Microsoft extends Copilot AI features across Microsoft 365, Power Platform

The next generation of AI will be different, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told an audience at today's reveal of new Copilot offerings. The company's rapidly expanding set of AI services will include a broader range of Microsoft 365 tools and Power Platform services, with some already entering preview.

Copilot's use of AI-powered large language models (LLMs), including GPT-4, will "remove the drudgery" from daily tasks and allow workers to "rediscover the joy of creation," and "reconnect to the soul of our work," Nadella said.

In the online presentation, Microsoft scientists and product leaders detailed how Copilot aims to improve individual work tasks, meetings, collaborative experiences, and business data. To achieve those goals, Microsoft imagines Copilot leading to a "whole new way of working" and a new interaction model between people and where AI services do more of the initial creative work but workers remain in control of refining, adjusting, and finalizing the work products.

Many of the updates Microsoft provided today focus on the Microsoft 365 productivity tools for scenarios like building a PowerPoint slide deck, creating a business document, or capturing in-depth summaries of meetings. A new experience Microsoft calls Business Chat will work in popular Microsoft productivity tools to create text for workers' communications, explained Jared Spataro, CVP for Modern Work and Business Applications.

Copilot in Power Platform

The Power Platform team also detailed their latest Copilot enhancements. The new tools are evidence that the platform is "moving from custom code, to low-code, to natural language authoring," according to leaders of both Power Automate and Power Apps.