Microsoft has introduced its Microsoft 365 Copilot chatbot, which uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology based on GPT-4, a large language model (LLM) created by OpenAI, to automate various tasks in multiple Microsoft office apps. The company is currently testing Microsoft 365 Copilot with 20 customers, including eight Fortune 500 enterprises, in order to “get feedback and improve our product as we scale.”
Microsoft has integrated the GPT-4 and ChatGPT functionality with Word, Excel, Teams, PowerPoint, Outlook, Power Platform, Viva, and other apps to enable users to pull data together to create everything from marketing campaigns and business proposals to slide presentations. Copilot combines a large language model (LLM) with the 365 suite and the user data contained therein. Through the use of a chatbot interface and natural language processing, users can ask questions of Copilot and receive human-like responses, summarize online chats, and generate business products.
Copilot in Word, for example, can jump-start the creative process by giving a user a first draft to edit and iterate on — saving hours in writing, sourcing, and editing time, Microsoft said in a blog post. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the new 365 Copilot chatbot will “radically transform how computers help us think, plan and act.
Microsoft claims Copilot is more than OpenAI’s ChatGPT embedded into Microsoft 365. Officials referred to it as a “sophisticated processing and orchestration engine” that combines the power of LLMs, “including GPT-4,” with the Microsoft 365 apps and a user’s business data in the Microsoft Graph, which is now accessible to everyone through natural language. (Microsoft Graph is the company’s API developer platform that connects multiple services and devices.)
Microsoft has also introduced a new extension called Business Chat, which features Copilot and can be used to automate tasks in Microsoft’s office apps.
Microsoft
An example of Copilot in Word using meeting notes to create a draft proposal.
“Sometimes Copilot will be right, other times usefully wrong — but it will always put you further ahead,” Jared Spartaro, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Modern Work & Business Applications, said in the blog. “You’re always in control as the author, driving your unique ideas forward, prompting Copilot to shorten, rewrite or give feedback.”
Microsoft plans to provide additional details to customers about broader availability of the features at a future date.
2023-03-20 21:00:03
Post from www.computerworld.com
