Following the integration of ChatGPT into Bing.com, Microsoft recently confirmed that it plans to bring the same technology to workplace productivity. Microsoft 365 gets the “Copilot” feature. Like OpenAI’s prompt-based ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot can help you write documents, analyze data or reports in Excel, create presentations, and more.
Microsoft announced Office 365 Copilot at a virtual press conference on March 16 and posted videos highlighting the new AI technology. Details on the availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot were sparse, but it appears Microsoft has already begun integration.
We got our hands on an early version of “Copilot for Word” in Windows 10 and Windows 11, available only to selected users. This feature is hidden in the latest Office Word for Insiders (beta channel) and is not working properly, at least for now.
“A new way to work smarter and faster. This private preview is for select Microsoft 365 enterprise customers,” Microsoft described the feature in an early version of Word AI that Proxa News could access.
Initially, Copilot for Word can help you with the following:
- Suggest or rewrite content for your word
- Find the right image
- Take care of formatting details
- Suggest or rewrite content for your word
- Generate document summary
- Open the Unblock Writers dialog
- Show editor window AI feedback Skittle launch
Our testing showed that Copilot for Word only has two prompts: “Start a document” and “Just write about it.”
These two options do much of the same job: writing an entirely new document or modifying the existing document based on your input.
However, Word AI often fails and returns an error that the request cannot be understood. This also happens when we select actions or prompts suggested by Microsoft’s AI.
Based on the references in the leaked build, you will soon be able to ask Microsoft 365 Copilot to compose a document from scratch or a document based on data from another document or topics in the existing document. You can even ask it to change certain paragraphs or points in the document.
For example, you can ask Microsoft 365 Copilot to rewrite or rephrase the paragraph or change the tense/tone to make it more concise.
You can pick up where you left off and create PowerPoint slides using the same document or new information. You can ask AI to summarize the Word document and create slides based on that document’s summarized data. This can lead to shorter or more engaging presentations.
You can expect to see the feature in your Office test builds in the coming weeks.