Copilot

 

Microsoft's AI assistant, built into the Office tools most organisations use every day.

For many organisations, Microsoft 365 is where the work happens: Outlook for email, Teams for meetings, and Word, Excel and PowerPoint for documents. Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant, designed to work inside those tools.

One name, more than one product

The Copilot name covers more than one product, which can be confusing. The two most relevant are:

•         Copilot for personal use: a free, general AI assistant available on the web and in Windows.

•         Microsoft 365 Copilot: a business version built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, set up and licensed by our organisation.

At work, it matters which one we are using.

What it is commonly used for

•         Outlook: summarising email threads and drafting replies.

•         Teams: summarising meetings, including decisions and actions, where enabled.

•         Word: drafting documents and summarising long reports.

•         PowerPoint: creating a first draft of a presentation from a document or outline.

•         Excel: helping analyse data and explain trends.

Why it matters for organisations

The business version can work with the emails, files and meetings we already have access to, within our organisation's security and permission settings. That means it can help us prepare for a meeting using the relevant documents, or summarise what we missed while away, within the Microsoft environment our organisation has set up.

Things to keep in mind

•         It sees what we can see. Because it works with our existing access, good file permissions and housekeeping matter more than ever.

•         Features depend on licensing. Not every user or organisation will have the same features.

•         Check before sending. A drafted email or summary still needs our review.

In a nutshell

For organisations on Microsoft 365, Copilot brings AI into the tools people already use, working with company information inside existing protections.

Try this: If you have Microsoft 365 Copilot, ask it in Teams or Outlook to summarise a meeting or email thread you missed, then check it against the original.

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