Elevate your Microsoft Experience and Boost Productivity with Microsoft Copilot
With the launch of an integrated AI assistant in Windows 11, end users will experience Microsoft products on a whole new level. Working within the operating system itself, Copilot in Windows is designed to make using any Microsoft product more efficient. From changing settings, to finding the right formula in Excel, Copilot in Windows wants to make your working life a little easier. In this blog, we’re theorising four ways Copilot will change how you work.
What is Copilot in Windows?
Microsoft have described Copilot as an “AI-powered intelligent assistant” that can be used for a variety of purposes. Microsoft have been working on AI since 2017 and implemented it in many of its products already. Microsoft 365, Teams, Windows Xbox, and Microsoft Defender are just some of the products you have probably come across, at work or at home, that use Microsoft AI already.
Copilot in Windows is different because the AI is built into Windows 11 as an assistant. Copilot uses ChatGPT from OpenAI to create text from written prompts. So, a simple way to explain Copilot, is kind of like if ChatGPT and Google Home had a kid. And it lives in your laptop.
What is Copilot for?
Copilot in Windows is able to make changes to your settings, perform tasks and run troubleshooters at command, rather than you searching for them. One example Microsoft gives, is that you can write in the chat pane “Open file explorer” and that seems much longer than just opening it yourself. However, with the chat pane open all the time (and not overlapping your windows), asking Copilot to “take a screenshot” could be quicker than finding it in the settings. Especially as Copilot will autocomplete what you’re writing so you could be taking a screenshot quicker than you would have typed it fully or found it on your settings.
So apart from making tiny tasks slightly quicker, how will Copilot make an impact on the productivity and efficiency for end users at work? Let’s look at three ways to elevate your Microsoft experience and boost productivity with Copilot as an end user.
Microsoft Copilot and Outlook
Outlook is an essential tool for communication and planning so how will Copilot make a difference? You can ask Copilot to summarise an entire email chain so you don’t need to read through them to reply. You can then use Copilot to write a response. If you want to make it quick, you will be able to use Copilot as you would with ChatGPT, but it’s in your Outlook already.
If that long email chain ends with you being asked to organise the office Christmas party, you can use Copilot to brainstorm ideas, circulate them out for approval, and invite your colleagues.
Microsoft Copilot and Excel
Using Copilot for tasks in Excel is going to be a gamechanger for some people. As long as data is in a formatted table, you can ask Copilot to summarise data, show insights and come up with formula suggestions based on what you want to do with the data, or the outcomes you need.
Instead of searching the internet to find out what formula you need, you will be able to ask Copilot to take the action that gives you the results you want. For example, you could ask Copilot to count how many vegetarians are coming to the office Christmas party without looking up whether you need the formula =COUNT, =COUNTA, or =COUNTIF.
Troubleshooting with Copilot in Windows
According to Microsoft, we will be able to use Copilot for troubleshooting issues and changing settings on our devices. Examples they give include turning on dark mode or asking, “why isn’t my camera working?”.
Now, Copilot isn’t going to replace a first line IT support team when it comes to complex problems. For end users who may feel helpless when they don’t know why something isn’t working though, asking Copilot could lead to fewer minor IT issues being logged. Not only is that going to be more productive for the person with the issue but might free an IT team up for bigger projects. Why ring IT when you can tell Copilot, “My camera isn’t working” and it helps solve the problem?
Researching with Copilot
Copilot will summarise content on a webpage if it’s open with Microsoft Edge. Looking for information and ideas will be easier when your AI assistant can tell you the main points of webpages and save you the time of reading them all individually. You will also be able to compare products, and complete tasks with the help of Copilot.
Microsoft is no stranger to AI, with many of the products that keep companies operational using it in some form. This new experience of AI embedded in an operating system is building on the invisible AI service and making it a visual, almost tangible, element of everyday work life.
The suggestions in this blog may seem basic for now, however Microsoft have not released Copilot commercially in the UK at the time of writing, so we are not able to test the capabilities yet. The first update of Windows 11 that includes Copilot will have 150 new features, including bringing AI elements into Paint, Photos, and Clipchamp. It stands to reason that Microsoft will keep developing Copilot and rolling out more updates and features as time goes on.
As Microsoft Partners, Fuse Collaboration Services champion making the most of what Microsoft offer, and with Copilot being included with Windows 11 updates, we’re excited to leverage it for the benefits of our clients.
About the author
Fuse is a Microsoft Partner, based in Northampton. We help organisations of all sizes to maximise IT efficiencies through the use of Microsoft cloud computing solutions.
