Microsoft Copilot: How To Use This AI Assistant Effectively

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a major part of our lives as it impacts many aspects of our daily interactions, healthcare, and work. It has revolutionized modern life by providing expert suggestions, increasing productivity, improving writing quality, enhancing collaboration, and more. AI has taken over transportation, health facilities, social media, banking, language learning, e-commerce, and education. Since it has become an integral part of our lives, Microsoft has introduced a cutting-edge AI-powered tool, called Microsoft Copilot.

This tool is designed to help ease our tasks by improving productivity and creativity and by answering questions. For those wondering why we need Microsoft Copilot, it can help eliminate repetitive tasks, such as writing emails and summarizing documents. It can save us time for more important work. In this article, you will learn more about Microsoft Copilot, its features, benefits, and more. You will also understand how this tool works, if it is free, and if it is similar to ChatGPT. So, keep reading. 

What is Microsoft Copilot: What are its features? 

Microsoft Copilot is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tool that is a digital assistant. It helps boost productivity and enhance decision-making through data analysis, finance analysis, project planning, and market research. This tool allows users to understand, create, and edit documents. It helps complete tasks more efficiently and improves work experience.

Microsoft Copilot is integrated with various Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Outlook. There are three versions of Copilot as of June 2024, including Free Microsoft Copilot, Copilot Pro, and Copilot 365. Free Microsoft Copilot can be used by anyone using Windows, Bing Website, or Microsoft Edge. It is ideal for general uses and small businesses that do not need much detailed or specific responses.

Copilot Pro is not for power users with access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo models. It is best for those who require a fast response. It also includes an Image Creator from the Designer and costs $20 per user per month. On the other hand, Copilot 365 is available as an add-on for the office apps in Microsoft 365. It supports Business Standard, Premium, and Enterprise plans. This tool provides specific and detailed answers and costs $30 per user monthly. 

Copilot is still under development with new features and updates released regularly. Some of the features of this tool include:

Writing assistance

Microsoft Copilot helps improve writing quality and skills by giving suggestions on grammar, syntax, and style. 

Text generation

This tool helps generate text, email, reports, and documents according to the user’s needs.

Document summarization

Copilot helps summarize long documents into short and understandable data. 

Content suggestions 

This tool provides relevant content suggestions like images, tables, and charts to make the work easier.

Data analysis

Another main feature of Copilot is that it helps analyze data and visualize it in Excel.

Language Translation

This tool can translate text from one language to another. 

Also Read: Machine Learning Vs Artificial Intelligence: Which Is More Powerful?

Microsoft Copilot: How to Use This AI Assistant Effectively

Using Microsoft Copilot is easy. The users can ask conversational or natural language-style questions just like we would with ChatGPT. Since Copilot is an assistant that requires human intervention and effort, users should provide questions with as many keywords as possible. Copilot can be used in Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint to generate text and then complete or rewrite it. This tool can be used to summarize long texts or documents and provide an overview of the contents.

It also helps turn texts into easy-to-understand data tables. In Microsoft Teams, Copilot is used to get recaps of meetings and provide key points and action items. It can provide response suggestions, other points, or translations from foreign languages, which is very useful during a meeting. 

To use Microsoft Copilot effectively, update Microsoft 365. Ensure Microsoft applications like Excel, Word, Teams, and Outlook are updated to the latest versions to function at their best. Enable Copilot AI to navigate to the settings within each app. Also, provide positive instructions for best results. Remember that the first result is not the best or final one. So, if you fail to get satisfactory results, revise your prompt and try again. Here are some tips for using Microsoft Copilot efficiently:

• Be specific.
• Provide clear instructions. Try telling Copilot what to do rather than what not to do.
• Customization. You can customize this tool to get the best results. 
• Always verify Copilot’s suggestions. 
• Revise the prompt if you do not get satisfactory results. 
• Secure credentials. 
• Understand Copilot’s limitations and use them accordingly. 

Benefits of Microsoft Copilot

Here are some benefits of using Microsoft Copilot:

Increases productivity

Copilot helps eliminate repetitive tasks and free up time for more complex tasks. It helps stop wasting time on routine tasks, such as summarizing documents or writing emails and makes it easier to schedule meetings, create formulas in Excel, and more. 

Improves writing quality

Using this tool can help improve overall writing quality, clarity, and coherence. It suggests different ways to write content or insert images or banners. 

Aids in decision-making

The users find it easier to make decisions as Copilot provides relevant suggestions and recommendations. This tool provides proper market research, data analysis, and financial analysis. 

Enhances creativity

Copilot enhances creativity as it helps users generate new ideas, content, and insights. It simplifies writing documents, creating presentations, and designing graphics. 

Supports collaboration

This tool supports teamwork and collaboration, providing more professional content. 

Accessible to all

Microsoft Copilot acts as an ideal assistant to those with disabilities like visual or language impairments. 

Promotes communication skills

Users can improve communication skills with the help of this tool by providing suggestions. It also aids users in streamlining the workflow. 

Can be personalized

Copilot can be personalized as it can learn and adapt to the users’ style and preferences over time. This makes Copilot provide more relevant suggestions. 

Secure 

Copilot is as secure as Microsoft 365. They have the same security, privacy policy, and compliance. 

Is Microsoft Copilot free?

Microsoft Copilot is not fully free. There is a free version of Copilot that offers basic features, such as creating images in Designer with limited credits, summarizing documents and webpages, supporting plugins and Copilot GPTs, and Commercial Entra ID data protection. Even though it provides basic assistance, it lacks advanced AI-driven insights and automation. The free version of Copilot can be used in Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

It offers only basic AI tools but for those seeking advanced features, Copilot Pro is the best choice. Copilot Pro is a subscription that offers early access to new features, AI models, high usage limits, and more. While the free version provides essential tools to save time and effort, the paid versions can boost these capabilities with advanced features. 

Is Copilot same as ChatGPT?

Microsoft Copilot is not the same as ChatGPT. However, Microsoft Copilot is an Al-powered productivity tool that uses LLMs and machine learning like ChatGPT. Both tools respond to natural inputs from humans-like responses. Some of the common differences between the two tools include:

• While the Copilot is trained for coding assistance, ChatGPT is trained for general-purpose language processing.
• ChatGPT helps with content creation, customer service, and other general purposes. On the other hand, Copilot is more specialized and focuses on productivity tasks within the Microsoft ecosystem including coding, document generation, and enhancing productivity tools. 
• Copilot is integrated into programming environments but ChatGPT is a broader tool that can be used for several conversational tasks. 
• ChatGPT is considered more capable as it excels in generating human-like text but Copilot can turn text-based prompts into images. 
• ChatGPT is considered easier to implement than Copilot as it doesn’t need integration into specific tools or environments. On the other hand, Copilots need integration within an IDE, which can be hard for those who are not familiar with these development environments. 
• ChatGPT offers more free features, whereas Copilot’s certain features are paid subscriptions. 

Conclusion 

Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered tool that provides writing assistance, text generation, document summarization, content suggestions, data analysis, and translation. It acts as a digital assistant. Microsoft introduced this tool to help ease our tasks and improve productivity and creativity by answering questions. It helps eliminate repetitive tasks and saves us time for more important work. Copilots make work easier by helping complete tasks more efficiently and improving work experience.

Microsoft Copilot mainly has 3 versions including Free Microsoft Copilot, Copilot Pro, and Copilot 365. The free version of Copilot offers basic AI tools, whereas Copilot Pro is a paid subscription that has advanced features to boost productivity. To use Microsoft Copilot effectively, update Microsoft applications to the latest versions to function at their best. Also, provide positive, clear instructions, be more specific, verify suggestions, secure credentials, and understand Copilot’s limitations.

If you did not get satisfactory results, revise the prompt and try again because the first results are not the final ones. Some benefits of using Microsoft Copilot include increased productivity, aids in decision-making, improved writing quality, enhanced creativity, better collaboration, and wide accessibility. Some might confuse Copilot with ChatGPT. However, even though they are different they are AL-powered productivity tools that use LLMs and machine learning. Both tools respond to natural inputs from human responses and provide faster outputs.