As March 2025 comes to an end, Microsoft have unveiled several exciting updates across Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Chat, and Copilot Studio.
Copilotannouncementsthis week
1. Updates to Copilot Studio Message Rates
Effective April 2nd, 2025, updated (cheaper) message rates for Copilot Studio will go live. These adjustments cover tenant Microsoft Graph grounding and agent actions (previously known as autonomous actions). The prices of tenant Microsoft Graph grounding and autonomous actions are being reduced from 30 messages and 25 messages to 10 messages and 5 messages respectively, from April 2nd, 2025.
The following table illustrates the differences in the subscription models for the cost of Copilot Studio events.
Copilot Studio feature
Billing rate [non M365 Copilot Licensed users]
Billing rate [M365 Copilot licensed users]
Autonomous triggers1
Classic answer
1 message
No charge
N/A
Generative answer
2 messages
No charge
2 messages
Agent action
5 messages
No charge
5 messages
Tenant graph grounding for messages
10 messages
No charge
10 messages
Agent flow actions per 100 actions
13 messages
13 messages
13 messages
1 - Autonomous triggers refer to events or conditions that automatically initiate an agent to take action, without requiring a user to manually invoke it.
Also coming is Agent flows which allow agent creators to bring Power Automate automation features directly into Copilot Studio to quickly and consistently automate business processes. There will also be new deep reasoning in agents combines reasoning models including Open AI o1 with the ability to access enterprise data to complete complex tasks.
Microsoft are also updating pricing with a new zero-rating for Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users in Microsoft 365 apps and services, ensuring inclusive, seamless integration and cost-effective use of these tools. This means licensed Microsoft 365 Copilot users will not be charged for using agents in their organisation
2. Rule-Based Workflows in Copilot Studio
From April 2025, Copilot Studio will introduce structured, rule-based workflows for agents. This aims to simplify process automation, enabling users to create efficient, consistent workflows with minimal manual effort. Usage of this functionality will contribute to the Copilot Studio meter, encouraging innovation while maintaining transparency in resource utilisation.
3. Deep Reasoning in Copilot Studio
So this is a big one – Microsoft have made deep reasoning capabilities available in Copilot Studio’s public preview from today. This will empowers users to address complex, decision-intensive tasks by leveraging advanced reasoning algorithms.
Whether it’s managing intricate processes or solving challenging problems, this tool offers remarkable precision and depth in its execution.
4. Two new Deep Reasoning Agents
Microsoft announced two new deep reasoning agents—Researcher and Analyst—as part of an early preview which will also be coming “soon” with previews coming in April before wider rollout.
Researcher Agent: has been designed for content creation and information synthesis, this agent combines OpenAI’s advanced deep research model with Microsoft Copilot’s orchestration. By integrating Copilot Chat’s web and work grounding capabilities, Researcher enables users to brainstorm ideas, generate high-quality content, and analyze data more effectively.
Researcher Agent in Copilot.
Analyst Agent: This is powered by a new reasoning model. the Analyst agent will function as a virtual data scientist and will have the ability to process complex datasets and provide real-time code validation (using Python) and will be able to deliver actionable insights and visually compelling representations of data in minutes.
Microsoft say that these agents will be gradually rolled out to Microsoft 365 Copilot licensed users through the Frontier program, an early access programme for customers to test out early and new Copilot innovations.
At the end of Feb 2025, Microsoft gave Apple Mac users with a brand-new native Copilot (consumer) app experience and now after a feeble Web app version, Windows 11 is finally getting a proper one too.
This latest update brings a fully native Copilot app to Windows, delivering a faster, smoother, and visually enriched interface that aligns perfectly with the Windows 11 design language. Yay.
It also has a keyboard shortcut that lets you hold the Alt + Spacebar keys for two seconds to start chatting to Copilot via voice.
From Web View to Native App
For those who followed the initial rollout, you’ll remember that the original Copilot for Windows was simply a web view of the Microsoft Copilot website. While functional, it left much to be desired in terms of responsiveness and overall polish.
Copilot App – Webapp to Native App
The new Copilot update transforms that experience completely. By leveraging the native app UI framework, Microsoft has infused the app with features that make the experience feel inherently Windows 11 that is also complete with a sidebar for managing chats, elegant mica blur effects, and native context menus and buttons.
This adherence to the native design not only improves aesthetics but also boosts performance and responsiveness.
What’s New in the Copilot for Windows App?
Enhanced User Interface
Native Design Language: The interface now mirrors the sleek, modern aesthetics of Windows 11.
Smooth Interactions: Launching the app is noticeably quicker, and interactions feel seamless thanks to the native integration.
Intelligent Chat Management
Sidebar for Conversations: All your previous chats are saved and easily accessible in a dedicated sidebar.
Instant New Chat: Starting a new conversation is as simple as hitting the new chat button.
Retained and Expanded Functionality
Text and Voice Chat: Continue to interact with Microsoft’s AI assistant using text, or opt for the Copilot Voice for a more dynamic experience.
Customisable Settings: Options include settings to enable or disable launching the app on Windows boot, as well as toggling the alt+spacebar shortcut for quick access.
In short, there’s no real feature changes here – just a native Windows App, ensuring that the native experience makes no compromises on capability and features along with performance and usability improvements of a native app.
First thoughts on the new version
I have to confess—I wasn’t thrilled with the old web view version of Copilot for Windows. It felt like an afterthought compared to its Mac counterpart. This new native experience, however, is a major improvement. The app now inspires confidence in handling everyday AI tasks and is genuinely enjoyable to use.
Getting the new Copilot App
For Windows Insiders excited to explore this update, the latest version (1.25023.107.0) or higher is now available via the Microsoft Store and should update automatically. The app is rolling out in preview across all Insider channels, inviting users to experience this transformative upgrade first-hand.
As a Microsoft product inside another Microsoft product, the evolution from a mere web view app (which should never have been done in my opinion) to a fully fledged native app that looks and feels like a Windows app not only elevates user interaction but also shows that Microsoft is actually serious about integrating AI seamlessly into everyday computing tasks.
The new Copilot for Windows app also has a keyboard shortcut that lets you hold the Alt + Spacebar keys for two seconds to start chatting to Copilot via your voice.
Microsoft want your feedback
Microsoft would like feedback too, which you can do by filing feedback in the Feedback Hub (WIN + F) under Apps > Copilot or directly within the Copilot app by clicking on your profile icon and choosing “Give feedback”.
This feedback shapes the future. Whether we can expect more iterative updates, possibly with additional features and enhancements will only happen based on the Microsoft collects feedback from Insiders.
Conclusion
The leap to a native interface is more than just a cosmetic upgrade—it represents a thoughtful stride toward a more integrated and responsive Windows experience. I’m excited to see how this native Copilot app will further inspire productivity and innovation as it evolves.
What are your thoughts on this updated native app?
In an new update announced on the Microsoft 365 Insider blog this week, Microsoft has announced that Copilot in Excel will soon be able to reference documents in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF formats jyst like the other officee apps can. This enhancement significantly expands the capabilities of Copilot in Excel, making it a more powerful tool for users.
With this update, you can now ask Copilot to perform tasks such as displaying to-do items in a table or organising emails with columns for the sender and subject line. This feature is particularly useful when you need to combine data from various sources, including public statistics from the web, internal documents, organisational details, or tables from another Excel files or contained in Word docs.
Getting Started with the New Feature
To take advantage of this new functionality, you need to meet the following minimum requirements:
Windows: Build 17729.20000 or later
Mac: Build 24053110 or later
Copilot license
Web search enabled
Stable internet connection
Upcoming Web Version and Limitations
Microsoft has announced that this update will soon be available for the web version of Excel. However, there are some limitations to be aware of. For example, refreshable data imports only work for Excel files with tables stored on SharePoint or OneDrive. Additionally, there is limited support for handling workbook and external data simultaneously.
Recent Updates to Copilot in Excel
Copilot in Excel has received several updates in recent months, further enhancing its functionality. One of my favourite features is the Clean Data feature, which addresses issues such as text and number inconsistencies.
Copilot has been integrated into the Excel start up experience, enabling users to use Copilot to explain what they want to create and receive improvement suggestions.
Looking Ahead: More Features on the Horizon
With Microsoft’s global AI tour taking place in cities around the world, including a stop in the UK on March 5th, we can expect even more exciting features to be announced soon. These updates highlight Microsoft’s commitment to continually improving Copilot and making it an indispensable tool for Excel users.
Stay tuned to my blog for more updates in Copilot and bookmark the Microsoft 365 Road map page.
Finally, it is here – Microsoft 365 Copilot now lets you save your prompts within Copilot for easy re-use later. Yes – this means you no longer need to save your prompts in separate documents or constantly copying and paste them.
When Copilot has completed its response(s), scroll back to your prompt in the chat.
Hover your mouse over the prompt – you’ll see bookmark and link icons appear.
5. Click on the bookmark icon to save the prompt to your library – you can also give it a friendly name to make it easier to find and reuse later.
Accessing Your Saved Prompts
Finding your saved prompts is just as easy.
Click on “View Prompts” above the chat box.
In the prompt library popup window, select “Your Prompts.” where you will be presented with a list of all the prompts you’ve saved.
Click on any saved prompt, and it will automatically paste the text into the chat window, ready for you to use again.
Why this feature matters
The ability to save and easily access prompts directly within Copilot enhances productivity and streamlines your workflow. It’s a small change with a significant impact, making it easier than ever to manage your prompts efficiently.
No more hassle, no more copying and pasting—just seamless, effortless prompt management.
Copilot and Microsoft 365 continues to evolve and add features. The latest feature introduces a seamless method to transform email threads into productive meeting agendas with a single click.
This new feature is designed to streamline the process, ensuring that your meetings are well-organized and productive.
Making Email Conversations more effective
With Microsoft 365 Copilot’s new functionality, Microsoft are making scheduling of meetings from an email (that needs a meeting) super easy.
Copilot can now reason over all related emails within the thread and creates a thorough meeting agenda with a summary of the conversation within the email chain. This captures the main topics and any early decisions, making sure everyone is up to speed and ready to jump in.
Here’s how to use it:
Open an email thread on a topic for which you would like to schedule a meeting from.
Click “Schedule with Copilot” button found in the top menu bar of the email.
Click the “Insert” button to populate the agenda in your invite. You can then edit and tweak the agenda as needed to ensure it suits your needs.
Once done, you’ve used Copilot to create a Meeting and agenda based on the threads and topics in the email chain without having to plough though it yourself. This can help you ensure relevant topics and themes are brought into the agenda.
Why would you want Copilot to do this for you?
We all had email chains that need to be a meeting at somepoint. Copilot takes most of the effort out of this and ensures that you get a meeting agenda that covers the key themes from a email chain. Copilot also attaches a copy of the original email to the meeting invite and helps ensure that the right people are invites. So all you need to do is choose the time for the meeting. This can be a real timesaver for everyone.
Conclusion
By transforming email threads into organised meeting agendas, Microsofft 365 Copilot in (new) Outlook can help ensures that everyone stays informed and meetings run smoothly.
I personally love this new feature which really helps to ensure all themes and concerns are raised as an agenda in the meeting.
Why not give it ago in your next meeting scheduling task.
In a move that perhaps comes as no surprise, Microsoft has revealed a small $3 price increase per use (the first in 12 years) but is including Microsoft 365 Copilot (previously a $20 add on) to these subscriptions, which enables users to leverage Copilot in Office apps without needing a separate Copilot Pro subscription. But there is catch… See later.
I’ve not seen UK pricing as yet, but starting soon, consumers will soon see a new price of $9.99 per month for Microsoft 365 Personal and $12.99 per month for Microsoft 365 Home.
It’s not actually about Copilot through…
Oddly, Microsoft says the price increase is not actually about Copilot inclusion buy it more about aligning the prices with new features that have been added over the years such Microsoft Designer and Clipchamp, both of which have extensive AI capabilities.
Or is it…
Microsoft are offering anyone who’d rather stick to the old plan the option to buy what they new call their “classic sub tier which won’t include Copilot, but just a limited time. This, I believe will be offered as a downgrade option but will only be available for a limited time.
So… If the classic tier doesn’t include Copilot… Is the price hike about Copilot or not.. What do you think?
So what is included for Copilot in Personal and Home subscriptions?
With the introduction of Copilot, Microsoft 365 apps are getting a significant upgrade. Here’s a breakdown of the new features you will get
Word
Here we get Draft and Chat capability in Word. In draft mode you can create/ generate text from within the Copilot pane directly in Word. This works for new and existing documents and also allows your to rewrite taxt, expand on it, condense it and more. Chat mode on the other hand acts as your Word AI assistant. It can summarise and explain text, paragraphs or whole documents, suggest changes and also. Help you discover Word features such as formatting or just help you to learn new features.
PowerPoint
Here we get similar capabilities to Word. Copilot can create, restructure, change and enhance PowerPoint presentations from scratch based on user-provided criteria. It can also analyse existing Word documents (and other uploaded files) and generate a complete presentation from the information contained within it.
Excel
With most people using just a tiny fraction of what Excel can do, Copilot in Excel will help anyone analyse tables, highlight data correlations, suggest and help with new formulas based on your natural written queries, and can also generate insights to help you better reason over tables data and even entire workbooks. It is also really great for helping you format and organise data, create visualisations, and even teach you (or write) formulas for you.
OneNote
One of my favourite apps, Copilot here can assist in drafting ideas, plans, and organising information within your Notebooks. Copilot can also format content and create lists according to your criteria. What’s great is it can also do the woith your hand written notes (for those like me that use OneNote on my tablet). I find it great for handwritten meeting notes or interviews in that Copilot can then write my notes up professionally for me!
Outlook
Load of useful abilities for Copilot here in Outlook and one I think most people will use alot. Copilot in Outlook can summarise emails from friends, family, and colleagues which is nice for long email chains you have just been forwarded!
It’s also great for helping you to draftnand write an ew email or response to an email based on specific tones, lengths, and formats you set.It can also help coach you by reviewing what you have written and suggesting changes.
Copilot can pull information from other emails to provide context in threads, making it useful for managing multiple email chains.
What about Copilot Pro?
Despite the price increase, Microsoft is limiting Copilot usage under the Home and Personal subscriptions through monthly AI credits which are automatically applied to your account and reset each month (think mobile data tarrifs). They have not yet shared (that I have seen anyway) how many AI credits will be given each month.
Microsoft also offers Copilot Pro which is currently $20 /£19 a month which brings the same features as above but gives unlimited access to Copilot in Office, plus what they call boosts for image creation in tools like Designer.
I’m hoping this also gets a price reduction as it suddenly seems quite pricey for the additional capacity rather than entire features.
Conclusion.. Yes please!
To me I can’t wait to see this come to Family accounts because for me today, if I want Copilot Pro in Office for all 4 members of my family, I need to pay $80 a Month! This makes is so much more affordable and a no brainier.. bringing AI tools to its 84 millions consumer users and at a much more digestable price that with Copilot Pro.
As we all get back into the flow of work following the Christmas and New Year break, Microsoft continue to announce new features for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Microsoft 365 Copilot has been available to “everyone” to buy and use now for a year now and it’ actually hard to conceive that it only actually ben 12 months! That said, I know hundreds of organisations that are using it every day and getting a great experience from it. I also know others (and people in my own organisation that have a bit more of a “hmmmmm and it’s ok” mindset to Copilot.
As I head back into my first full week at work with Copilot at my side, it’s worth looking at just how far it has come. From taking notes and summarising content, helping me catch up things I have missed (or forgotten) and evening being my companion to help me thrash out ideas, explain things, get a different opinion – Copilot is by my side.
Copilot is like that tireless colleague who’s always ready to lend a hand, doesn’t get tired, doesn’t take a lunch a break and doesn’t need to pop out for a coffee when I need it! I often describe Copilot as a drunk intern, in that it adds huge amounts of value to my day, but it doesn’t solve every work problem, nor can it assist with every task. It can’t make decisions for me, do my executive reports, remember to do things for me (there’s other tools for that) and can’t actually do my job for me. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a tool, a powerful tool, but like any tool, its effectiveness hinges on how you use it and more importantly how you don’t!
Having helped many customers and seen the results it can have, as well as my own experience of integrating Copilot into my daily work (and personal online life) routine, it takes time. It not as simple as allocating a licensing and clicking the Copilot button. Good adoption and useful results require practice (lots), sharing what works, and an understanding of its capabilities and limitations. In this blog. I share a few little tips we have learned on the way, coupled with some tips to see value every day.
1. Results may not be instant – Practice makes perfect
You may hear people say “it is rubbish” or “it didn’t do what I thought”, or “Copilot can’t help me in my job”.
This is sometimes true, but nearly all of the time, it is simply not! Copilot can certainly help you brainstorm ideas, answer questions, explain content and even get a third person review on something you have created, but it it is not going to transform you into a master mathematician, coder, web designer or salesman overnight.
Like learning a new musical instrument (my son is learning the trumpet at the moment) or a language, it takes time (and patience) to get the hand of pretty much any tool.
Success comes (and I see it every day) by embrace the learning curve, trying new things and giving yourself room to grow alongside this technology which is constantly evolving and improving. Working with Generative AI is a totally different way of working with technology so give yourself time to work with it. There is no AI Natives (yet!).
2. Don’t get fired – Copilot for everyone but not for everything!
Think of Copilot as your co-pilot, not as the captain of your work. Copilot is there to assist you in what you do but not to take over. While it might draft a great email or executive summary, help you expand on a point or explain something, only you (as the Pilot) can ensure it aligns with your objectives and ask and that what it produces resonates with your audience.
Remember you are accountable for what Copilot produces for you – Copilot is the co-pilot. You are always in command. Copilot will remind of this, but do. Check the content, is it what you needed and asked for. Does it seem correct, read well and has it used the right content and context. If Copilot get’s it wrong, its your block on the line not Copilot’s.
Your expertise and personal touch are irreplaceable, and you are still responsible for what it produces. Don’t look silly buy not checking what it produces!
3. Remember you are human – It is not!
The Human Touch is everything. For example, when using Copilot to write or reply to a sensitive email, or when writing a personal response to something, Copilot can absolutely provide you with a solid starting point or provide guidance on how to write it.
We have all read those emails comms that are so obviously written by AI. It’s easy to spot an email from someone you know that has clearly left AI to write for them!
Empathy, nuance, and authenticity and the way in which you communicate is what makes you. It’s important to use what Copilot (or an AI) creates as a draft or a guide and ensure you inject your personality and insights to make your communication truly impactful and truly you.
4. Copilot is not a mind reader – be clear in your asks
Copilot doesn’t inherently understand the nuances of your specific situation, so back to my drunk intern analogy, you need to give it context around what you want your assistant to do.
Copilot can “summarise a report” but won’t know how you would like this summarised, the tone you woudl like, who you are summarising it for and how long you want it unless you tell it. Be explicit about the how you want the output (the goal), the context of what you need, and your expectations for how you want the output to be presented.
Remember the formula for Copilot promoting is G.C.S.E – Goal, Context, Expectations and Source.
5. Don’t leave sensitivity to chance
Microsoft 365 Copilot will adhere to your company identity and access management, respect DLP policies and even understand sensitivity labels if they are used.
Many organisations however do not use these (though are starting too), but regardless, make sure you check that you are not feeding Copilot confidential customer information when creating responses for other customers or sharing internal information that is not supposed to be shared.
People get scared that Copilot may share sensitive information. Since Copilot is the assistant and not the author, you are responsible for checking that the data you have fed it (or referenced) can be used and shared externally.
There are new tools coming to help users better protect privacy and for IT / Sec to control what Copilot accesses, but it’s still “on you”. Remember Copilot can’t get the sack – you can!
6. Copilot will not replace learning but it can help you learn.
Some like to portray that they are an expert over night with AI tools like Copilot. Sure Copilot is great at simplify complex concepts or helping you know how to do something in say Excel or Word. Copilot is also really great at helping you understand seomthing, can explain something complex “as if i am a 10 year old” and so on, but it’s not a substitute for your own learning journey.
That said, I find Copilot is great for helping you to learn something. It can help you “learn” the basics about a topic, put things into different perspectives, and even help map learning paths and helps you find resources. At the end of the day, it is still you that will learn what you are learning, but Copilot is really great at helping you learn in your way…
7. Copilot has an appauling memory
One fo the things Copilot is really bad at (by design currently) uis remembering things. This mean that not only will it not ask you how that report went, or if your customer replied to the email it helped you write.
In fact Copilot cannot (currently) evcen remeber past convrsations or preferences so once you “start a new conversation”, all history of that task you were working are forgotten.
As a tip – I tend to have a couple of chats running in parallel so I can switch between contexts as I need to. ChatGPT now has this capability to imagine* it is only time before this comes to Microsoft 365 Copilot
8. The Roadmap is every changing
The last time I looked, there was 112 new features in development and 18 that are currently “rolling out”. This AI technology is evolving rapidly and Copilot is no exception.
New features and improvements roll out regularly. It’s worth checking on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap from time to time to ensure you stay informed about what is coming. There are also a plethor of blogs like this one, user communities, webinars and formal training to help you stay abreast of the latest innovations and tips.
Knowledge is power – the more you know, the more you can leverage Copilot to your advantage.
9. Integrate Copilot into your daily routine
Consistency is key. Copilot really adds avlue when you use it little and often and when it’s seamlessly woven into your daily workflow. Here are some reaaly simple habits to form:
Start your week with a recap: Use Copilot to remind you of any emails you did not repond to last week from your peers or boss, to prepare you for your upcoming meetings, or to sugegst a date your team (rememeber it knows who works for you) are available for an afternoon off-site.
Start Your Day with Copilot: Use Copilot in the morning to outline your your day, important tasks or get you up-to-date on something. You will soon be able to schedule Copilot to do certain tasks for you.
Catch on and control your meetings: One of Copilot’s hero capabilities is to help ypou catch up on a meeting you missed, take notes for you in a meeting and even help keep the meeting flowing.
Remeber your GCSEs: Before engaging with Copilot, know what the Goal is you are trying to achieve. Give Copilot context on how you wnat it done and ensure it knows what you expect. Clear questions yield better answers.
Share and Collaborate: Encourage your team to adopt Copilot and share tips. Collective learning amplifies benefits.
The true power of Copilot lies in how you incorporate it into your daily routine:
10. Don’t Give up
You may not always get the instant results, don’t give up. Ttry again, ask others what works for them and check out help and guidance. There’s loads.
Stay Curious and ensure you experiment with different prompts and functions. You might discover new ways Copilot can assist you.
Reflect Regularly by taking time to assess how Copilot is impacting your work. Adjust your approach as needed to maximise benefits.
Share your success so other can benefit from what you have learned and what works best for you.
Final Tips
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a remarkable assistant that can amplify your productivity, spark innovation, and even make mundane tasks more manageable. But remember, it’s a tool designed to enhance your capabilities – not replace them. By using it thoughtfully, staying informed about its features, and integrating it into good work habits, you can unlock its full potential.
Technology is a force multiplier, but it’s the human element that truly makes the difference. Copilot offers incredible capabilities, but it’s up to you to wield them effectively. Use it wisely, continue to learn, and keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Your proactive engagement and thoughtful application are what turn a powerful tool into transformative results. So take charge, embrace the technology, and watch how it elevates the work you do every daym, little my little, bit my bit can make a huge difference in a week.
Oh and don’t forget to share your successes with others.
If you are not a fan of PWA (progressive web apps), the Microsoft is bringing good news. Windows Insiders are getting a new version of the Copilot app for Windows 10 and 11 which replaces the web-based application with a new native version.
The old app (or current app if you are not a Windows Insider) is a Progressive Web App which limits some of the Windows control such as quick view that is available in native Windows Apps. recently ChatGPT published their Windows App into the Microsoft Store and this latest update from Microsoft now makes the Copilot a real app too!
With this update, the previous Copilot progressive web app (PWA) is replaced with a native version. After installing the Copilot app update, when you run Copilot, you will see it appear in your system tray.
Microsoft Windows Insider Team
Whilst it’s hard to notice immediately differences, after installing the updated version (1.24112.123.0) Copilot on Windows is now a “proper” app rather than a WebApp.
This also means that Quick View can be used now with Copilot which lets you move the quick view window and resize it to suit your workflow. By default, the Copilot app in Windows uses the RegisterHotKey function and sets Alt + Space keyboard shortcut to open Copilot in Quick View mode which can be used to open and close Copilot’s quick view whenever you need it.
If you need to switch / flip back to the main Copilot app window, then this can be done by clicking the icon at the top left corner of the quick view window.
Devices with the dedicated Copilot key will open the Copilot app up the main window.
One of the concerns I often talk to organisations about, is the fear that Copilot might surface sensitive information that it should not have access to due to IT/Compliance teams not really knowing who has access to what. The phrase “Security through obscurity” is often what we heard being used.
The primary cause of this is the over-permissioning and sharing of files, which is a growing concern for organisations and one of the “blockers” often cited in Copilot Adoption.
The over-sharing problem
The ability to reason over employee data and shared organisational data is one of Microsoft 365 Copilot’s strengths over other Gen AI tools (that need feeding). These responses Copilot gives and the content it creates rely on access to data that the user already has access to across their organisation’s Microsoft 365 environment. And here often lies the problem. If an organisation has low levels of data governance, no data classification and labelling, combined with high levels of over-sharing can create real concerns for IT and Data Compliance teams.
One of the reasons that Copilot often has access to data that it “perhaps” shouldn’t have is not due to security flaw or issue across Copilot or Microsoft 365, but because files or sites have been shared too widely and have no (or the wrong) privacy and sensitivity set. Addressing this is no small task since many organisations will have million of files and tens of thousands of SharePoint and Teams sites.
Organisations and even teams within organisations often operate at various levels of maturity in governing SharePoint data. While some orgaanisations strictly monitor permissions and oversharing of content, others do not. The situation is further complicated because many people, teams and organisations have “legitimate” reasons to share “some” data widely within the organisation. This can mean users in your organisation may make choices that result in the oversharing of SharePoint content. As an example
Users may save critical files in locations accessible to a wider audience than intended.
Users may prefer sharing content with large groups rather than specific individuals.
Users might not pay close attention to permissions when uploading files.
Users may not understand how to use sensitivity labelling (if enabled) to control access.
Services such as Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 utilise all data to which individual users have at least View permissions, which might include broadly shared files that the user is unaware of. As a result, users might see these applications as exposing content that was overshared. Oversharing can lead to sensitive information being exposed to unintended recipients. Users, while well intentioned, might not always grasp the implications of their sharing choices. They might overlook permissions or opt for convenience over security.
As a result, it’s important to use the permission models in SharePoint to ensure the right users or groups have the right access to the right content within your organisation. The following sections describe the key steps that administrators can implement to configure their SharePoint permissions model to help prevent data oversharing.
Dealing with Oversharing
The good news is that Microsoft is adding new features to SharePoint and Purview to make it easier to see, understand and control over sharing across Microsoft 365 with a hope to help adoption efforts and wider roll out of Microsoft 365 Copilot. This includes new Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) and enhancements for Data Loss Prevention policies in Microsoft 365 Copilot, and SharePoint Advanced Management. These can help automate site access reviews at scale and add controls to restrict access to sites if they contain highly sensitive information.
Microsoft have also released a blueprint guide for organisations planning to or deploying Copilot. These are nicely tailored to adjust to those with mainly Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 licenses respectively.
These new tools IMO are going to be vital to help organisation understand and address oversharing so they feel more feel confident in their employees adopting AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot.
AI is really good at finding information, and it can surface more information than you would have expected. This is why it’s really important to address oversharing. Typically, these issues are a by-product of good collaboration, particularly across Teams, SharePoint sites and OneDrive.
Alex Pozin | Director of Product Marketing | Microsoft
From early 2025, Microsoft will make access to SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) available at no extra cost to Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriptions. Outside of this, SharePoint premium (which includes SAM ) will be available at a cost of around $3 per user each month.)
New Capabilities in SharePoint Advanced Management
There are also new features for SAM that Microsoft says will provide greater control over access to SharePoint files.
New permission state reports (available now) can identify “overshared” SharePoint sites. The site access review feature can then provide a easy way to ask site owners to review and address permissions.
Restricted Content Discovery – which should start to roll out this month in public preview (December 2024), will allow IT admins to prevent Copilot from searching and processing data in specific sites for content and result generation. This does not prevent direct access to the site meaning that users can access the content directly as normal. This feature builds on the SharePoint Restricted Access Control, which was released last year, and lets IT admins restrict site access to specific sites to just “site owners” only, while also preventing Copilot from indexing and summarising files in these sites.
One of the use cases for this, are for where there are data locations containing information that needs to be contained to a set of people – such as financial reports, M&A planning, amnd other secret stuff. IT need to be confident that these locations and files will not show up in SharePoint searches and will be well out the reach of Copilot or other AI tools, essentially making sure that nobody can accidently or unintentionally be aware of, see or access the content. This is where Restricted Content Discovery comes in – locking down and hiding this information from plain site and from Copilot’s retrieval augmentation and indexing.
New Capabilities in Microsoft Purview
Microsoft are also adding new capabilities in Purview too. Purview is available as standalone or is part of Microsoft 365 E5.
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Microsoft Purview is a centralised hub within Microsoft 365 that helps organisations meet regulatory and compliance requirements. It helps organisations manage their compliance obligations, protect sensitive data, and mitigate risks within their Microsoft 365 environment.
Here, there are new tools to help identify “overshared files” that can be accessed by Copilot. These includes oversharing assessments for Microsoft 365 Copilot in the Data Security Posture Management (DPSM) tool which is now in Public Preview (from December 2024) and can be accessed via the newly revamped Purview portal.
DSPM Portal in Microsoft Purview
The oversharing assessments are designed to highlight data that may present exposure risk by scanning files for sensitive data and identifying data repositories such as SharePoint and Teams sites where access permissions appear to be too wide and broad. The tool will also provide recommendations to admins and site owners for ways to mitigate oversharing risk, such as adding sensitivity labels or restricting access from SharePoint.
For example, DSPM can detect and help you deal with controlling ethical behaviour in AI (example demo environment below). For all the recommendation, Microsoft provides a simple step by step “wizard” to help IT and Compliance add policies.
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention for Microsoft 365 Copilot, also in public preview, enables IT and security admins to create data loss prevention (DLP) policies to exclude certain documents from being processed by Copilot based on a the file or sites sensitivity label. This applies to files held in SharePoint and OneDrive, but can be configured at other levels, such as group, site, and user, to provide more flexibility around who can access what.
Insider Risk Management has also been updated to detect “risky AI usage.” This even includes user prompts that contain sensitive information and attempts by users to access unauthorised sensitive information. What’s key to note here is that this feature is not just limited to Microsoft 365 Copilot and also also covers Copilot Studio, and ChatGPT Enterprise.
Oversharing Blue Prints
I really like this. Microsoft’s new blueprint resource pages on Microsoft Learn provide recommended approaches and guidance for organisations to help them understand, mitigate and manage oversharing during what they define as the three main stages of Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment.
Pilot [Pilot]
Wider Deployment [Deploy at Scale]
Organisational Rollout [Operate]
Microsoft provide two blueprint designs. A “foundational path” and what they call an “optimised path” that uses some of the more Microsoft 365 advanced data security and governance tools found in Microsoft 365 E5 subscriptions.
Is there funding available to help?
It depends – but most likely!
Microsoft have a Cyber Security Investment Program open to select/specialist partners like Cisilion. These provide funded workshops, assessments and proof of value deployments across key Security workloads including Microsoft Purview as well as structured Copilot pilot deployments, vision and value
Organisations should speak to their Microsoft Solutions Partner for more information. You can contact Cisilion here should you need to.
Conclusion
In many of the discussions I and my team at Cisilion have with customers, we see that almost all of the organisations we work still have concerns over data governance in the realm of AI access. Of these most expect Microsoft to help them address these whilst some have already invested in third party tools to help them get a “grip” on their data and sharing.
We have seen a plethora of customers invest/upgrade to high-tier Microsoft 365 plans (including E5 Security and Compliance) or full Microsoft 365 E5 in order to gain access to Microsoft Purview. Some argue these tools should be provided as part of their Copilot investment, so it is great to see Microsoft meeting customers in the middle and at least providing some of these tools as part of this license investment.
The issue is not Copilot per-say, but it is that Copilot with it’s ability to access compnay data is causing more organisations to double down and look at the existing issues they have of too many SharePoint Sites, too much over sharing, orphaned data (data with no owner) inadequate data classification and labeling.
By addressing security and data governance and levering the new tools available, this at least should solve one of the blockers to AI adoption.
The second is Adoption and Change Management – more on that in the next blog post!
Microsoft announced at Ignite, the new Facilitator agent – an update to the AI notes in Teams that works inside your meetings and chat and is designed to enhance collaboration and streamline the way teams work. It works similar to the AI generated notes after a meeting, but this works live alongside you and all participants can see it working live in the meeting.
How Facilitator works in Teams Meetings
Facilitator will take real-time notes during Teams meetings (not currently adhoc meetings or Meet Now), enabling everyone to co-author and collaborate seamlessly. This allows meeting participants to focus and engage more deeply in meetings, while ensuring alignment before the meeting concludes.
To enable this feature and use it a meeting, organisers can toggle AI-generated notes setting on or off when setting up a meeting in the Teams calendar or enable it during the meeting via the Notes section in the meeting.
Once enabled, a notification appears in the meeting chat to inform all participants. This also activates meeting transcription, with a notification to users… During the meeting, participants can click on Notes to open a pane where the AI generated live notes are created every few minutes, organised by topics and follow-up tasks.
What is nice about this is that participants can edit the notes inline or assign tasks to users, with attributions indicating whether the content is AI-generated or user-edited making these Co authored notes by humans and AI!
After the meeting ends, notes continue to be accessible in the Recap tab and are stored in the OneDrive of the user who enabled real-time notes. These notes are contextual to the meeting transcript, ensuring relevance and accuracy.
Future Capabilities in Meetings
As the Facilitator agent gets developed futrther, Microsoft say that it will be able to take on more tasks to enhance meeting effectiveness. Soon, it will also manage meetings from end-to-end, including managing agendas, moderating discussions, and handling action items automatically or semi-automatically
In early 2025, the real-time note-taking experience will also expand to Microsoft Teams Rooms. Employees will be able to invite a Teams Room to a meeting, allowing all participants to see real-time notes however, they have joined the meeting. This feature will also be available for ad-hoc meetings, enabling in-office discussions to be captured seamlessly.
How Facilitator works in Teams Chats
As of now (November 2024), the Facilitator Agent creates and maintains up-to-date summaries of what it considers valuable information within Teams chats. This includes key decisions, action items, and open questions, helping groups stay focused, align faster, and resolve issues efficiently.
AI-generated notes are automatically enabled when creating a new chat. For existing chats, users can toggle it on via the Notes icon which is shown at the top right of the chat window as shown below.
When notes are enabled, a notification appears in the group chat to inform everyone that notes are being taken in real time.
To access the notes users simply click on the Notes icon in the top right corner of the chat to show a summary of the chat thread, organised by topics with corresponding decisions, action items, and unanswered questions.
These are continuously updated as the chat conversation progresses.
Availability and access
Facilitator is already in public preview now for desktop (Windows/Mac), web, and iOS/Android. To access the public preview of the new Facilitator agent, meeting hosts need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
Facilitator will only be available to users that have app permission policy for Microsoft apps set to “Allow all apps”. The Facilitator App will become available soon for Admins to see and manage in Teams admin center. For more information about app permission policies, see Manage app permission policies in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
Microsoft has introduced autonomous Copilot AI agents in public preview. These agents can learn, adapt, and make decisions, aiming to assist employees with various tasks and improve productivity. While AI has the potential to displace some jobs, it also creates new opportunities and enhances productivity.
Microsoft’s wave of Autonomous agents are here
Microsoft has unveiled new tools designed to help businesses create software agents powered by foundation models, referred to as autonomous Copilot AI agents. These agents are currently available in public preview.
Copilot is Microsoft’s generic term for all their AI-driven productivity workloads. Copilot is built upon the advanced GPT-4 series of large language models by OpenAI and offers a chatbot interface where users can input text, images, or audio prompts to receive responses tailored to their needs. Microsoft 365 Copilot also seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Office applications like Word, Teams, and Excel. It can generate documents, analyse extensive Excel spreadsheets, summarise meetings content, rewrite documents, create entire PowerPoint presentations and even reason over your inbox and company information you have access too….., and much, much more.
The next step in Microsoft 365 Copilot’s advancement is through what are termed AI-Agents, which are chat bots that can not only respond but can also perform a series of linked tasks (actions) based on user instructions. This new wave went into public preview this week at Microsoft Ignite in Chicago.
What are Microsoft 365 Copilot Agents?
This first stage of the next phase of evolution comes with Microsoft introducing a set of Microsoft 365 Copilot agents with predefined roles. These include:
Agents in SharePoint. These can be customers with a personalised name and certain behaviours, and can be shared across emails, meetings and chats, with users being able to ask the agents questions and getting real-time responses. These are grounded just on the SharePoint sites and files you specify. One created, employees can ask the agents questions about data across your files. These agents can even be shared or published in Teams for simple access.
The Employee Self-Service Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat (this currently in private preview), will be able to respond to specific HR and IT questions. It can retrieve employee benefits and even things like payroll info and holiday information, or request help from IT such as a new mouse, password reset etc.
The Facilitator agent (in public preview), works like a assistant in meetings and goes beyond the current AI notes that Teams Premium offers. It can take notes, curate actions and even pull up information or execute instructions such as “see if Bob is free and invite him to the meeting”. It will also be able to summarise the conversations based on the role of the participants.
The Interpreter agent (due in preview in early 2025) promises real-time interpretation in Teams meetings in up to nine languages. It will also be able to sample and then simulate their personal voice for a more inclusive experience as part of the translation, essentially using the sound of your voice in the language of the other participants. It was great to see this in action at ignite in a live demo!
The Project Manager agent, will be able to act and work like a PM with the ability to automate project management, from planning to execution using Microsoft (and later other) project tools like Planner.
For organisations that need more control or different templates to build on and use, Microsoft Copilot Studio provides a way to customise or create your own AI agent behaviour.
Agents in Copilot Studio
Agents built in Copilot Studio can operate independently, dynamically planning and learning from processes, adapting to changing conditions, and making decisions without the need for constant human intervention,These autonomous agents can be triggered by data changes, events, and other background tasks – and not just through chat.
Copilot Studio bundles many templates for common agent scenarios that can serve as the basis for a customised version. It will also shortly support voice-enabled agents, image uploading (for analysis by GPT-4o), and knowledge tuning with the added ability automatically add new sources of knowledge to help agents respond to questions.
Devs can use the Agent SDK to access services from Azure AI, Semantic Kernel, and Copilot Studio. There’s also an Azure AI Foundry (also launched at Ignite) integration that links Copilot Studio to facilitate connection to services like Azure AI Search and the Azure AI model catalog.
Finally, a public preview of agent builder in Power Apps was also announced at Ignite.
What about Responsible AI?
Sarah Bird, chief product officer for Responsible AI, wrote in a blog post this week that extra safety considerations arise with autonomous agents and that Microsoft is focused on ensuring that they behave and hand over to human before taking unexpected actions which can have big impacts and that extra guard rails and protections will be put in place.
The blog post talks about examples of such measures including the vital need for a human-in-the-loop check to make sure autonomous decision-making doesn’t do things it’s not expected too. Nothing demonstrates confidence in automation more than a human approval process.
Microsoft also suggest that anyone looking to get a sense of AI agents in a real role, can try out the Linked In Hiring Assistant which is designed to help HR hiring teams speed up the process of dealing with the Admin involved in reviewing job applications.
Key Benefits
The key Benefits these new adaptions to Copilot. Agents should bring to users and organisations includes:
Learning and Adaptation: The Copilot AI agents can learn from their environment and adapt to new information and tasks.
Decision-Making: These agents are capable of making decisions to assist users in their daily work.
Productivity Enhancement: The primary goal is to empower employees by reducing workload and improving efficiency in tasks such as managing meetings, emails, and creating presentations.
Automation of some tasks connected to regular and recurring inquiries or asks.
Human Impact – what about jobs!
The introduction of AI and automation, including Microsoft’s Copilot AI agents, has the potential to impact the roles of people in jobs.
Job Displacement: People naturally worry that AI has the potential to replace certain jobs, particularly those involving repetitive and manual tasks. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs….. But.
Job Creation: On the other hand, AI also creates new job opportunities. It can lead to the emergence of new roles that require advanced technical skills and the ability to work with AI systems
Economic Impact: AI is expected to contribute significantly to global economic growth. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that AI could deliver additional global economic activity of around $13 trillion by 2030
Skill Demand: The demand for skills will shift towards more advanced and technical capabilities. Employees will need to upskill and reskill to stay relevant in the evolving job market. AI skills will be similar requirement to the “Internet skills” we saw on CVs in the 1990s!
Conclusion
Microsoft’s autonomous Copilot AI agents represent a significant step towards integrating advanced AI into everyday business operations. By enhancing productivity and reducing routine workload, these agents have the potential to transform how employees manage their tasks.
These will be in public preview very soon as these often take a few weeks to rollout across the globe.
Source: Conversation with Copilot, 22/11/2024 (1) How Will Artificial Intelligence Affect Jobs 2024-2030. https://www.nexford.edu/insights/how-will-ai-affect-jobs.
(3) The impact of AI on jobs – GOV.UK. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1023590/impact-of-ai-on-jobs.pdf.
Microsoft is about to add more capabilities to the consumber version of Copilot including a new way we interact with it Copilot through its latest feature, Copilot Vision.
Is this a privacy step to far? or is this simply leveraging the power of vision to bring new experience and assistance to users.
Designed to enhance the capabilities of Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant by allowing it to see and understand the same content as the the user is seeing on scene is said to bring a new dimension to how we work with AI tools.
Copilot Vision – image (c) Microsoft
What is Copilot Vision?
Copilot Vision is an extension of Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant that enables it to visually perceive the content on your screen. Whether you’re browsing websites, reading documents, or viewing images, Copilot Vision can interpret and respond to the visual data, making it a more intuitive and helpful assistant.
Examples of Copilot Vision in Action
Travel Planning: Instead of manually searching for travel options, Copilot Vision can provide recommendations and answer questions based on the travel websites you’re viewing.
Recipe Adjustments: If you’re looking at a recipe online and want to make substitutions, Copilot Vision can suggest alternatives and cooking tips without needing to switch tabs or open a new search.
Document Assistance: While working on a document, Copilot Vision can offer suggestions, corrections, and additional information relevant to the content you’re editing.
All this happens without you having to copy and paste stuff to the Copilot chat interface so it’s really like having eyes on what you are doing (once turned on of course). It’s like having your assistant working and viewing with you so it can see exactly what you see on your screen, whether it’s a website or a document.
Copilot Vision.
That’s what Copilot Vision does. It can read both typed and handwritten text displayed on your screen, and it responds to what it sees, offering answers to your questions and suggesting next steps.
Privacy Consideration
Microsoft has emphased that privacy is a top priority with Copilot Vision. The data processed by Copilot Vision is not saved or used beyond the current session (like clearing the cache). Microsoft Copilot Vision will initially also be limited to certain popular websites that meet Microsoft’s security standards, ensuring a safe and secure user experience. It also won’t work on sites that contain sensitive data such as banking sites.
Remember, this is something you can choose to use or not, so you can turn it off!
Rollout Timeline
Microsoft say that after a successful trial period with a select group of users in the Copilot Labs experiment hub, Copilot Vision is “now ready” for a broader rollout.
The feature will soon be integrated into the Microsoft Edge browser, accessible via a screen-like icon. This phased rollout will allow Microsoft to gather more feedback and ensure a smooth user experience.
Microsoft is rolling out new controls to better manage the availability of Copilot in Teams meetings. These expanded controls offer greater flexibility and customisation for managing Copilot and transcription settings in meetings. This ensures it aligns with the specific needs and policies of organisations and meeting organisers.
IT admins can find the new setting in the Teams Admin Center and have a few options when it comes to the control Scope with options to set Copilot in meetings to be ‘Off’ at different levels including “per Tenant” Per User” and “Both”
Meeting Organisers also get controls which are accessible in the meeting options under “AllowCopilot“. From here there are three choices around how Copilot can be used in “their” meetings:
Only during the meeting: Copilot is available only while the meeting is in progress.
During and after the meeting: Copilot is available during and post-meeting.
Off: Completely disables Copilot for the meeting.
Meeting organisers can choose who has access to the recording. They can also decide who can see the meeting transcript after a meeting. This adds a huge amount of control and privacy.
Image (c) Microsoft
Auto meeting Summaries
After a meeting ends, users can open the meeting event in Microsoft Outlook. This allows them to view a summary of everything that happened in the meeting. Here you will see a summary. It includes a link to the recap page, transcript, recording, notes, shared files, whiteboard, and meeting details.
Auto meeting Summarisation in Outlook.
Users with a Copilot License or Teams Premium license will also see highlights. These include the number of speakers. They will see the number of times you were mentioned. Additionally, they will see the number of AI-generated tasks.
Rollout Timeline
Both features are being rolled out this month (October 2024).
In a blog post yesterday, Microsoft unveiled a huge overhaul. They also introduced new features which are rolling out “now” to the consumer version of Microsoft Copilot. These updates set out to help them differentiate Copilot from ChatGPT. They aim to bring a more human-centric approach to the user experience.
These experiences are coming to Apple iOS, Android, the Copilot web experience at copilot.microsoft.com and in Copilot in Windows. Microsoft have also announced that Copilot is coming to WhatsApp. It will “help users there experience natural and engaging interactions with Copilot”. Interesting.
This is not available for me yet (I have a Copilot Pro license). Microsoft says that until this rolls out, users will see a message like below. This message pre-advertises the new Copilot experience that is coming “soon”.
In this blog, I’ll cover the key changes, the reasons for change and some of the coolest new features. I’ll also share my take on this and what they mean for users.
New Microsoft Copilot Video
Oh yes, there’s also a Microsoft “sizzle” video below if you don’t want to read my ramblings:
The Human Side of Gen AI?
At the heart of Microsoft’s vision is the belief that technology should enhance human well-being and support our unique qualities. Microsoft say that the revamped Copilot has been designed with this philosophy in mind. It ensures that every interaction is intuitive, personalised, and ultimately beneficial to the user.
Now, this is kind of the part of Copilot that was missing in my view. Other Gen AI tools now do this. They are essentially giving Copilot (for consumer – not Microsoft 365 Copilot) to “get to know you” – this is how they describe it:
“Copilot will be there for you, in your corner, by your side and always strongly aligned with your interests. It understands the context of your life, while safeguarding your privacy, data and security, remembering the details that are most helpful in any situation. It gives you access to a universe of knowledge, simplifying and decluttering the daily barrage of information, and offering support and encouragement when you want it. …..Over time it’ll adapt to your mannerisms and develop capabilities built around your preferences and needs. We are not creating a static tool so much as establishing a dynamic, emergent and evolving interaction. It will provide you with unwavering support to help you show up the way you really want in your everyday life, a new means of facilitating human connections and accomplishments alike.” Mustafa Suleyman, Executive Vice President and CEO of Microsoft AI
New Copilot Features
The new Copilot experience will be far more than an UI facelift when it arrives. (I don’t have it yet.) It will come with brand new features that promise to re-innovate the ways in which we can use Copilot in our daily lives. The new features include:
Copilot Voice: This allows users to interact with their devices using natural language, making technology more accessible and user-friendly. This means you will be able ro engage in natural conversations with Copilot. The current method is more just speech to text and doesn’t really feel like a conversation. This is rolling out “now” for initially available in English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the US with more regions and languages coming soon.
Copilot Daily: Delivered as “cards”, this will provide personalised insights and recommendations to help users manage their day-to-day tasks more efficiently. Microsoft say this content will only be served by trusted news sources – the cite: Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst Magazines, USA TODAY Network and Financial Times, with more “local sources” coming soon. As Copilot gets to know you, it will bring personalsed feeds and also allow users to have controls over what is served up. This starts rolling out now in the US and UK with other countries following soon.
Copilot Vision: which looks so cool, will leverage Microsoft’s vision and seeing AI tools to offer enhanced visual recognition capabilities, making it easier to organise and find information. Microsoft say that this work on all websites and documents. They have taken steps to put “boundaries” on the types of websites Copilot Vision can engage. It also won’t work on pay-walled content initially. It won’t work on sensitive content initially either. This is to protect “users’ and creators’ interests” and copyright. This will be a Copilot Pro Feature and will roll out to US customers first…
Think Deeper: This is similar to Deep Search in Bing, whereby Copilot will be able to reason through more complex questions. As such it will take longer to respond and may ask for clarifications before responding. This is really designed to allow Copilot to go beyond basic responses. It will help with more in-depth discussions. It will also aid in challenging questions and research. This is in experimental phase and will more details will come.
Wrap up
The new and enhanced Copilot user experience is all about making Copilot easier to use. It feels more natural (less techy). It brings some new capabilities and personalisation. This makes the experience far more “personal”. It’s great to see more work being done to create a more seamless and up-to-date experience. This allows them to compete better with Google, Meta and Apple in this fast paced Gen AI development.
This is great to see and needed as update and adoption of Copilot for consumers is nowhere near the adoption of Chat GPT. Part of Microsoft’s “problem” is they are not great at consumer marketing. Copilot (IMO) offers far more value than ChatGPT and includes many features (as standard) that you need to pay for in ChatGPT.
Will this make you revisit and retry Copilot? Let me know your thoughts?
This afternoon (16th September 2024), Microsoft passionately announced (almost 9 months after Copilot was officially available to any organisation) the latest updates coming to Microsoft 365 Copilot as part of what they are calling “Wave 2”. The 30-minute-long session, hosted by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Jared- Spataro, unveiled a heap of new features, capabilities and performance enhancements were announced across the entire experience.
Microsoft 365 Copilot (THIS IS NOW IT’S NEW OFFICIAL NAME) provides enterprise data protection, ensuring the same level of security and compliance protection as other services like files, SharePoint, and emails. Microsoft said that significant improvements have also been made to PowerPoint and Excel based on feedback, including the introduction of Python integration in Excel.
Some of these things are “generally available” from today and others are coming in the next few weeks and months. – See the end.
Evolving the purpose and role of Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft told today, how Copilot is evolving from an individual productivity assistant to a collaborative partner at work. Copilot can utilise various content sources such as files, chats, calendar invites, and emails to generate rich outputs based on the needs of the user and teams of people. You will have seen in the various demos how the product demos now showcase how Copilot facilitates collaboration and achieves outcomes, making both personal and teamwork more efficient and effective.
They have also focussed lots on performance and stability enhancements with huge investments in their Azure Data Centres.
Microsoft also wanted to ensure organisations know just how much they focus on providing the same level of enterprise data protection to Copilot as they have with files, email, SharePoint etc.
So, here’s my pick of what’s new and most cool!
1. Copilot Agents
Microsoft is also broadening the definition of “agents“, ranging from personal AI assistants to fully autonomous agents. These agents span across a spectrum, from human-in-the-loop to fully autonomous.
This is the top announcement for me, I think. Agents (aka Custom GPTs,) have been a very popular discussion with my customers. When Microsoft talks about agents, they use it in its broadest term with an agent being anything from an AI assistant helping you retrieve information right (a foundational agent capability), all the way to autonomous support agent, meaning the agent does not need a human to intervene for it or for it to be able to do its work. Wow Right!
You will see Microsoft focusing on agents across the entire spectrum – giving organisations the ability to create agents using natural language to “support whatever custom business process you are trying to automate“. This will be going into public preview later this month Copilot Agent Builder will be part of Copilot Studio as I understand it.
As an example, say an issue out in the field required further research and follow-up and the team keeps all their customer records from deployment info to maintenance reports on a SharePoint site. Like many organisations, there’s loads of valuable information stored here, but it takes ages to sift through it and find what is needed. Now with Copilot Agents, an agent can be built from any SharePoint site library or folder. It’s possible to create an agent with a single clip and in just a few seconds, your agent is ready to be used and shared with your team and it can be simply added to the department’s team’s chat.
Once created, created agents can be customised and things like topics and knowledge can be enhanced as well as the actions it can take. These can be connected to third party apps such as Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.
2. Copilot Pages – Powered by Loop
This is the second biggest announcement and combines two of my favourite parts of Microsoft 365 – Copilot and Loop.
Accessed through BizChat, Copilot Pages, allows users to create side-by-side pages for real-time collaboration. Built on Loop components, these pages enable multiple users to work together and update data simultaneously, enhancing teamwork and productivity.
This can be used when you are working in BizChat – pulling Copilot’s response into a sharable canvas (Loop spaces) built for real-time multiplayer collaboration with Al. Copilot can then be used to improve and expand upon subject matter, build visualizations, and bring in additional content.
Biz Chat will be the place where you can start and finish most of your work before you transition it to your format of choice. Within Biz Chat, you’ll also soon see a button to move the output to the final experience – says move to Outlook, move to Word, move to PowerPoint etc., but you can do all of the pre-work in Bizchat which Microsoft’s customers say is where they spend “most” of their time.
3. Biz Chat Enhancements
Copilot Biz Chat, will, as I discussed above have the ability to send output to the final app for you to finish your work. You’ll see a send to button making workflow faster and just feel smoother and more integrated.
4. Utilising Email and Bizchat for Business Insights
Copilot can now use email and Bizchat to identify patterns and information, recall similar situations, and access relevant content from various sources. This feature is designed to help discover strategies such as price reduction, promotional offers, and ad campaigns as example by reasoning over email and chat threads to help solve business challenges.
5. Copilot in PowerPoint Improvements
Copilot democratizes advanced features in Excel by allowing users to use natural language to access them. PowerPoint improvements include the ability to easily build custom narratives, sections, and flow within presentations. Branding options ensure consistency with company logos, fonts, colours, and styles. PowerPoint’s new narrative builder, with creative control over the flow, reordering topics, deleting unwanted ones, and adding new ones.
Copilot helps create presentation outlines quickly, offering image suggestions from approved sources or AI-generated options. It designs slides in company branding with various layout choices.
PowerPoint’s new features include adding picture notes to slides, built-in slide transitions, and animated text. These features help users create professional-looking presentations quickly and easily, using their own corporate-branded content.
Leveraging corporate templates requires that marketing teams integrate their organisations branded assets into a SharePoint OAL (Organization Asset Library) in order to be able to create presentations with organisational images. This is scheduled for release in Q4 2024.
6. Copilot in Word
Copilot in Word has new features including (finally) allowing it to reason over more document sources including emails, chat, meeting content and files etc making this much easier to get documents created while referencing multiple sources of information.
7. Copilot Enhancements in Teams
Improvements are coming to Teams based on user feedback. Copilot can now reason over chat in addition to meeting transcriptions. This entered public preview today.
8. Copilot in Outlook Improvements
Outlook’s new Copilot feature, ‘Prioritise my inbox’, organises emails based on topics, keywords, and important people. It identifies important contacts like your boss and their boss, enhancing email organisation and efficiency.
Since Copilot can reference emails, meetings and attachments as well as knowing who your colleagues are when you are drafting it can save a huge amount of time as it understands the context in which you are working. This new feature is rolling out now, with early access for some insider rings.
Summary
As I am sure you are, I am excited about these new features (and there’s still more to come) and improvements and look forward to your feedback on the announcements.
In summary, here’s what was announced again and when it will be available (according to Microsoft).
Image/Table – (C) Microsoft.
Are there things you were expecting to hear about but didn’t? Oh and if I missed anything, let me know!!!
What’s one of the biggest stumbling blocks to incorporating AI tools like ChatGPT and of course MicrosoftCopilot into daily work? Well, I can tell you that from first-hand experience is it not knowing how or when to use it. In this blog I’ll explore a few scenarios where I believe anyone with a Copilot License can start seeing real tangible value from GenAI today.
What is Copilot in Microsoft 365?
I’m hoping by now that I don’t actually need to answer that one, but… In short Copilot for Microsoft 365 is Microsoft’s Generative AI chat bot, that is grounded (meaning it has access to) your Microsoft email, chat, documents and more and is also integrated (natively) into all your Microsoft 365 apps and services like Word, Excel, Teams, Outlook, Loop etc.
The goal of Microsoft 365 Copilot is to make us all more productive and creative what ever job we do and results from many of the customers we have been working with this past 12 months is impressive.
Overcoming the adoption hurdle
The biggest hurdle to getting regular and good results with Copilot is actually not what the tool can do or can’t, the expertise around ‘good prompting‘, as important as it is, but is in fact, realising the benefits of making Copilot part of everything you do through habit forming.
To do this, we need to get into the habit of using Copilot every day to really see the value we get from it little by little. many of our customers have this same problem and it’s not a Copilot thing, it’s a new technology thing. We are all so busy doing our jobs that many don’t have time to learn new things or try new ways of working.
Good adoption and successful use of any technology requires some input and perseverance from us as users. As we realise the value, we use these technologies more and the value we get from increases exponentially. Think about the first time a company introduced a word processor in place of a typewriter for example!
Adoption and Change Management, whether run internally (as part of any technology deployment) makes a huge difference to successful deployment and Copilot is a big change in how people work and what it can do, so it does need to be handled that way. Stats show that technology projects that have a proper adoption and change programme linked to them are significantly more likely to deliver the desired return on investment. According to Microsoft, proper change management can lead to 85% of users finding tools like Copilot helpful in getting to a good first draft faster.
Adoption and change management is not just training (though that is of course part of it). Its about helping people learn the tools within their roles, to see the benefits and to tell/show other team members so they learn and benefit together. At Cisilion, we know (first hand) and through the dozens of customers we are working with that one of the primary blockers to adoption of Microsoft Copilot is simply not knowing how or when to use it and so simply “forgetting about it”.
My Copilot Hero Scenarios
What follows next is 3 (three) Copilot for Microsoft scenarios that I use all the time that I can honestly say have become habit forming for me and many of my team.
Goodbye Internet Search: Firstly, I very rarely now ever use internet search to find information. Both in work and personal life, whenever I need to find information about something I turn to Copilot. Whether I’m looking at finding out about a new product, event, news story or whether it’s in my personal life, Copilot just gives me the details I need in seconds rather than giving me a page of search results which I have to sift through manually to see what is relevant. If you use SharePoint at work – this becomes even more powerful!
Email and Meetings (and calls): These are definitely the biggest use cases for Copilot in my daily routine. I simply don’t work or handle email and meetings in the same way anymore. One of the things Copilot can do really well is summarise what’s in my inbox and prioritise requests and things that need my attention – especially If I have been away for a few days. The same goes for meetings. I can pay more attention “in” meetings and have Copilot tackle notes for me, summarise things or even check things for me.
Copilot can summarise actions, clarify points, and what is really cool is that it can do this for me even if I can’t actually attend the meeting (through a new feature called “Follow a Meeting“. Copilot in Outlook can summarise long email threads and can even draft replies for me in a professional manner so all I have to do is edit and refine before clicking send. Copilot also works on phone calls if you have Teams Phone by the way!
My Goto First: Copilot is the first place I go when I have a document, presentation or other document to read or reference. What do I mean by that?
Like us all, I get sent a lot of documents to read, review and comment on. I am now in a habit (I think it’s a good one) of using Copilot as my assistant as my first point of call every time. I always ask Copilot to summarise the document (Word does this automatically now when you open a document) so I can quickly understand the key points of the document before I read it more deeply. This is useful for getting up to speed quickly, determining if I need to read it (guess what – sometimes I don’t) or to help me understand the theme as I do read it. I also use Copilot to ask questions about a document (PDF, Word, PowerPoint etc).
I can also ask Copilot questions about the document such as, “does this business case make a clear and strong argument“, or “what is the financial impact of this proposal“, or “what risks have been identified in this project plan“, etc. I can use Copilot to help me spot gaps, or areas that the author might have overlooked or omitted. I can also ask Copilot to summarise things I do not understand in a simpler language or to help me get a new perspective on something.
Summary
Using any new tool, like Copilot sometimes takes time to realise the true value and power of what it can do. Working with Gen AI like Copilot is as revolutionary as the internet was back in the 90s. Many doubted it and now the world would stop without it.
If you are lucky enough to have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license, then I suggest you try the above. Use it every day and share your successes with your peers. If you don’t have an adoption and training team in house, then reach out to a partner for help, check out the adoption hub at Microsoft or get some ideas from my other blogs, or from YouTube 🙂
Remember, think about and push Copilot to help you get more value at work and at home. Before starting any task, such as a presentation, meeting minutes or follow-up or research, think “Can Copilot help me here?“
Yes – there’s a bit of a learning curve, but the effort you in will be worth it (IMO).
Some video links…
I have a growing handful of use case and scenario videos I am happy to share below… Hope you find the useful. If you do.. Let me know.
Mark your calendars for September 16th, as Microsoft is set to unveil the next phase of Copilot innovation!
Hosted by CEO Satya Nadella and VP of AI at Work Jared Spataro, this short event promises to showcase the next phase of what will continue to evolve the Copilot revolution, which will further see the evolution of what is becoming a game-changer for businesses and tech enthusiasts alike.
What to expect.
There a bunch of things I am expecting to see based on the agenda, the Microsoft 365 Roadmap and other Microsoft posts and community updates. As such here’s what I’m hoping we hear about.
Rebranding and New Features: it will be goodbye to “Copilot in Word” and hello to “Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word”. Yes the kind of re brand and renaming have already announced they are rebranding its Copilot products in a goal to provide a more cohesive experience and consistency in naming. We have already seen this change from Microsoft 365 Copilot to Microsoft Copilot in Microsoft 365…
New Business-Focused Enhancements: With a focus on the business side of Microsoft’s Copilot offerings, they will focus on real life example of how these AI tools can revolutionise the way companies operate with an increased focus on smaller businesses along with enhancement for large enterprises.
From Preview to Release: we expect some of the services like Copilot in Excel to finally become “available” after being in preview for a year, updates to PowerPoint and for Team Copilot to go into public preview and more of the roadmap features to start rolling out such as scheduled prompts and proactive catchup.
Copilot Pro for consumer: I’m hoping to see updates and new features to Copilot Pro Updates. While details are still “under wraps” , I anticipate new features will be announced such as being able to reference files (something Copilot in Microsoft 365 already does) and maybe deeper integration into other apps to make this £19 monthly subscription more worth it.
Registering for the event.
The event is live (and will be available on demand) so to make sure you do not miss out on this chance to elevate your understanding of AI and its potential, Register below.
Copilot is a super powerful tool but if you are not getting the results you expect, you might be “using it wrong”. This is based on my experience working with organisations large and small over the past year or so.
Momentum continues to increase and we are seeing more and more public case studies show casing the value of Copilot for Microsoft 365. These focus on the “huge” time savings and efficiency gains organisations such as Barnsley Council, Clifford Chance, and Hargreves Lansdown experienced and how it’s now a tool their employees would not be able to give up.
Getting to this stage is not as simple as just allocating a license and turning it on. The “view” of Copilot I see in many organisations, is very different and as such is so important organisations get off on the right foot with Copilot to ensure that their early experiences with Copilot go well, they understand and evaluate where and how it fits and also where it doesn’t (or doesnt yet).
It all starts with the right expections
It’s hardly suprising that expectations of what Copilot can achieve are high. It’s not that they shouldn’t be, but we need to remember that most of what we see online and in demos are staged, based on the “perfect use case”, data in the “right place” and with Copilot embedded across all your apps and services.
You need to make the cool aid before you can drink it.
There are two scenarios with Copilot which I commonly see.
First there are organisations that grab a handful of licenses, allocate them to a bunch of people and then expect Copilot to know everything about everything and do anything you can think of – setting themselves up for a fail or “less successful” trial.
Secondly, there are those that follow the general guidance shared by Microsoft and their Copilot partners, who build a pilot team, annonce the trial (and what they expect of the pilot users), train and educate their users and share feedback amongst the teams to ensure everyone learns from each other before they expand it to more people.
Whilst the second approach, almost always succeeds (assuming the pilot team are engaged and are open to sharing), I still find (in both scenarios) that part of the reason Copilot trials/pilots can fail quickly is that, in my experience, “people” try to go from zero to hero and rather than looking for many small gains, are trying to get Copilot do that one big thing that will totally change their workload and save them hours of manual effort per day or week.
I find this problem goes away in the main, where organisations are working either directly with Microsoft or via their Copilot Adoption Partner, since the specialists they work with have the time to work with the employees to not only coach them through how and what Copilot can do, but also where it (on its own) may not be the answer they are looking for.
So in short, I find that, many people are simply using Copilot wrong, misunderstand what it can and can’t do and then simoly give up on it and go back to what they did before.
It’s not Copilot it’s you!
In this blog, I am going to share the most common Copilot mistaken use cases that make people the most frustrated….and how to fix them….
1. Trying to use Copilot as an automation tool
This is very common. I often see people who have watched the Microsoft marketing videos (often sequence shortened) contour up an image in their mind that Copilot will solve all their business challenges. I see organisations map out end to end business processes they “would like” Copilot to solve for them that are, to be frank, sometimes outside of what Copilot is really designed to (or is able) to do.
Copilot is not an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tool. Yes, it can do many many things for you – such as reviewing documents, summarising meetings and actions and creating other “things” from them such as summaries, presentations or new documents.
One of things I hear a lot (and experience) is often that Copilot doesn’t (or wont) do things in exactly the way I ask it to and it can be inconsistent if I ask the same thing twice.
This is true and it is one of the “behaviours” of Copilot (and other Generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini). I do find the more specific I am, the more “similar” my responses from Copilot become, but it’s serves back to the point that Copilot is not designed to carry out multi-step activities with a fixed predetermined output. It is also not currently possible to schedule or trigger Copilot based on an event or other trigger. See Prompting.
Tip: Understanding the value and use cases of where Copilot fits into the business process and workflow is key to getting the best results. There are many areas where Copilot will provide real business value (either as a first eye, second opinion, note taker, author or creator). Working with a Copilot specialist partner or building a team of them internally will help the rest of the business get used to working “with” Copilot as the “assistant” it is expecting to be.
One of the most common pitfalls in adopting Copilot is overlooking its grounding capabilities and limitations. Grounding is the term that refers to the context of the data Copilot can access/will access to perform the request you pass it.
One of the unique values of Copilot for Microsoft 365 over “other” Generative AI experiences, is its deep-rooted access, context awareness and understanding of your business data [through the Microsoft Graph] to enhance its functionality and response. This means that, in short, you can ask Copilot about a particular file that someone shared or a meeting you had last tuesday and it will understand the context and content of that scenario and base it’s response around that. This is hugely value and one of the reasons it has so much value in the workplace. You can also point Copilot at specific content that is within your organisation (though these connected services) or via a URL – for example web content.
The limitation of this grounding is also it’s benefit, in that for Copilot to be able to interface with your data (or application services), that data needs to be connected to the Microsoft Graph through either a connector or plug-in. These are sometimes provided (at cost) by the third party provider or can be built by your devops team or your partner.
This is important because if your employees work off data that is stored primarily in a Document Management System (DMS) that is not connected to Microsoft 365, then Copilot will not have visibility over it or it’s data meaning that employees would need to manually copy and paste data from it, to Copilot in order for Copilot to do anything with it.
Tip: When running your initial or later stage Copilot rollout, it’s important to ensure you understand where and how people work in different teams so that you know what data people work on and where it is stored.
This grounding process is key as it allows Copilot to build upon the foundation of previous work, such as project histories or meetings. To maximise Copilot’s potential, it’s important to ensure that relevant data is accessible (through connectors or plug-ins) within Microsoft 365 or stored / migrated to Microsoft 365 (OneDrive, SharePoint etc.). For Copilot to work on meetings, you also need to be using Teams and must ensure they are recorded and/or transcribed.
3. Over simplifying or over complicating Prompts
Another key to Copilot’s effective use is the quality of prompts provided. Unlike an AI powered smart speaker, Copilot can handle really complex and specific requests , allowing you to write up to 2,000 (soon to be 8,000) characters in its input boxes.
This means that prompts can well thought out, detailed and quote refined, leading to more specific and sophisticated responses. I have written other blogs on prompt perfection if you wish to read them.
That said, the key when adopting and getting to know Copilot is to encourage your people / teams to experiment with prompts, iterating them and and refining them to achieve the desired outcomes whilst rememering that the same prompt will rarely generate exactly the same answer.
Whilst simple prompts are often to vague, not specific enough and therefore may not yield the desired/expected results, prompts that are too complex can also be ambiguous, conflict or go “off topic” so getting the right balance is needed.
Tip: Another way to get what you wanted it to make your prompta conversation: Copilot support interative responses meaning that you can have a conversation with it. Writing the perfct prompt is not always easy to do and can be frustrating so feel comfortable in having a conversation with Copilot. You may find the iterative process becomes fundamental to how you work with Copilot and perfecting the response.
You see unlike human assistants, Copilot thrives on repeated, slightly altered instructions to refine its output. This approach requires a shift in mindset from one-shot solutions to ongoing dialogues with Copilot. By embracing this iterative process, businesses can tailor Copilot’s responses to their specific needs more effectively.
4. Not feeding Copilot properly.
One of things I often find when working with Copilot on more “complex” prompts and tasks is that you can tell it to base its response or output based on a specific file that contains the things you want Copilot to do / check / review for me. Whilst Copilot can leverage the Microsoft Search (via Graph API), if you know what file(s), meeting, person etc, you want Copilot to leverage, you can include that in your prompt.
In the example below (a real one that I was working with a customer on), you can see that we are using to Copilot to review some CVs against a Job Description and Criteria document.
Example Copilot for Microsoft 365 Prompt – Grounded with specific data/files
In this example, I am “feeding” Copilot the CVs I want it to review along with a Job Requirements document which contains a table of criteria about the role and the scores available based on this criteria. This means I can focus my prompt on what I need Copilot to do for me using existing data which is used to “ground” it’s response.
Tip: One of the bug bears I hear alot around Copilot is why it can’t fill out a form for me. It cant. However…. you can ask Copilot to create an output for you based on an existing document. The video below shows an example of doing just this.
Conclusion
The integration of Copilot for Microsoft 365 presents a transformative opportunity for businesses.
By educating employees, understanding its grounding capabilities, mastering effective prompting, practising an iterative approach, and implementing a strategic adoption plan, businesses can position their organisations to really see the benefits of Copilot.
I hope the tips above help – welcome your questions and views.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series processors are specifically crafted for PCs, particularly Windows on Arm and Copilot Plus PCs available from HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and of course Microsoft Surface. The processors inside these latest generation of devices, integrate the renowned Snapdragon technology from premium smartphones with the demanding performance needs of the PC domain. The goal is to deliver a processor that competes with Intel and Apple in terms of performance, while also offering the energy efficiency typical of smartphones and providing cutting edge NPU performance to power existing and upcoming AI powered applications.
Arm vs Intel: The Copilot Plus PC Revolution
Copilot Plus PCs, like the Surface Laptop 7 are powered by these Snapdragon X Arm chips. The fundamental components shared by all Snapdragon X series chips include Qualcomm’s custom Arm-based Oryon CPU, rather than Intel’s x86, an enhanced version of their Adreno GPU (derived from their mobile devices), the Hexagon NPU for on-chip AI capabilities, and cutting-edge networking technology supporting the latest Wi-Fi 6 & 7 and 5G standards.
On the software front, Microsoft offers an emulation layer within Windows on Arm (WoA) to facilitate the running of x64 applications not yet native to Arm processors. Notably, there is an extensive collection of native Arm applications from Microsoft, Adobe, and other prominent developers.
About the Snapdragon X chipset options
Snapdragon X comes in two major flavours. The X Elite, which powers the first wave of top-tier Copilot Plus PCs, and the X Plus, destined for the more affordable range of Copilot Plus PCs (You’ll see most vendors providing options for both).
Today, Qualcomm has a total of four different Snapdragon X SKUs – three under the X Elite branding and one more affordable X Plus unit. You can see the subtle differences below, with the main differentiator being CPU cores and performance.
All current Snapdragon X models boast a remarkable 45TOPS Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which means they are all equipped to handle the same AI features. An NPU enhances the traditional CPU by adding machine learning (AI) specific computational abilities. An NPU is not only faster but also more energy efficient. This offloads work from the CPU, allowing the NPU to manage AI tasks, similar to how a GPU handles graphics-intensive tasks.
Snapdragon X Elite
12 Oryon CPU cores
Clock speeds up to 4.2Ghz
4.6 TFLOPS GPU (Graphic Processing Unit)
45 TOPS NPU (Neural Processing Unit)
Snapdragon X Plus
10 Oryon CPU cores.
Clock speeds up to 3.4Ghz
3.6 TFLOPS GPU
45TOPS NPU
What about the new Surface Line up?
Snapdragon X offers competitive performance against not just Intel’s latest chips, but also against the Apple M3 and M4. The real star though (not a fan of just CPU benchmarks personally), is that battery life is simply incredible compared to previous generations of devices with initial testing and reports (from others such as here and here) showing these devices comfortably exceeding the demands of a busy workday, positioning these laptops as genuine contenders to the MacBook (which has always somehow always won for battery life). Running emulated x86 apps under emulation will (and does) run the CPU harder which will in turn impact battery life.
This next generation of AI powered PCs sch as Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 10 are two such devices offering superior power, power efficiency and extreeeeeeemley long batter life.
Battery Life Wins
That said, tests by PC Magazine, revealed a result of almost 25 hours usage – making “Surface Laptop one of the longest-latest laptops we’ve ever tested on battery“. In comparison a 13-inch MacBook Air lasted “just” 21 hours and 38 minutes in their testing.
Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 7 are the the first Copilot+ PC which feature these new Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Pro processors.
PC Magazine said in their comprehensive hands-on review of Surface Laptop 7 that
“…this is easily the best Arm chip we’ve tested yet in a PC. The CPU and GPU performance are there and deliver at least competitive benchmark numbers relative to current-gen Intel and AMD offerings in the early going. Qualcomm is to be commended for that.” | PC Magazine
What is your view on these Copilot Plus PCs? Have you got one yet – what are your first impressions?
As we enter Microsoft’s new fiscal 2025, there a bunch of enhancements coming across the board to the Copilot experience inside the Office Copilot experience which im[acts PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Microsoft Loop. Microsoft regularly update the Office Apps, Team, and rest of their products, including Copilot, but the changes rolling out feel more like a “service pack”!
Here’s the key things coming to the app experiences this month and remember, you can always access the Microsoft 365 Copilot Roadmap –> here <–
AI Powered images coming to PowerPoint and Word.
Microsoft are making it much easier to add visuals to both Word and PowerPoint documents with Microsoft Designer in Copilot. This will make it much easier for content creators to get the right image for a document or presentation and will add to the image options within these apps.
With this update, you will be able to create AI-generated image directly from Word and PowerPoint with a simple prompt in additional to using the existing options for stock images as before.
Up until now, this has required users jumping to a browser to create an image in Bing Image Creator or Microsoft Designers, whereas now, they will be able to do this straight from the Copilot prompt in Word and PowerPoint upon which they will be able to create an image from scratch or find and use an existing image from Microsoft’s stock photography library to select from. Microsoft say that PowerPoint, Designer will automatically add the image into a “compelling slide design”.
Image (c) Microsoft
Additional “Document Support” in PowerPoint
Also coming this month, Copilot will support grounding for presentation creation from both encrypted Word documents and PDF files, providing more options for users to create presentation from. This gives users richer context to build new presentations, in addition to referencing.
Copilot in PowerPoint “General Improvements“
Rolling out in June/July and following lots of feedback from users, creating a new presentation from a Copilot is about to get much better with regards the quality or presentations created with more relevant content and images and improved consistency including:
Refined designs for title, section, and content slides.
Improved presentation structure with agenda, section and conclusion slides.
Enhanced abilities to improve transitions and animations across presentation content.
Copilot is also getting the ability to ground itself on your organisations’ people-centric data and insights from the Microsoft Cloud, Microsoft Graph, and the web using Bing Search. This brings Copilot up to the same level of that of Teams, Copilot Chat and Outlook, meaning that users can stay in the app, ask questions, and maintain focus on creating their presentations without having to jump into dfferent apps or windows.
Copilot in Excel is coming out of Preview
In July, Copilot in Excel is also coming out of “preview”.
The first noticable indication will be that Microsoft drops the “in preview” lable that users currently see when using Copilot in Excel.
Secondly, Copilot in Excel is also getting expanded data structure support, meaning it wont be limited to working with just data in tables. Yes, Copilot in Excel will be able to works on data ranges resembling tables so long as the data being worked on contains a single row of headers on top (such as filtered data). Along with this, Copilot in Excel will also now be able to provide more comprehensive answers, just like Word and PowerPoint, Teams and Outlook,
Next up, the edit box will be available on any Excel worksheet, regardless of the selected cell and Copilot will reason over the nearest table, or data range resembling a table, to the user’s selected grid area on the same worksheet.
Finally, Copilot in Excel will provides more conversational and comprehensive answers to a wide array of Excel-related questions, meaning that users can now receive step-by-step instructions to help with complex formulas, fixing errors in formulas or how to do something in Excel.
Image (C) Microsoft.
Copilot in Loop
Copilot is coming to Loop too – one of my favourite “new” apps, with what Microsoft call “Copilot-assisted Loop page creation”
For those unfamiliar with Microsoft Loop, it is described as “flexible canvases that assist users in organising and sharing their work with teams.”
Loop users can now utilise Copilot to transform a blank page into a structured document primed for team collaboration in record time. Whether starting from scratch or using an existing page or template, Copilot can swiftly generate a Loop page tailored to specific requirements, be it a project plan, a feedback session, or any other collaborative effort.
