiar. This will allow organisations to build their own Copilots that can integrate their own data and back-end with the Microsoft eco system and Microsoft Graph. Copilot Studio can also work with OpenAI’s newly announced GPTs. Copilot Studio will be included within Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 licenses (aka Microsoft 365 Copilot).
Microsoft Copilot Dashboard: This is public preview now and has been designed to help organisations that have got Microsoft 365 Copilot Licenses. This will help IT better analyse usage across apps and measure the impact on productivity that Copilot provides. Microsoft also said that organisations with Viva Insights will also get enhanced dashboard capabilities around how Copilot is helping them be productive and manage time.
Copilot for Service: This new Copilot connect is designed to connect Microsoft Office applications with third-party CRM and Contact-Center solutions. This will have a $50 pupm price tag, but will include a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, and will be generally available sometime early 2024. There will be a public preview in December.
Copilot for Azure: Annouced and already in preview – Copilot for Azure is designed to help Azure customers with designing, operating, optimising and troubleshooting their Azure workloads, infrastrucutre and applications.
Copilot for Fabric: This was originally announced back in May 2023 and includes several new AI assistants across the platform such as Power Automate. Each one will use the underlying Fabric analytics platform but will be designed for a different Fabric “experience” This is in preview now.
Copilot for Cosmos DB: This is essentially about helping developer write “NoSQL” queries. It will be embedded into the Cosmos DB Data Explorer and is a free tool for developers.
Copilot for Viva: This was orginally announced back in April this year. These are going into Public Preview in stages over the next few months for each tool within the Viva Suite.
Copilot for Loop: Loop is a new collaborative work space that lets you share workspaces, pages and compents of conent across difereince apps and services. The went into General Availability yesterday and it too is getting it’s own Copilot. The license for this is included within the Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
A new single website for all your Copilots – see above.
What are the differences and similarities among the Copilots?
While Microsoft wants to promote the idea of a single “Microsoft Copilot” experience that works across its software and services, the reality is that each Copilot has a different license, is trained on different data models (LLMs), performs different functions, and has also have different security and data permissions.
For example, GitHub Copilot, which helps users write code in various programming languages, is powered by OpenAI’s Codex model, which is trained on billions of lines of public code. GitHub Copilot is available as a technical preview for GitHub users who sign up for the waitlist. It is free for open source projects and personal use, but requires a paid subscription for commercial use.
On the other hand, Microsoft 365 Copilot, includes Copilot for PowerPoint, which can helps people create, update and innovate presentations from different data sources across Microsoft 365. It is powered by Microsoft’s “business ready” GPT-4 model, which is private to an organiation (no data leakage) and is grounded in your organisations Microsoft 365 Graph data. It also has access to the a large corpus of text from the web and other sources and can search the internet. PowerPoint Copilot is part of Microsoft 365 Copilot . PowerPoint will also have access to the Open AI DALLE-3 image creator.
Another example is Bing Chat (Consumer version), which helps users chat with Bing and get answers, information, or entertainment. Bing Chat is powered by Microsoft’s own Turing-NLG model and Chat-GPT4, which is trained on a large corpus of text from the web and other sources. Bing Chat is available as a free service for anyone who visits Bing.com or uses the Bing app. It does not include data protection or compliance features.
On the other hand, Bing Chat Enterprise, which helps users chat with their organisation’s data and apps. This is powered by the same , is powered by the same ChatGPT4 model and Turing-NLG model as Bing Chat, but does include data protection and compliance so it can bve used safely within an orhanistion without risk of data leakage. Bing Chat Enterprise is available as a paid service for Microsoft 365 subscribers and is included in Microsoft 365 F3, E3, E5, A3/A5 (faculty only), Business Standard and Business Premium plans.
As you can see, there are significant differences among the Copilots in terms of their data sources, functions, security, and licensing. However, there are also some similarities and commonalities among them.
For example, most of the Copilots use natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG) techniques to understand and communicate with the user. Most of the Copilots also use reinforcement learning and active learning methods to learn from the user’s feedback and behaviour, and improve their performance and relevance over time. Most of the Copilots also use a similar user interface and interaction model, where the user can type or speak to the Copilot, and the Copilot can provide suggestions, recommendations, insights, or actions in a conversational manner.
What are the benefits and challenges of using Copilots?
Copilots will no doubt bring many benefits for users and organisations on a scale we are only just begining to image.
Microsoft shared some data from their latest work tend index report (link here) that Early adoptors of Copilot said users don’t want to go back to working without it with 77% saying they don’t want to give itup.
Saving time and effort: Copilots can help users complete tasks faster and easier, by providing guidance, assistance, or automation. For example, GitHub Copilot can help users write code faster and with fewer errors, by suggesting code snippets or completing code blocks. PowerPoint Copilot can help users create presentations faster and with more impact, by suggesting layouts, designs, or content.
Enhancing productivity and creativity: Copilots can help users achieve more and better outcomes, by providing insights, feedback, or inspiration. For example, Excel Copilot can help users analyze and visualize data better, by suggesting formulas, charts, or tables. Word Copilot can help users write and edit documents better, by suggesting words, phrases, or paragraphs.
Enabling learning and discovery: Copilots can help users learn new skills and discover new information, by providing explanations, examples, or resources. For example, Power BI Copilot can help users learn how to use Power BI better, by providing tutorials, tips, or best practices. Bing Chat can help users discover new facts, trivia, or entertainment, by providing answers, information, or fun.
Data from Microsoft Nov 23 Work Trend Index image (c) Microsoft
However, using Copilots brings about challenges and risks – some real, some perceived – such as:
Trusting and verifying: Since Copilots work on the available data, that can “make mistakes” or provide inaccurate or inappropriate suggestions, recommendations, insights, or actions, due to the limitations or biases of their data, models, or algorithms. Organisations need to provide training to users and make sure they understand the need to verify and review any content generated by Generative AI in order to be able to trust and verify the Copilots’ outputs. This may include checking their sources, methods, or evidence. People can also, and should be encouraged to provide feedback and corrections to the Copilots, by rating, reviewing, or reporting their outputs.
Protecting and complying: There are concerns that these Copilots “could” access or expose sensitive or confidential data or information, due to the nature or scope of their tasks or scenarios. Copilot in fact, operates under the context of the person using it so t has the same level of access than it’s “pilot” has. Organisations will need to review their data security and compliance policies to ensure the right permissions, controls and protections are in place. Copilot wont break these polcies but may well expose weaknesses in them. Organisations need to review data sharing polcies such as Data Loss Prevention to prevent confidential data leaving the organisation that Copilot has created. Employees need to need to be re-educated on this in many cases to ensure they understand how to use the various Copilots and how they work with your organisational data, the language models and the web. Users may also need to be aware of the Copilots’ privacy and security policies, by reading, understanding, and agreeing to their terms and conditions.
Balancing and controlling: Another concern of using AI tools is that these Copilots may “influence” or affect the user’s decisions or actions, due to the power or authority of their suggestions, recommendations, insights, or actions. Users need to be able to balance and control the Copilots’ impacts, by applying critical thinking, judgment, or ethics. Users also need to be able to choose and customize the Copilots’ settings and preferences, by adjusting their levels, modes, or options. You can read Microsoft’s guidance on Responsible AI here.
Conclusion
GenAI is going to be infused into every tool and product Microsoft has and with Copilot Studio, organisations will be able to build their own plug-ins, connectors or deicated Copilots for every business need. 2024 will be the year all these annoucements really come into fruiotion. Its gonna be a roller coaster.
Copilot (what ever flavour) is still in preview or new and many will be looking to see real life ROI and drive organisational pilots to help.
Microsoft 365 Copilot was released to GA today with a minimum price tag of three hundred licenses at $30 US dollars per user per month [around $108k minimum].
My last blog covered the potential ROI of using Gen AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot, but it’s also worth remembering that Copilot also exists (for free) today inside Bing Chat and Windows 11 (if you are running the latest 22H2 or 23H1 release rings).
Organisations looking to move quickly and get onboard with Copilot have work to do to get their data in shape, educate and train users and find and test the use cases within their organisations to determine if and where Copilot will add most value.
Once deployed (and this goes with any Gen AI tool to be honest), the areas your adoption specialists, training and AI success units will be wanting to be focussing on with employees is how to get Copilot to do what you ask in the most efficient way. We call this “prompting”. This blog introduces the concept, shares some tips, and tricks we (Cisilion), have picked up on the way.
The way we interface with Generative AI is very different to the way we use search engines (which are typically based on key word searches). Generative AI has the ability to really understand what you are asking for and how you want the information you ask for presented. It takes a bit of time to get used to and refine and the more you use it, then better the output and the easier and faster you get to your end result.
The Perfect AI Prompt?
Prompts are how you ask your Copilot (whether Microsoft 365, Windows, or Bing) to do something for you. This could be creating, summarising, comparing, editing, or transforming content. Prompts are “conversations”, using plain but clear language and providing the relevant information, background, ask and context of the request – just like you would if you were asking a human assistant.
Writing good prompts is the key to unlocking the power and potential of generative AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Microsoft.
In short a prompt has three parts.
Telling Copilot what you want – for example creating, editing, summarising etc.
Including the right prompt ingredients – for example what you need and why.
Keeping the conversation going to fine tune your request and get the content you need.
Telling Copilot what you need
This may sound obvious, but we often find many people do not appreciate or understand just how particular and precise you can be with these tools. When we run workshops, I often ask the audience to use Bing Chat to create an output with the minimum number of prompts. What i typically see is people “talk” to AI like they talk to their smart speaker, typically asking a simple open question about the weather, train times, or a fact [or in my case my kids ask it for a rude joke or a silly song…or worse].
Working with Generative AI should be seen as similar to working with a person. As such, the more ambiguous the request, tone and language is, the more likely it is that the response you get from Copilot won’t be what you need or expected.
For example, a prompt such as “please analyse this spreadsheet of customer spend and provide insights into the most frequently bought products and services our customer buy for a meeting I have with the leadership team about product and service performance“ will give Copilot a lot more content and context about what you need work to do with that please analyze this dataset and summarize the results. A prompt that simply asks “summarise this information for me” – clearly misses the conext and framing of what the information is required for.
Include the right prompt “ingredients”
In order to the get the best response from your prompts, it is also important to focus on some of the key elements that will impact the type of response you get from Copilot. In short this is about setting the right goal and the right context along with which data source of information you want to use and you expectations of the output.
The Goal refers to what response you want to get from Copilot
The Context refers to why you need it and who or what is involved
The Source refers to which information source(s) or examples Copilot should you
The Expectations refer to how you want Copilot to respond to your request.
Here’s how that fits together into a “good prompt”…
Keeping the conversation going
Since Copilot uses the concepts of turns with regards the prompts you use, you can tweak, fine tune or ask further questions based on the information generated and information you feed it. Whilst Copilot will not learn from your data, it keeps the conversation active until you finish meaning you can refine your requests. This helps you collaborate with Copilot like you would a person. You ask for more information, to present data in a different way or simple change the language or tone of the response.
Examples based on the above could include:
In short – When creating a prompt, think of it as if you were talking to a helpful colleague – there no need to worry about the order, formatting, or structure – the goal is to keep it conversational.
General Do’s and Don’ts
Finally, there are some wider tips and guidance to help ensure you get the best from these conversational input methods. In short, the do’s a don’ts can, be summarised as.
Do’s
Don’ts
Be clear and specific with your ask. tell it how you want the response or output generated. A draft, bullet points, in Word or in PowerPoint for example.
Be vague or ambiguous. Use concise and unambiguous language. If you want something in a certain way – tell it what you want.
Give examples to help Copilot do what you want. If there is a previous document or table you want, state it. If you want something in a certain style, ask.
Use slang words, jargon, or informal language. The Lange models Copilot uses are well trained but may miss interpret acronyms, slang words and jargon and therefore give random results.
Provide details that help Copilot do what you ask. Give as much background to what you are asking as possible – just like you would to a human assistant. Set the context and ask clearly.
Give conflicting information or ask Copilot to compare or contrast unrelated data or something that is a bad example of what you need. Keep the responses clear and concise and use additional prompts to refine if necessary.
Use turns (these are additional prompts) to tweak and refine your response. If you don’t like something or want something expanded or changed – simple, ask.
Change topics without starting over. The best way to end a conversation and start over is to either write “new task” or click the new conversation button.
Feedback to IT. Copilot is only as good as the data and information it has access to. If you are not getting the right response, it may be because you don’t have access to the right data or that the data is out of wrong. Check the data source Copilot refers you to with IT or the document owner.
Take what Copilot produces as fact without checking first. Copilot is only as good as the data and information it has access to. If you are not getting the right response, it may be because you don’t have access to the right data or that the data is out of wrong. Check the data source Copilot refers you to with IT or the document owner.
So, who is excited then? Microsoft 365 Copilot will be officially GA from 1st of November 2023 at a cost of $30 per user per month for commercial customers. That is THIS week!!!
How much will Microsoft 365 CoPilot cost?
Microsoft continue to be firm that any organisation that invests in Microsoft 365 Copilot from the 1st of November will pay $30 per user per month. Note that initially, the licensing will not appear on a price list and must be purchased alongside the organisations Microsoft Account team. There is a minimum number of seats of three hundred.
When will Microsoft 365 Copilot be released?
Microsoft 365 Copilot will be generally available from 1st November 2023. There have been several hundred large organisations on a paid (around $100,000) Early Access Preview since the summer who have been helping Microsoft with performance, accuracy and tuning guidance as well as helping Microsoft to capture and prove use-cases and guidance for other future organisations and to help them justify the cost of ownership. I am sure that next year, we will see a Total Economic study from Microsoft and Forrester on this!!
Note: Initially, Microsoft 365 Copilot will not be available to EDU customers or in the government/Gallatin clouds. All apps, except for Copilot in Excel, will be available in the following languages: English (US, GB, AU, CA, IN), Spanish (Spain, Mexico), Japanese, French (France, Canada), German, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, and Chinese Simplified. Copilot in Excel is currently only available in English. Support for additional languages will be extended through the first few months of calendar year 2024.
Copilot is very new. As such expect it to evolve quickly and get better…
The ROI of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Even after the 1st of November, most organisations, Microsoft partners and many of Microsoft, will still not have access to Microsoft 365 Copilot. There have been those on the paid early access program, some of the global solution partners have also been involved.
Due to the minimum limit of three hundred licenses, I expect that many organisations may wait a little rather than rush in. Wait until they are ready, they can learn from other organisations successes and blips and (I imagine) for the entry point to be lowered and in fact I have heard rumours that this might drop to fifty. Note:Smaller organisations and anyone who buys licensing via a CSP provider will also have to wait a bit.
There is plenty of information out there to help organisations start strategizing and preparing for what will be one of the most significant uplifts (both in cost of their Microsoft 365 license, and in capability) in the history of IT and IT budgets.
The questions of course that the CFO and CEO will want to understand are
What will the actual cost be?
How will affect our bottom line?
Are the perceived benefits worth the price?
How can we keep our Microsoft licensing costs under control?
What do we need to do to make sure we can really get the best from Microsoft 365 Copilot.
1. Understanding the costof Microsoft 365
Microsoft Copilot is an add-on license – meaning it is purchased (at $30 per user per month) and applied to a base-level license. Also, not every Microsoft 365 license will be eligible for a Copilot “bolt-on”. Currently Microsoft 365 Copilot can only be attached to:
Microsoft 365 E5,
Microsoft 365 E3,
Microsoft 365 Business Premium,
Microsoft 365 Business Standard.
Whilst the above is good news for smaller businesses (in that they dont need to upgrader to an E3 or E5 base license), the cost is (currently) the same regardless of what base-level license you are attaching it to. This means the cost uplift (as a percentage) is much higher for organisations on Microsoft 365 E3 or Microsoft 365 Business. Nothing is of course set-in-stone as we are still in early preview, and we might see pricing changes or tiering as we get nearer to release. I’d also expect customers on large Enterprise Agreement to pay less (and be able to haggle!).
Frontline workers (or anyone with a Microsoft 365 “F” license) are not currently able to use Copilot without being upgraded to an enterprise E3, which means a cost difference (for M365 E3 plus Copilot) of a staggering 8.25x.
If we look at the cost of the current licenses and the effect of adding Copilot to every user, then the costs can look scary (this is based on Online RRP pricing).
Base License
Base Cost
M365 Copilot*
License + Copilot
% Increase
Microsoft 365 E5
£52.40
£25
£77.40
48%
Microsoft 365 E3
£33.10
£25
£58.10
76%
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
£18.10
£25
£42.10
133%
Microsoft 365 Business Standard
£10.30
£25
£35.30
242%
Costs before and after Microsoft 365 Copilot (pupm RRP).
Things to note:
Microsoft 365 Copilot is optional – it’s your choice as to whether you invest in it or not, but it is not and will not be included in any of the base licences – for some AI features in Bing Chat or the use of ChatGPT may be enough.
You don’t (and won’t) need to buy it for every employee – persona mapping and use case studies will be vital to determine who is likely to benefits most.
The pricing for Copilot for Business SKUs may change (as will the rest of the pricing)
Organisations may be able to “fund” their Copilot investment through savings in smart licensing procurement and consolidation of third-party products (especially for M365 E5 organisations). We are seeing a lot of this and makes sense if you have most of your “eggs” in the Microsoft Cloud Basket.
2. How will Copilot affect our bottom line?
One of the recurring questions I get asked when talking to organisations about Microsoft 365 Copilot is “how can we ensure we get a measurable ROI when planning for or investing in Microsoft Copilot?”
Even so, adding $30 (around £25 pupm) to your existing productivity toolset does seems a lot, especially if you are paying for M365 E5 + Teams Premium + Calling Plan already, plus of course things like Microsoft Viva Suite, etc.
At Microsoft’s recent Envision event in London, Microsoft talked a lot about usecases from customers on the Early Access programme, talking about various diffferent use cases that improve work experience, remove creative blocks and speed up decision-making across a number of different sectors including retail and finance.
So – from an ROI perspectives some of the maths you may look at are:
Assume a sales exec, data analyst or admin position that earns £50,000 annual salary.
With Microsoft 365 Copilot at $30 a month, thats ~$1 a day or ~80p in UK money. If we also assume the normal 250 working days a year then that equates to ~£200/day or ~£25/hr.
If these “roles” can each save just two hours a month using Copilot to sumamrise meetings, take notes, automate and send a customer propsosal out, then that is already a productivity saving (in time) of 2:1 or £50 per person per month.
I have already heard other organisations share ROI stories for the use of ChatGPT Premium since its commercial introduction with organisations reporting ROI’s of over 25:1 on a $20 pupm subscription. Given the extensive enterprise data integration and interaction into the Microsoft 365 apps and services that Copilot will bring out of the box, I would not be suprised to see ROIs (once studies are done) of more than 30:1
There is then a moral and emotional play here too. Everyone loves a productivity gain [I think there will be loads], but there may also be instances where entire roles (or aspects of roles) may no longer needed because AI will do that part of the job for us. The same goes to be honest for automation technologies like Power Automate. Then is there the case, where you as an organisation (whether you are involved in B2B or B2C) may win more business because you have “the power of AI” either helping make decisions, responding to a client/customer faster or helping you make sales faster by directly interfacing with the customer or following up on things.
Advice is to ensure you work with Microsoft and your partner(s) to identify which departments or individuals are likely to benefit the most from the features within Microsoft Copilot’s features and make sure they are part of a pilot.
This usually starts with a well thought out and managed pilot programme during which you’ll be looking at identifying, testing, and proving the potential timesaving and productivity gains it can bring to roles like sales, finance, and your data teams.
3. Are the perceived benefits worth the price?
I think so – but again this will all loop back to the point above. Whilst it wont just be about price, these GenAI tools are likely to improve the way most people work. These pilot phases, will require organisations to explore and experiment with Copilot’s features and capabilities to discover new ways to enhance their work experience.
Using these tools also requires that users are on-board, educated and informed. As such, once you have identifyied the most suitable users and scenarios for the “pilot”, you’ll need to ensure you provide adequate training and support and closely monitor and measure the outcomes and champion quick wins whilst soliciting feedback and suggestions from employees.
A report on the early findings on the promise of Generative Al put together by Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group found that Generative Al in the workplace lead to a:
12.2% increase in task completion rates
25.1 % decrease in time spent to complete tasks
12.5% increase in the number of subtasks completed
40% increase in the quality of responses to subtasks
4.How do we keep our costs under control?
A good question…let’s look at cost reduction to free budget (either for cakes, salary rises, bottom line or, yes, Copilot).
Organisations may be able to “fund” their Copilot investment through savings in smart licensing procurement and consolidation of third-party products (especially for M365 E5 organisations). We are seeing a lot of this and makes sense if you have most of your “eggs” in the Microsoft Cloud Basket.
Mch of the above is general good practice but I’m seeing lots of organisations looking at this to “free” budget to drive Copilot “pilots”.
5. What do we need to do to make to get the best from Copilot?
I have covered this before in previous blogs and videos, but in short the key focus organisations need to do outside of runing a pilot, training users and streamlining how you fund it, is data data data.
The key advantage that Microsoft Copilot will have over its rivals is that it seemlessly integrates with Microsoft 365 applications and uses enterprise data to provide personalised and contextual assistance. As such, ensuring your data is accessible (in the cloud or cloud connected at least), managed correctly, classified, labelled and protected. I have covered this a few times here.
Successful adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot is much more than the technology and licensing. Organisations need to see this as a significant technology project and not just a product you buy. As such they key activies critival to success are:
Having a defined vision and identification of how Microsoft 365 Copilot will be used
Obtain proactive support from key roles in the organisation to accelerate the use of Copilot. including senior leadership, legal, IT and key Business Development Managers.
Enable Champions and provide business relevant, snackable and on-demand training for end users this includes leveraging the “power of the prompt”.
Raised awareness through launch event & omni-channel communications planning.
Copilot Q&A
Will CoPilot be included in Microsoft E5?
No, Microsoft 365 Copilot is not included in the Microsoft 365 E5 license. Microsoft 365 Copilot is an add-on license at an additional cost [$30] irrespective of the Microsoft 365 licenses you have within your organisation. This means that even if you are on Microsoft 365 E5, you will need to pay for it separately if you decide to implement and use it.
Whats the minimum number of licenses we can buy?
Currently the minimum liceses you will be able to buy from 1st November is three hundred at a cost of $30 pupm.
Will there be free trails?
No – at the moment Microsoft have confirmed that trials will not be available.
Will I be able to get Microsoft 365 Copilot for free?
If you do – let me know!!
No… as of the information available, Microsoft 365 Copilot will not be available for free. At the time of writing, there are six hundred organisations globally that are currently on an Early Access Programme, and they all paid $100,000 for the preview. Microsoft Copilot is positioned as a premium add-on with huge substantial benefits. The initially announced price is $30 per user per month, but it’s this price is not yet finalised, and we don’t know if different sectors or license volumes will affect the price.
We don’t have Microsoft 365 – can we still use Copilot?
No, Microsoft 365 Copilot will only be available for organisations that use Microsoft 365 Business, Business premium, Enterprise E3 or Enterprise E5. I is not availbale for organisation of Office only plans, or Front-line worker SKUs (Microsoft 365 F SKUS).
We also do not yet know the intentions Microsoft have for Copilot with Education and Not for Profit organisations.
Will I be able to negotiate the price for Microsoft 365 Copilot?
It depends. The size of your organisation, the level of your base licensing and demand will all likley affect what you pay for Microsoft 365. I suspect the largest organisations – those with huge Enterprise Agreements will get a better deal than smaller organisations, but I’d expect tie ins to the higher licnese SKUs like Microsoft 365 E5.
My advice is to speak to a product and licensing specialist to work with your Microsoft Account team and who can help you assess your deployment roadmap from various angles.
Summary and Key Points
Microsoft 365 Copilot will be available to Enterprise customers at a price of $30 per user per month on top a Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 license.
Initially there will be a minimum license purchase of three hundred licenses, Though I have heard that this might get reduced to fifty.
Initially it’s only available to Enterprise sized organisations though will be coming to CSP customers and small, medium, and commercial organisations by end of the year.
ROI should be significant if Copilot is properly implemented, but organisations need to prepare to pay for this and it’s not “cheap”. Expect Copilot to impact everyone person in the organisation.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending Microsoft Envision in London.
Hosted by Clare Barclay [Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft UK], this was the first in-person only event Microsoft had run in some 4 years, and it was absolutely packed with a real buzz and energy I haven’t seen at an event in years.
The theme of the entire event, including breakouts and exhibitors was all centred around AI – which is hardly surprising with the upcoming 1st November date for “general availability” of Microsoft 365 Copilot
The Keynote – AI Transformation
The event comprised of a keynote delivered by Judson Althoff [Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial officer].
AI transformation is going to follow many of the same rules of digital transformation…Many of you embarked upon your cloud journeys many years ago, and one rule really applied – that digital transformation was business transformation, empowered by technology, and in that order.
Judson Althoff | Microsoft VP and CCO
His 45-minute session was all about AI about and how “to lead in the era of AI” at the keynote.
During this session. Jedson explained how generative AI technology is opening doors for any, and all business from healthcare, to manufacturing to public sector and finance to “imagine new ways to solve challenges”, while unlocking innovation and delivering greater business value that any technology has ever done before. As well as some demos and in-person interviews from some leading UK brands like Sainsburys and ASOS who talked about how they were leveraging Microsoft AI to build new shopping experiences.
Judson spent most of his time on stage bringing the audience up to speed and on the same page about Microsoft 365 Copilot, Sales Copilot, Security Copilot and then spent some time talking around GitHub Copilot and the huge benefits this is bringing to developers. He showcased the ever expanding “collaboration” between Microsoft and OpenAI, which most recently has also resulted in the creation of Llama 2, a powerful generative AI model that can generate text, images, code, music and more which will soon be available on Azure and Windows platforms as part of the expansion of the Azure AI model catalogue.
Finally, he introduced the new Vector Search, a new feature in Azure Cognitive Search that enables searching across different types of data using natural language queries with a live demo (which mainly worked), in which he showed off how Vector Search can help find relevant information from documents, images, videos and more through semantic indexing (the same powerful index too that will power Microsoft 365 Copilot.) Jedson also re-introduced Microsoft Fabric which has been in preview for six months and goes into General Availability next month.
AI transformation is going to reshape how companies think about their employees, how they think about engaging with their customers, how they think about their own businesses, and how they think about innovation
Whilst Microsoft covered a lot of ground in this session, much of it was a rinse and repeat of things many of us had seen before. What Microsoft did though through event was kept the fire burning. Delivering this on stage in front of thousands of people had real appeal. You could feel the buzz from the audience and the conversations leaving the main hall were all of excitement and energy – Microsoft really did capture hearts and minds.
The Breakouts
I was less impressed by many of the breakouts though to be fair I only attended a handful of them. Many were met with repeats of what we had already seen earlier on, but with less passion and energy. Most demos were impressive to those that had not seen them before, but for partners and “tightly managed” Microsoft customers, there wasn’t much we hadn’t already seen before – that said, it didn’t stop the buzz and interest through, and the exhibition halls were buzzing.
Networking
For me – these events are all about the networking. We had a team of people there – some there to learn and see what was coming and how it was being presented to customers (this was not a technical event, and it was aimed at business leaders). For me it was great to meet many of our customers, who I’d previous only met over Teams) and was even nicer to get a chance to really interface with people from different industries, from Microsoft product and Client Success teams and to get some deep dive demos on some other aspects of the solutions Microsoft offer that we don’t specialise in. I was extremely impressed by just how powerful Dynamnics 365 is now for example.
Satya’s Closing Points
Unlike previous events, this even stayed busy until the end (and beyond)- this was probably due, in-part to the closing note being delivered by Satya Nadella (in person), followed by Steve Bartlett (CEO and Founder of Diary of a CEO).
Satya brought his usual passion and twist to the day, summarising the key points delivered throughout the day but homing in on GitHub Copilot and the enormous potential this has to help software developers, businesses and citizen developers have in building AI powered apps for the future. He talked about Microsoft’s commitments to ethical AI, AI for good and the new wave of AI transformation that is taking over every facet of our lives and every business big and small. He talked about this next wave being about “digitising people, places and things with new reasoning engines that can really analyse data in seconds”.
There were a few points which you could feel really resonated with the audience.
This AI wave is bigger than when the Windows PC transformed the office in the nineties
We are on the cusp of interfacing with technology in true natural language where our computers can now actually “understand” us
For the first time, we will be able to interface with technology in true multi-modal and multi-domain and engage in full meaningful discussions.
He finished by re-iterating the work many organisations need to do to get the best from Generative AI. Much of this was around data. He said, which I think is the most relevant bit of advice for every organisation, that “The Cloud is what makes AI possible, but it is your data that makes AI work”.
My Take: What organisations need to do next
For me this resonates as this is what we see every day and on the back of every discussion around AI we have with our clients.
Data is the fuel of AI: Many have lots of work to do to get their data in shape. Whether that is getting it in the cloud, managing stale and duplicate data, controlling security and governance, and protecting it from mis use or leakage. Many are not there yet and fear that many will miss this important step and jump straight it – resulting in poor results, low ROI, and poor adoption.
Adoption is the accelerant: Cloud Adoption is what makes AI possible . The UK has good cloud adoption the main, but it’s very hit and miss. Some are full in and others are still starting the journey. For AI to work we need good Cloud Adoption and it’s not just about migrating to the cloud. We need data and apps structured to get the best from AI -we need data accessible (but secure) to allow these LLMs to surface and make decisions or conclusions based on this data and it needs people to understand the true power of what these tools can do. I still feel many see AI as something of a fad, a promise of something and something others will do. Even looking inside our own organisation we have a lot to do – to really deeply understand and appreciate what AI will do for us.
If you haven’t used it – dive in , start interfacing with your PC via Windows Copilot, leverage Bing Enterprise Chat, get ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot by working with your Microsoft Partner.
AI is the future – it’s here and it’s for everyone and every organisation – but your data is what will make it successful and useable.
