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.
Last month, Microsoft announced the next generation of AI powered PCs from Microsoft and many other OEMs including Acer and Lenovo which leverage the latest Snapdragon ARM chipsets from Qualcomm. I covered this on a previous post here....
Yesterday (June 18th 2024), Microsoft’s own devices (the Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11) were officially available today to buy and any pre-orders were shipped to customers worldwide 🙂
Microsoft describes Copilot+ PCs as the “most intelligent” Windows PCs ever created. These new processors are capable of performing over 40 trillion operations per second. These PCs also offer long long long battery life and give access to advanced AI tools.
These latest Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft are sleek, lightweight, and elegantly designed to enhance productivity They ship with dedicated NPUs (for processing AI workloads on-chip) and have the longest battery life of any Surface ever.
Microsoft say that the new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro are Copilot+ PCs, are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs on the market. They are available in four colour options and start at $999 Estimated Retail Price (ERP) USD on Microsoft.com or at a Microsoft Experience Center (aka store).
What is a Copilot+PCs?
Copilot+ PCs represent a new category of Windows 11 PCs, equipped with a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU), which is a specialised type of processor designed for AI-intensive tasks such as real-time translations and image generation, capable of executing over 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
Are Copilot+PC only available from Microsoft?
No. Copilot+PCs are a new generation of PC devices which combined Windows on ARM (WoA) technology, Snagdragon powered chipsets and new updates and features built into Windows.
Other manufacturers are also making Copilot+PCs include (but not limited to).
Copilot+PCs are designed for personal, small business and commercial/enterprise. Devices for Business such as the Surface for Business Range will start shipping in September 2024. More details can be found here.
What can Copilot+PCs do that others cannot?
Microsoft refers to new Copilot+ PC experiences which will be baked in to the next versions of Windows 11 and are advanced AI features unique to Copilot+ PCs that accelerate your productivity and creativity. This will include new AI features such as Recall, Cocreator in Paint, Windows Studio Effects, automatic super resolution and Live Captions.There are many more coming and expect to see new AI powered experiences such as offline Copilot coming to Copilot+PC devices in the future. These features require powerful neural processing units (NPUs) –so will be exclusive to the Copilot+ PC class of devices.
One super cool feature to call out for gamers is the new Auto Super Resolution (Auto SR) feature which integrates smoothly with Windows, automatically boosting the frame rates of existing games in real time and delivering detailed visuals. This feature is said to surpasses the capabilities of standalone PC hardware. Initially, Auto SR will be exclusive to Copilot+ PCs that have a Qualcomm Snapdragon® X Series processor and will support a select list of games available at a third-party open-source site, which Microsoft has provided compatibility data for.
Do I need a special version of Windows 11?
No – all new Copilot+ PCs running a Snapdragon® X Series processor will have Copilot+ PC experiences pre-installed. Microsoft will be continuing to update and enhance the Copilot+ PC experiences, so there will be new Windows Updates coming which will enable new features delivered as part of the usual Windows Update process. Only Copilot+PCs will get the new AI features.
What about devices with the latest AI chips from Intel and AMD ?
Microsoft are partnering with Intel and AMD as well to bring Copilot+ PC experiences to PCs with their processors in the future.
Microsoft also have a real good FAQ section on their website about Copilot+PCs.
Microsoft recently announced “Catch up” feature coming to Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams. Whilst similar functionality can be achieved with your own “custom prompt”, this feature will make it easy for anyone (especially those new to Copilot) to catch up!
This new feature will be available later this month (June) in the Copilot chat within Microsoft Teams or from the web interface at https://copilot.microsoft.com.
Catch up in Teams – Image (c) Microsoft.
This new feature, which is rolling during June and July 2024, brings the following capabilities and benefits.
Stay Informed: The ‘Catch up’ tab provides a centralized place for updates on important meetings and documents.
Action-Oriented insights: Each update comes with a suggested prompt, enabling users to delve into details and take immediate action.
Seamless Integration: Accessible directly within Microsoft 365 and Teams, enhancing productivity without switching contexts.
This new feature should make it easier for users to stay on top of tasks and collaborations with others, making it another valuable addition for Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Teams users.
Availability of Catch up
The rollout begins late June 2024 and is expected to complete by late July 2024. Users will need a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license to access this feature
Microsoft will be taking Copilot in Excel out of preview next month and are adding a bunch of new and needed features.
The Microsoft 365 Roadmap calls out a key feature (ID: 394275) which will allow users to receive more conversational answers to various Excel-related questions and prompts. This aims to provide less expert Excel users with step by step help on formulas, ability to do more things using natural language and also finally the ability to work on data sets that aren’t confined to being encapsulated in an excel table.
The aim: to emoower everyone to use Excel better whether beginners to more advanced users.
Copilot can assist users in completing tasks by providing helpful steps, including formulas to copy and use. It can also explain formula errors and offer corrected formulas along with additional guidance.
Here’s a breakdown of what can be done with this newer functionality coming to Copilot in Excel:
Understand your questions and requests in a more natural way, making it easier to get the help you need and how to perform what you need in excel
Be able to answer a broader range of Excel-related questions, not just specific tasks and will also be able to provide clear instructions, including relevant formulas.
Help with formula errors by explaining the issue and suggesting corrected formulas with additional guidance.
At Microsoft Build this week (May 2024) Microsoft set out their vision for the next stage of Copilot within Microsoft 365 with the announcement of Team Copilot. With the usual sizzle videos, blogs and presentations on this, the vision for the future of Copilot in Microsoft 365, whereby they see Team Copilot as a meeting moderator, group collaborator, or project manager – making it a “valuable team member” as Microsoft put it.
What is Team Copilot?
Team Copilot is the latest iteration of Copilot for Microsoft 365, designed to assist with tasks and activities across various aspects of team collaboration, projects, and meetings through AI support.
Microsoft say that Team Copilot expands Copilot for Microsoft 365 from a behind-the-scenes personal AI assistant to a valuable new team member, improving collaboration and project management. Team Copilot will act on behalf of a team, a department, or an entire company and you’re always in control – assigning tasks or responsibilities to Copilot so the whole team can be more productive, collaborative, and creative, together. Team Copilot will be available where you collaborate – in Teams, Loop, Planner, and more.
Microsoft showcases capabilities where Team Copilot can serve as a meeting moderator, group collaborator, or project manager, undertaking tasks such as:
Manage meeting agendas, meeting flow and also take notes in the Teams app;
Support employees in better performing their duties and solving problems through proactive notifications, suggested actions and guidance
Oversee project execution by assigning tasks, tracking deadlines, and informing team members of their required contributions.
Like Copilot for Microsoft 365 in the “personal assistant space”, The Team Copilot service will be tightly integrated across Microsoft’s core Office applications, such as Teams, Loop, and Planner.
The need for Adoption & Change Management has never been higher
We love the pace of innovation and change coming across the digital technology eco system. Services like Microsoft 365 have always have a rapid release and new feature cycle with literally hundreds of changes and improvements in development and rollout at any time.
Team Copilot – Image (c) Microsoft
In this rapidly evolving landscape of the AI powered workplace, the integration of Microsoft 365 and Copilot represents a significant leap forward. However, to truly harness the potential of these innovations, organisations need to ensure they have a robust and proven Adoption and Change Management (ACM) service in place. Training and coaching in line with this ACM, ensures that employees are not only aware of the new tools, their potential and how to use them, but also that they are coached and mentored to use them proficiently and to their full extent in order to release the value they offer.
This strategic approach mitigates resistance, fosters a culture of continuous learning, and aligns technological advancements with business objectives, thereby maximizing the return on investment.
Being on a Copilot journey ourselves in my organisation (Cisiilion), I see three paramount reasons why we invested in ACM for our Copilot deployment – these apply to almost all of the organisation we are working with today.
User Competency: Simply providing tools is not enough; employees need guidance to use them effectively. If you don’t have a dedicated ACM team in house, the importance of ensuring there is budget to use ACM services from your technology partner is critical to sccess and bridges the gap between access and ability, leading to increased productivity.
Cultural Integration: Tools like Microsoft Copilot are most effective when they become woven into the organisational fabric. Paying for professional ACM services (or leveraging your own in house team) facilitates this integration, ensuring that new technologies enhance, rather than disrupt, workflows.
Optimised Utilization: Without ACM, there is a risk of underutilization or incorrect use of sophisticated tools, which can negate the benefits. ACM services ensure that organizations extract maximum value from their investments.
In essence, simply dropping a license to a user (we did try that first), without support is akin to providing a car without any driving lessons or road to drive it on – it is the mastery and understanding fostered by ACM that truly puts an organisation in the driver’s seat of innovation and supports their employees in understanding, adopting and getting the best our using these technologies to improve the ways they work and get work done.
When will Teams Copilot be available?
Based on the information shared at Build, a preview version of Team Copilot will be available to Copilot for Microsoft 365 license holders before the end of the year.
You can read more from Microsoft on their official blog –> here <–
The day before Microsoft Build 2024, Microsoft unveiled the future of Windows and the PC with what they dubbed “Copilot+ PC”. The build conference (as expected) has unveiled a plethora of innovations aimed at developers and of course AI has at heart of everything.
One of the key pieces of innovation announced at Build and at the Copilot+PC launch was the new AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature which will be coming soon to Windows 11 and will be enabled on devices with the new Copilot+PC powered by the new SnapDragon Elite processors.
This new AI powered feature promises to revolutionise how we interact with our digital histories, but it also raises important questions about privacy.
What is Microsoft Recall?
Recall is designed to transform searchability and predictive search within Windows 11 by recording / snapshotting user activities on their device. It captures snapshots of your screen every five seconds, allowing you to search and retrieve past activities, including app usage, communications in live meetings, and websites visited – giving you (and it) the ability to rewind time to any point (subject to configuration) to help you find what you need or pick up from where you left off. Your snapshots are then locally stored and locally analysed on your PC.
Microsoft Recall – Image (c) Microsoft
Recall’s analysis allows you to search for content, including both images and text, using natural language. Nothing is shared with other users or used to train their AI models. Privacy, Microsoft say is key!
The Promise of Recall
The benefits of Recall are immense. Imagine being able to revisit any moment of your digital life (work or personal), retrieve information from a past meeting, or recall a website or document you reviewed yesterday, last week or last month. This could significantly boost productivity and ensure no detail is ever lost in the digital ether. To “recall” this information, you simple “describe how you remember” using natural language, and Recall will retrieve the moment you saw it. In Microsoft’s blog post around this, they use this example:
“Trying to remember the name of the Korean restaurant your friend Alice mentioned? Just ask Recall and it retrieves both text and visual matches for your search, automatically sorted by how closely the results match your search. Recall can even take you back to the exact location of the item you saw.”
Do we need Recall – what is wrong with search and history?
Recall does sound awesome and very clever – but are Microsoft is creating a solution for a problem that isn’t really there?
Microsoft said in the announcement “We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we encounter daily – finding something we know we have seen before on our PC. Today, we must remember what file folder it was stored in, what website it was on, or scroll through hundreds of emails trying to find it.”
Personally, I think search works pretty well on Windows 11 anyway and Edge has a great history, favourites and collections feature to help me find stuff I was browsing (they even work across devices). So why do we need recall?
Well…Recall will definately build on this make it much mich easier to find things and “go back in time”, essentially giving Windows 11 a “photographic memory,” as Microsoft explains it. The reason I think this will be a really awesome feature is less because I can never find something, but is more about the experience I want and am starting to expect from AI.
A webpage, image or document we are looking at doesnt paint the whole picture and with search these things are isolated. Recall brings this all together. Maybe I was researching a trip or a topic – with recall it can colate the whole story, bringing together context, images, notes, documents, searches, websites together.
Privacy Concerns
Recall’s powerful capability to record and store every action poses significant privacy concerns and social media has been rife with this (no such thing as bad press right). The thought of someone else accessing this data is unsettling, yet Microsoft assures us that the data remains fully encrypted, local, and linked to that user’s profile. It is not shared with anyone, accessible by anyone or used to train their Large Language Models or dor advertising purposes.
Of course, despite this, the potential for misuse cannot be ignored, especially if sensitive information like passwords or financial details appear on-screen so people I guess are rightfully concerned and since this is not actually “available” yet many of the concerns, assurances etc., are not yet “proven” either way.
The integration of Recall into Windows 11 by Microsoft is designed to keep user data secure and private. Personally and knowing how Microsoft always put the user in control of what is and is not enabled in Windows 11, I am personally not concerned, but understand why some might be initially.
Secondly, Recall works on-device and not across the cloud. This means, no data leaves the PC to Microsoft’s servers. Microsoft will not improve its large language models using this particularly sensitive data. Microsoft say that they will also not use the data for targeting advrtisments. Recall data isn’t available to other applications.
To mitigate these concerns, Microsoft has implemented several safeguards:
Recall will not capture InPrivate browsing or DRM-protected content.
Users can pause, stop, or delete captured content at any time
Users can exclude specific apps or websites from being recorded
Users can disable recall and not use it at all.
I also wanted to share directly from Microsoft’s post around this – their approach around privavcy and responsible AI
“Microsoft has been working to advance AI responsibly since 2017, when we first defined our AI principles and later operationalized our approach through our Responsible AI Standard. Privacy and security are principles as we develop and deploy AI systems. We work to help our customers use our AI products responsibly, sharing our learnings, and building trust-based partnerships. For more about our responsible AI efforts, the principles that guide us, and the tooling and capabilities we’ve created to assure that we develop AI technology responsibly, see Responsible AI.
Recall uses optical character recognition (OCR), local to the PC, to analyse snapshots and facilitate search. For more information about OCR, see Transparency note and use cases for OCR. For more information about privacy and security, see Privacy and security for Recall & screenray“.
The Future of Recall
As we move forward, the Recall feature will likely evolve, based on feedback from the Window Insider Community and MVPs. Microsoft will need to continually balance AI innovation with user trust, ensuring that privacy is not sacrificed for convenience and that users are given choice with regards features that record and track usage and interactions. The conversation around Recall is just beginning, and it will be fascinating to see how it shapes the future of digital interaction and privacy.
In conclusion, Microsoft’s Recall stands at the crossroads of technological advancement and privacy. It’s a powerful tool that promises huge benefits but also requires careful consideration and management of privacy concerns. As with any new technology, it will be up to both Microsoft and its users to navigate these waters responsibly.
Would love to hear your views on this? What do you think, excited for this new feature (on the new Copilot+PC hardware) or will you be turning it off or jumping OS!! 🙂
Today (20th May 2024), Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled a new category of PC that features the latest generative AI tools built directly into Windows and powered by the latest generation of AI computing hardware. Microsoft say this is “the most significant change to the Window platform in decades“.
Microsoft said this entirely new class of Windows PC is engineered to unleash the power of distributed AI in conjunction with the latest generation of AI-Powered chip sets from Qualcomm which bring new AI hardware which will power these new AI features which will be “part of” the Windows OS.
Microsoft call this new category ‘Copilot Plus’… which will see the creation of the latest, fastest, most AI-ready Windows PCs ever built. Copilot+ PCs represent a significant advancement in computing, offering powerful performance and pioneering AI capabilities. Equipped with Snapdragon® X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors, these PCs are engineered to provide peak processing efficiency and swift response times.
Copilot+ PCs can run AI workloads up to 20x faster and 100x more efficiently than traditional PCs.
Microsoft have also announced today, their first Copilot+ PCs, in both the new Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 – both powered by these new AI Chipsets. They are also working with Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung who will also be bringing their Copilot+ PCs to market.
Here’s the Sizzle Video.
Copilot+PC – Microsoft (c)
As Microsoft took to the stage in front of the world’s tech press, they said that they estimate more than fifty million “AI PCs” will be sold over the next 12 months, given the appetite for devices powered by ChatGPT-style technology.
“…more than 50 million AI PCs will be sold over the next 12 months”
Satya Nadella | Microsoft.
The Copilot+ PC is here
The concept of Copilot+ PC is not merely to offer a handful of AI features. Instead, it is about having a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on a Copilot+ PC that continuously runs multiple language models in the background of Windows 11. These models will monitor all your activities on your PC to provide contextual information whenever you need to prompt Copilot effectively. Microsoft refers to this functionality as Recall, describing it as a “sensor for AI.”
Satya Nadella announcing the Copilot+PC
As suggested in the sizzle video above, this implies that a Copilot+ PC can retrieve a line from a document you write or reviewed days earlier, remind you of a commitment or action you made in an email last week, or monitor your web browsing to suggest frequently visited websites and services based on your current activity or “intent”. Whilst there are clear privacy concerns, Microsoft claims that Copilot+ becomes an AI superpower when fully operational and respects your privacy at all times – helping you to do more.
Constant monitoring will be at the heart of a Copilot+ PC, but Microsoft say that it’s substantial AI computing power can do much much more. For example, there will be many creative tools that leverage AI, ranging from Photoshop’s generative AI fill to Microsoft’s AI image generation, to AI video and voice effects in meetings. With a Copilot+ PC, these functions are executed locally on the device – saving time, reducing the need to rely in cloud services and reducing CPU workload and power consumption.
Microsoft have said that users will always be in control and will have the option to disable the always-on AI tracking and to be able to review and delete these AI snapshots individually.
To be classed as Copilot+ status, PCs must be able to deliver at least 40 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPS) of AI processing power from the Neural Processing Unit (NPU). This represents a significant increase from previous offerings, such as Intel’s Meteor Lake, which provided only 10 TOPS from the NPU.
Under the Hoodof a Copilot + PC
So, what is powering these new Copilot+ PCs? Despite Microsoft announcing the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for business earlier this year, the new Copilot+ PCs are not powered Intel or AMD chips.
“Over the past year, we have seen an incredible pace of innovation of AI in the cloud with Copilot allowing us to do things that we never dreamed possible…..
Now, we begin a new chapter with AI innovation on the device…..
We have completely reimagined the entirety of the PC, from silicon to the operating system, the application layer to the cloud, with AI at the center, marking the most significant change to the Window platform in decades”
Microsoft (May 2024)
Instead, the initial series exclusively features the Snapdragon X Elite or Snapdragon X Plus chips, each boasting more than 40 TOPS of AI power. According to Qualcomm, these chips provide over four times the AI power of their competitors‘ chips and have more than enough power to run the latest AI infused games.
The Copilot+PC also include the dedicated button to prompt the Copilot AI assistant at any time.
Security is also AI Powered
Microsoft focussed heavily on Security. As with the current ARM powered devices such as the Surface Pro X and Surface Pro 9 5G, every Copilot+ PC comes secured out of the box.
The Microsoft Pluton Security processor (which goes way beyond TPM) is activated by default on all Copilot+ PCs, and they are introducing several new features, updates, and defaults in Windows 11 24H2 that will simplify, yet enhance user security. Additionally, Microsoft are integrated additional personalised privacy controls to safeguard personal and sensitive data.
Microsoft’s vision is to ensure this new AI standards for PCs will enable the next generation of AI development which is timely given their annual Build Conference runs this week in which they will be driving new development capability to develops eager to ride the AI gravy train for Windows system and application development.
As the primary investor in OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, Microsoft also confirmed that the newly announced GPT-4o model, which powers the chatbot, will also be integrated into Copilot+ PCs “soon”. GPT-4o is currently available in preview in Azure AI.
Next week is Microsoft Build, and the day before (that’s Monday 20th May), Microsoft is set to host a significant event in-person in Seattle about the the future and of Windows, Surface and Copilot.
The event (which is not being live streamed unfortunatley) takes place at 17:00 UK Time (10:00am Pacific Time) and will showcase (I hope filled with the famous Microsoft sizzle videos) the next wave of innovation for Surface, Windows and Copilot powered by new AI powered chipsets…
As usual Microsoft has not disclosed specific details about what is being announced, but there have been many “suggestive” leaks, predications and teases about what is coming. What we do know is that this will be a big and “special” announcement.
This year, Microsoft have already launched the first generation of new AI PC with the release of the Surface Pro 10 and The Surface Laptop 6 which were built on the new Intel AI Boost technology – which you can read more about here.
So what is being announced?
We know this is a pretty big annoucement and we do know that this is the year of AI and the year of the AI PC, so we can expect some pretty exciting annoucements. Despite the various leaks, we wont know until monday what is actually coming, but we do know that Microsoft’s previous product updates were only around the Intel based devices and their ARM powered devices haven’t yet received an update.
Windows Insiders will be well aware of the all the AI innovating coming to the next generation of Windows 11 so we can expect some new AI wow to be announced for Windows 11 as Microsoft gear up for the 24H2 update coming later this year.
Next Generation of Windows and Surface (and Copilot)
Given the new Qualcomm chipsets such as the Snapdragon Elite X, it would make sense for this to feature in the announcements. These new chipsets (which I discussed here) provide huge NPU capabilities which are needed to process AI workloads efficiently without sloooooooowing down the device so it will be exciting to see if these feature in the future of Surface and Windows!
Will Copilot work “locally/Offline?
What? Well today, all the AI and Copilot experiences we have seen with Windows 11 (and Microsoft 365 Copilot) take place in the cloud, but I also wonder if Microsoft will discuss their plans and advancements around local/on-device Generative AI experiences. With the newer AI Boost PCs from Intel, what is now available with Qualcomm and what Microsoft have in their arsenal with Copilot and OpenAI, it will be interesting to see what Microsoft can tell us about how they could de-couple the AI experiences, providing the ability to run local LLMs “on chip”. This of course is as much about the software (Windows OS) as it is the hardware that powers it.
What about Windows 365?
I hope so – since Windows 365 is very much part of the Windows story and I’m hoping we will hear some updates about what is coming to Windows 365. We have seen huge performance and boot time increases this year, new innovation with Windows 365 Boot and Windows 365 Switch (i have covered this in another blog) so be great to see what is next for Windows 365. There were also many things annouced over the past 12 months such as offline mode that haven’t yet made it to market – could this be finally coming?
Yesterday, (8th May, 24) Microsoft released their 2024 Work Trend Index Report which covered the State of AI at Work (you can see this here) as well as announcing some more improvements coming to Copilot for Microsoft 365 in the coming months.
The new features annouced are all aimed at helping to optimise prompt writing, making it easier for people to get a prompt that does what they need first time (a Copilot for Copilot essentially). These updates will include.
Auto-complete for prompts
Prompt re-write
A new catch up feature
Copilot Labs upgrade.
Let dive into these quickly. All. Images (c) Microsoft.
Auto Complete for Prompts
Copilot’s new “autocomplete” feature is similar to what you get in a search engine, where it will anticipate (using Machine Learning) what you are writing and help you to complete your prompt when you start typing one out.
Image (c) Microsoft
The aim here to suggesting more details to ensure you get the intended outcome. It will also offer an expanded library of ‘next prompts’.
This means if you start typing “summarise” then Copilot will display options to summarise the last 10 unread emails and chat messages or other tasks that might be related.
Prompt Rewrite
The “rewrite” feature is something that many image AI tools have had for a while. The aim is to be able to takes a person’s basic prompt rewrite it to me more thorough, “turning everyone into a prompt engineer,” according to the Microsoft.
Image (c) Microsoft
Also known as “elaborate your prompt”, Microsoft say this will be able to rewrite any prompts people create making it much easier to do more complex tasks especially when working with documents or ‘connected apps’.
Copilot Catch-up
Copilot Catch Up aims to start making Copilot more “proactive”. Here the chat interface will be able to presents people with “responsive recommendations” based on their recent activity. As an example, it will be able to notify you about upcoming meetings and suggest ways to help you prepare for that meeting, by bringing a summary of recent email and chat threads, meetings notes and documents write in the chat thread. This feature is also coming into Copilot in Outlook.
This feature brings Copilot more into the realms of good ol Clippy (ok I’m kidding here) but will enable Copilot to start proactively helping rather than waiting for its pilot to issue a command and bring the genie out of its lamp!
The aim is to further integrate Copilot into the user’s workflows. Imagine for example having a morning prompt that tells you about your day, tickets logged via Service Now, or a project that is over running (via Project or Planner) or has completed early perhaps!
Updates to Copilot Labs
Similar to Microsoft app Prompt Buddy, Microsoft will also start to allow people to create, publish, and manage prompts in Copilot Lab.
Image (c) Microsoft
This will bring new features that that can be tailored for individual teams within businesses. This is aimed to make it a lot easier to share useful prompts for employees, Teams and departments to use.
Will these help adoption?
What do you think about the new updates, will these help remove the dark art of promoting and make Copilot easier to use and faster to help people get the desired results.?
Microsoft and Linked In have just released their first joint 2024 Work Trend Index Report, which is titled , “AI at work is here. Now comes the hard part.”
The report is based on a survey of some 31,000 people across 31 countries, global and regional employee and hiring trends on LinkedIn, trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals from the Microsoft Graph, and detailed research across many of the Fortune 500 organisations. 💬I’ve also added my thoughts and experiences at each section.🗨️
“AI is seen as a tool that saves time, boosts creativity, and allows employees to focus on their most important work”.
Microsoft and Linked In – Work Trend Index Report (2024)
The WTI report deep dives into how AI is influencing the way we work, lead, and hire. Here are some key takeaways from the report – I’ve included a link to the whole report and resources at the end of the post too. Here’s the highlights.
AI Adoption and Its Impact
The report states, rather to the point, that “Employees want AI at work — and won’t wait for companies to catch up“. The is backed up by research that reveals that 75% of knowledge workers are now using AI at work.
Image (c) Microsoft May 2024
It says that “AI is seen as a tool that saves time, boosts creativity, and allows employees to focus on their most important work”. It also talks about the fact that there is a disconnect between employees and leaders when it comes to AI adoption. it also reveals that while 79% of leaders agree that AI adoption is critical to remain competitive, 60% express concern about their company’s lack of vision and plan to implement it. This has led to a new trend of Bring Your Own AI (BYOAI), where 78% of AI users are bringing their own tools to work.
💬This is something we / I have seen at Cisilion. When running workshops with customers. many say they are not ready, only to later discover that many many employees are already using BYOAI without the business knowing, in an uncontrolled, non-sanctioned way…
The AI Skills Gap
The use of generative AI at work has nearly doubled in the past six months. This is not surprising given the general availability of Microsoft 365 and the rapid go-to-market of almost every SaaS company offering “new AI expertise”. LinkedIn are seeing a significant increase in professionals adding AI skills to their profiles. However, only 39% of users have received any form of official AI training from their company, and only 25% of companies expect to offer it this year. – This has led to professionals taking the initiative to skill up on their own. As of late last year, there has been a 142x increase in LinkedIn members adding AI skills like Copilot and ChatGPT to their profiles.
💬This is also interesting and in our/my experience, we have seen many organisations “stumble” at the first hurdle of a pilot with tools like Copilot due to not investing in training. Those that have (and Microsoft are helping their customers through partners like Cisilion), get started with tools like Copilot. Working with Gen AI is very very different way of working and training and adoption services make a huge difference to success/failure and business benefits of this technology.
The Emergence of AI Power Users
The report identifies four types of AI users, from sceptics who rarely use AI to power users who use it extensively. The report says that Power users have reoriented their workdays in fundamental ways, saving a minimum of 30 minutes per day. Over 90% of power users say AI makes their overwhelming workload more manageable and their work more enjoyable.
Image (c) Microsoft & Linked In
💬Personally I think this is just the beginning, as more us get used to working with AI tools like Copilot, we will redefine how and what we use it for and this will give us time back to focus on more of the right stuff.
I also see the other side, many that dabble (without training or coaching or time to experiment and test) often turn their noses up as they don’t see the value. It takes time to get the hang of it, get the prompt write (the below will help) and share successes. AI is not perfect either and the experiences are not always “predictable”. Teams need to work together – ideally led by a coach or adoption expert to get over the hurdles, support employees and measure success.
New Capabilities in Copilot for Microsoft 365
Microsoft also used this report to officially announce some new capabilities that are coming to Copilot for Microsoft 365. These include: an auto-complete feature in the prompt box, a new prompt rewrite feature that turns a basic prompt into a rich one, a new chat interface called Catch Up that surfaces personal insights based on recent activity, and new capabilities in Copilot Lab that enable people to create, publish and manage prompts tailored to them, and to their specific team, role and function.
💬We/I have seen the benefits of using Copilot in Microsoft 365 both in internally within Cisilion and with our customers. There is so much value in Copilot “just” in Teams and Outlook alone. This stat from the report definitely resonates with me.
💬It is also worth checking out the official Microsoft 365 Roadmap for all the latest Copilot features – there are a lot of them and they are coming thick and fast!
New AI Tools from LinkedIn
LinkedIn is also providing going to be providing more AI tools to enable employees to stay ahead in their career. LinkedIn Learning offers more than 22,000 courses, including more than 600 AI courses, to build aptitude in generative AI.
These new courses are free and will be available for everyone to use through July 8. Additionally, AI-powered personalised takeaways on LinkedIn Feed can help employees or work seekers daily in their career with personalised, relevant insights and opportunities.
Thanks for reading – if you liked what you read, considering subscribing or leaving me a comment.
Read More
You can read the full posts and reports from Microsoft and Linked In below:
The goal of this blog post is to provide some field experience tips and coaching to help you get the best out of using Copilot in Word. For this you need to have either a Copilot Pro license or a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license and be signed into Word (or Word Online).
In this example, our Goal is to take a Marketing Analysis document we have been sent, and to draw out key information we can use in a “sales meeting” that we have coming up. The document contains lots of information relevant to different parts of the business.
I have provided a link to the document I used (courtesty of Microsoft) so you can either follow along or reference the videos included in this post. Welcome your comments – so please let me know how you get on.
Scenario: Using Copilot to pull key info from a Marketing Report
Instructions:
To work on this example with me, speak to your marketing team and obtain a Market Analysis Report for other similar document. For this example, I am using a public sample document Microsoft have shared called “Mystic Spice Premium Chai Tea.docx” which you can access here. The password for the link is “Copilot”. Once you have done that, save the file to your OneDrive so you can use it to test out and experiment with these prompts.
Open the document you obtained (or use my link above) in Word and then
Open the Copilot pane by selecting the Copilot icon in the top right of the “ribbon”
Enter the prompts below and follow along.
The Starting Prompt
Enter the Starting prompt “Summarise this Word Document” or click the suggested prompt to do the same thing…
In this simple prompt, we have started with what I call the “Alexa Prompt” – we are asking a simple question with a basic goal “to summarise the Word document”.
Using a standard/simple Copilot prompt to Summarise a Doc in Word.
This has done we asked but since we gave no context or information about what we wanted and why we needed it, Copilot has just read throught the document a pilled out key bits of information from each section.
The “better” prompt
To improve on this, we are going to repeat the prompt, but this time, we will add some more context to help Copilot understand the purpose of the summary and tailor the response for us accordingly.
Write a new prompt: “Summarise this document and create a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow’s Sales meeting“.
Here we are giving Copilot some more context specific about what information we want. It now knows why we need the information (for a sales meeting) and it knows to keep the ouput brief.
Using a more specific Copilot prompt to Summarise a Doc in Word.
If you run the prompt yourself (or check the video above) you will see that this time Copilot has pulled out specific around Market Trends and Demand inluding stats around CAGR. It has told us about the key competitiors, distribution and sales channels and also Sales Strategy, Outcomes and the Challenges in selling.
The Super Prompt
For the final prompt (I call it the “super prompt”), we are going to be even more specific with the ask to get just the information we need.
Use this prompt “Summarise this word document but focus on the Competitive Analysis section only. Provide a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow’s Sales meeting. Please keep the summary to 5 key points and use simple language.”
If you compare the output of this prompt to the previous ones, you will see that since we have been specific about where we want Copilot to focus, the response we get is specific to what we have asked. It’s still a summary, but it is focussed on the just the Competitor Analysis section and we have kept the response concise and in simple language. It knows to keep this simple and make it relevant to sales…
Follow along – or check out the video below where I run the prompt.
Our “Crafted” Super-Prompt in Copilot in Word
So there you go – we have started with a simple prompt and I have hopefully shown you that by thinking about what and why we want the information and also the audience the response is indended for, Copilot can produce information just the way we need it.
Summary and Lesson
So, I am pretty happy with that result. To recap – here is what we did to perfect our prompt…
We started with our Goal (which was to summarise the document)
Added some Context (that we want the information for a sales meeting)
Specified the Source of the information (we asked to focus on competitive analysis), and
Set clear Expectations, (we asked for five key points using simple language).
Our Final Prompt:
"Summarise this word document but focus on the Competitive Analysis section only. Provide a brief overview of the main points to discuss with my team during the tomorrow's Sales meeting. Please keep the summary to 5 key points and use simple language".
This prompt has all the details it needs to give us the results we need. It has a Goal, Context, Source, and Expectations.
Microsoft has announced plans for a new artificial intelligence (AI) hub in London, which will be focused on leading edge product development and research. This will be led Microsoft AI Lead Mustafa Suleyman (confounder of DeepMind) who Microsoft hired last month.
This annoucement comes less than a month since Microsoft unveiled a new consumer AI division.
There is an enormous pool of AI talent and expertise in the UK, and Microsoft AI plans to make a significant, long-term investment in the region. (London).
Mustafa Suleyman
This is great for the UK and for London and will help both Microsoft and the UK become an AI and technology superpower leveraging the hub of tech talent, access to leading and world class universities and research centres with ability to attract the best talent for the next generation of development of AI.
Microsofts AI Future in the UK
This announcement builds on Microsoft’s recent commitment to invest 2.5 Billion into data centre infrastructure and improving AI skills across the UK.
Microsoft’s AI investment in the UK includes building a major new data centre in West London and installing 20,000 high-powered processors in the UK by 2026.
Microsoft’s new UK hub will be run by Jordan Hoffmann, (another former employee from DeepMind) and will collaborate closely with OpenAI which powers Microsoft’s AI driven Copilot System framework.
The new buzz in the world of PCs is all about the “AI PC”. This term is the latest messaging being banded around from PC/Laptop manufacturers with a view to ensure that people, families and organisations are taking this next generation of PC into account when planning their legacy hardware upgrades over the next 12-18 months.
AI analytics and modeling require vast amounts of data, which are best suited for cloud, but performing some workloads at the device level delivers more efficient processing, or inferencing, by being offloaded to the device. These efficiencies could be applied to:
Visual inferencing: AI applied directly to the camera feed
Audio inferencing: AI applied to audio inputs
Live transcription: AI applied to language processing
New AI-PCs are being designed and built with specialised processors (NPUs) to support executing those models, and more, locally, in real time.
You don’t need to look very far to see the phrase “AI PC” everywhere both from Intel and leading device manufacturers including Microsoft, but what is the tech behind the latest tech phrase?
Note: AI is the capability of a computer program or a machine to "think, learn, and take actions without being explicitly encoded with commands".
So what is an AI PC?
In short an AI-PC needs to have these three key components:
An Chipset with a new NPU, CPU and GPU built-in
Windows 11 and Copilot in Windows
A Copilot Key (technically).
Of course CPUs and GPUs have been around for a long time, but it is the NPU (Neural Processing Unit) that is new in PCs and it is this that is the key part of an AI-PC. The NPU (or AI-Boost as Intel calls it) is designed to process AI workloads locally rather than in the cloud which brings many improvements for the user, including processor efficiency, improved battery life and increased security.
The NPU is a dedicated microprocessor designed to efficiently handle AI-specific tasks, such as executing predictive models, processing machine learning algorithms, or powering generative AI applications.
Surface AI-PC – Available on Surface Pro 9, 10 and Surface Laptop 6
The Intel Core Ultra processors featured in AI-PCs like Surface Pro 10 and Laptop 6 provide a holistic approach to running AI workloads on PC. These different processors offer programming versatility to developers that maximise the three type of microprocessors – CPU, GPU, and their new, integrated NPU. With an AI-PC, each microprocessor (compute engine) has its own specialisation, but in the context of AI on Cloud PCs mean they work together when using AI workloads with:
The CPU being ideal for general and traditional compute workload as well as light-weight, single inference AI tasks. Think “accelerating cloud-delivered AI” while minimising impact on overall system performance.
The GPU being ideal for AI infused into media and 3D rendering apps and tasks. Users can perform data visualisation tasks, create and manipulate 3D images, or generate elaborate reports, enabling your team to efficiently tackle complex data workloads.
The new AI-Boosting NPU which is designed specifically for sustained and efficient offloading of AI models such as Windows Studio Effects.
What are the benefits of an AI-PC?
In short – performance, battery life and enabling new AI-Powered experiences.
Windows and many other apps have AI features within their applications sets, but put simply with AI-PCs these AI features and tools will work much quicker and will unlock additional NPU-Specific features.
The NPU is a dedicated microprocessor designed to efficiently handle AI-specific tasks, such as executing predictive models, processing machine learning algorithms, or powering generative AI applications. The image below shows the difference between a video app’s back-ground blur using a CPU vs an NPU. The device on the right is a Surafce Pro 9 with dedicated NPU and it is easy to see how much better the AI effect is when it is processing the AI workload locally.
Image showing the difference between a video app’s background blur on a CPU vs. an NPU.
The key thing about the AI-PC is the impact on the CPU processing AI workloads when there is an NPU present. With AI features like voice and video effects in Windows and the wealth of AI features in apps like Adobe, CPU workload is dramatically reduced as the NPU does the AI grunt work (and is far more efficient at running them) This leads to a more efficient device, increased battery life and a more responsive OS and applications for users. The image below illustrates the impact savings running smilar tasks on a PC vs an “AI-PC”.
Image (c) Microsoft – March 2024
AI-PCs will empwer and improve many experiences – as compute for AI workloads moves to more local-mode and hybrid-mode processing. This goes beyond just video effects and speech and will include things like object detection “seeing AI”, gesture tracing, security and many more.
Intel claim that “AI PCs with an Intel Core Ultra processor are able to edit videos more than 230% faster and perform AI image editing tasks 52% faster.
AI PCs are also set to be defined by how they align with Microsoft’s Windows operating system as well. One of the most consumer-facing AI products right now is Microsoft Copilot, which is slowly rolling out to Windows 11 devices and we’re set to see a dedicated Copilot key on some laptops in the future too. Over time this will also take advantage of local AI-processing with AI-PCs
Note: Today, Copilot operates in the cloud and thus does not utilize a computer’s onboard NPU. However, this is expected to change, as Microsoft has announced plans for new system architectures that will enhance Windows AI experiences by integrating the GPU, CPU, NPU, and the cloud.
Will the birth of the AI-PC reboot the PC market?
I think the AI PC will be the PC of the next decade.
The PC market has been in decline for several years, but IDC predict that 2024 is estimated to see a 3.7 percent year-over-year increase in shipments, ending the decline the market has seen since the highs of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are seeing Microsoft, Dell, HP and Lenovo, jumping on AI PCs and with the next two years likely to be the time that more organisations really start to experiment and test AI within their organisations, the rise of the AI-PC is set (according to IDC) to kickstart the PC business again.
