Microsoft held an event titled “The Future of Work with AI” today. During the presentation, the company introduced Copilot, a tool that uses AI to generate content in applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams. Copilot is also available in Viva and a new experience called Business Chat.
You can watch Microsoft’s AI event to catch up, but we’ve also broken down the highlights. Microsoft shared a blog post (opens in a new tab) recapping today’s announcements as well.
Copilot in Word
Copilot in Word can summarize documents and suggest changes as you type. The tool also has the ability to generate a draft of a document based on information from an organization. Copilot in Word lets you choose between tones, such as professional or informal, and can help enhance your documents in other ways.
Copilot in Excel
Using Copilot in Excel should make it easy to create complex spreadsheets. The tool allows you to ask questions in natural language and then it will suggest formulas to use. Copilot in Excel can find correlations in data, build models based on questions, and find trends. You can also create visual aids, such as charts.
Co-pilot in PowerPoint
PowerPoint’s co-pilot features focus on creating presentations. You can have the tool collect information from a Word document to create slides, including speaker notes and fonts. You can also compress pre-existing presentations to make them much shorter with the tool.
Like Excel, PowerPoint will let you use natural language to enter commands, like timing animations and reformatting text.
Copilot in Outlook
Copilot in Outlook will use AI to read emails. He can then type responses for you, which should save some time. Like Word documents, Copilot-generated text in Outlook can be edited, so it’s more useful with a draft than creating something set in stone.
You will also be able to create messages from notes that you request from the AI. The tone can also be adjusted to suit specific emails.
Co-pilot in Teams
If you’re late for a Teams meeting, Copilot can help you by creating a summary of what’s been said so far. The tool can also answer specific questions about a meeting.
Copilot will also be able to generate meeting agendas based on chat history, suggest who should follow up on specific items, and recommend a time to schedule check-ins.
business chat
Business Chat is a new experience that extends to different applications and data sources. Use Microsoft Graph and AI to collect information from documents, presentations, emails, notes, calendars, and more.
Here are some commands shared by Microsoft as examples:
- Summarize chats, emails and documents about the [customer] escalation that happened last night.
- What is the next milestone in [project]. Were risks identified? Please help me generate a list of possible mitigations.
- Write a new planning overview in the style of [filename A] containing the planning timeline [filename B] and incorporates the list of projects in the email of [person].
live co-pilot
Copilot will integrate with Microsoft Viva in several areas, including Viva Engage. The tool will highlight current workplace issues to help leaders better engage with their colleagues. You will share suggestions for posts and you will have the ability to add images and also adjust the tone of the text.
Copilot within Viva Engage will also suggest responses to help keep conversations going and provide prompts to initiate communication.
