Nowadays AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) are everywhere. Google introduced Bard. Open AI unveiled ChatGPT. Microsoft debuted 365 Copilot. Microsoft has a few distinctive features that are worthy of mentioning here. Let’s dive in!
Microsoft already offers the Office 365 Suite that includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Teams, and Outlook. Their 365 Copilot is already part of those apps and is designed to make them even better. How you may ask?
Copilot takes the emails, chats, documents, contacts, meetings, calendars, and other data and mixes them into large language models (LLMs). This produces a lot of data. This provides the user with Business Chat which can be offered with a natural language prompt. For example, you can have it send project strategy updates to entire teams by simply speaking to it. 356 Copilot can execute a project update based on information taken from meetings, emails, and Teams chat threads. Theoretically, this should make the user more productive.
Copilot in the Word app can edit, summarize, create, and write right next to you with a simple prompt. This can produce the first draft by taking information from across your organization. It is able to summarize text, rewrite entire sections of documents, add content to existing documents, and more. Tones an issue? No worries 365 Copilot has you covered. You can tell it to use a casual, passionate, or professional tone. Need to make a point? 365 Copilot can bolster your arguments and lessen inconsistencies.
Sample Word commands are as follows:
“Draft a one-page scenario-based proposal based on data from (document) and (spreadsheet).”
“Make the second paragraph more professional.”
Copilot in Excel will assist you in data analysis and exploration. Copilot uses natural language to propose what-if scenarios, highlight correlations, suggest new formulas, and create new models based on your input. Looking for a different outcome? Copilot can do that too. Copilot can reveal trends, modify data, add visualizations, and even ask you for recommendations that can change the outcomes.
Sample commands for the Excel app are as follows:
“Model how a downturn in growth (provide a rate or variable) could impact my gross margin.”
“Give a breakdown of sales by age group and channel. Insert a table.”
Copilot in Powerpoint can translate your ideas into presentations by transforming existing documents into slide decks with speaker notes and references or creating an entirely new presentation from your outline or prompt. Copilot easily reformats text, adjusts layouts, and even devises perfectly timed animations with a simple prompt.
Sample commands for Powerpoint are as follows;
“Consolidate this presentation into a five-slide summary.”
“Reformat the picture into three bullet points.”
“Take this word document (name) and create a ten-slide presentation with pertinent stock images.”
Copilot for Outlook can respond to existing emails with a simple prompt, adjust tone, summarize lengthy emails, and even curtail the length of your reply. Copilot can siphon through entire threads and other emails to pull content into its replies to present varied viewpoints.
Outlook commands can be structured as follows:
“Flag any important emails that came in over the weekend.”
“Draft a follow-up response and ask for more details about the second and fourth points, make my reply professional.”
“Alert the new product team to a learn and lunch meeting on Wednesday at 11:30 am.”
Copilot for Teams makes working together easier. Copilot can develop agendas based on history, schedule check-ins, identify who to follow-up with afterward, answer specific questions, summarize key points, determine what actions each member should undertake, or even catch you up on anything you may have missed.
Teams commands may include:
“What points have been in the meeting thus far?”
“Is there any disagreement on this topic? If so, where?”
“Suggest the next steps based on the decisions that were made.”
Copilot for Business Chat on Teams takes the data from the Microsoft Graph and couples that with your data, documents, notes, contacts, calendars, and presentations from multiple sources streamlining that information so everyone stays on the same page.
Possible prompts for Business Chat are:
“What is the next milestone on (project name). Identify any potential risks.”
“Create a planning overview in the tone of (filename) that adds a timeline from (filename) and email that to (persons name).”
Microsoft hopes this can make you and your entire office more productive and safer too.
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