Key Points:
- Collaborate and edit content in real-time with AI assistance, easily shareable and integrable across Office apps.
- Copilot boosts productivity with advanced Excel, Teams, Outlook, and more features.
- Automate tasks with new, customizable agents and an Agent Builder for streamlined business processes.
Microsoft has just launched the next wave of its Copilot AI, taking its competition with ChatGPT to a new level. After trailing behind for a while, Microsoft is making a strong comeback with “Microsoft 365 Copilot: Wave 2.”
Described as “ Microsoft Wave 2”, the innovations fall into three categories:
- Copilot Pages
- Copilot Agents and Builders
The update, powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o technology, is intended to make AI tools more accessible and efficient for users. Among the improvements, Microsoft said Copilot responds twice as fast as the previous version.
One of the key updates is an AI-assisted collaborative canvas that lets multiple users edit and interact with content in real time.
The corporate vice president of AI at work at Microsoft said, “You and your team can work collaboratively on a page with Copilot, seeing everyone’s work in real-time and iterating with Copilot like a partner, adding more content from your data, files, and the web to your Page.”
He said, “This is an entirely new work pattern — multiplayer, human to AI to human collaboration.”
In Microsoft Teams, Copilot can now analyze meeting transcripts and chat, allowing users to ask if any questions were missed. Outlook has also introduced a new feature called “Prioritize My Inbox,” which identifies the most active email threads to provide insights and summaries. Users will soon be able to teach Copilot specific topics, keywords, and important contacts to help prioritize messages further.
Microsoft Word has also come up with enhanced AI integration, with the ability to pull in data from various sources like PowerPoint, PDFs, encrypted documents, emails, and meeting notes. These updates reflect Microsoft’s broader goal of embedding AI more deeply into its Office suite to streamline work processes.
Microsoft’s Latest Moves: What’s on the Horizon?
Microsoft has just introduced—Copilot Pages—a new feature designed to facilitate collaborative work between humans and artificial intelligence within its Office applications.
1. Copilot Pages
Copilot Pages allows users to pull responses from Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot into a shared page where team members can collaborate and edit content together. It takes “ephemeral AI-generated content” and makes it durable to edit, add, and share it with others.
Sharing Copilot Pages is easy—send a link, and colleagues can collaborate immediately, much like a shared Word document. Additionally, these pages can be embedded into other documents as components.
Copilot Pages can also be embedded into other documents and are compatible with Microsoft’s BizChat, which acts as a central hub for integrating data from the web or internal files for various projects.
This tool builds on Microsoft’s previous collaborative tool, Loop, and is available to over 400 million users with a business Microsoft Entra account. This launch is part of Microsoft’s broader initiative to enhance AI tools across its Office applications.
2. Copilot Extends Across Microsoft 365 Apps
Microsoft has expanded Copilot’s integration across its Microsoft 365 suite, embedding the AI tool into applications like Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, OneDrive, and Teams. Copilot brings a broad range of features to these apps, enhancing productivity and streamlining tasks.
- Excel: Users can now use Python for advanced analysis, generate formulas, and create data visualizations.
- PowerPoint: Using prompts, the Narrative Builder function facilitates the creation of presentation outlines.
- Teams: Copilot now provides a summary of conversations and meetings.
- Outlook: Copilot highlights important emails, organizes your inbox, and generates summaries.
- Word: Collaborate with Copilot to reference data from several sources and complete document sections.
- OneDrive: Quickly find files, generate summaries, and compare them without opening them.
3. Copilot Agents & Builder
Microsoft has introduced Copilot agents to automate email monitoring and data entry tasks.
Copilot agents, first announced in May and now available through Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat (BizChat), are customizable and can be adapted to meet specific needs, offering varying levels of complexity depending on the use case.
“Agents are AI assistants designed to automate and execute business processes, working with or for humans.,” said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president at Microsoft.
“Now anyone can quickly create a Copilot agent right in BizChat or SharePoint, unlocking the value of the vast knowledge repository stored in your SharePoint files,” Spataro said.
Users can customize these agents for specific needs and deploy them across various platforms, including Microsoft Teams, websites, and customer engagement channels.
The Copilot agents and Agent Builder in BizChat are now available, with the SharePoint version entering public preview in early October. Microsoft notes that these agents are designed to be “simple and secure to manage,” following responsible AI practices. All data accessed by the AI tools stays within the Microsoft 365 trust boundary, ensuring security.
Pre-built agents, like the Visual Creator, enable users to design images and will soon include video support, further solidifying Microsoft’s position in the AI market.
In addition to the collaboration tools, Microsoft has launched new enhancements across its 365 suite, including updates to key apps like Excel. One of the standout features is Python integration, allowing users with no coding expertise to handle complex tasks like forecasting, risk assessments, and even machine learning. These advanced functions are powered by natural language prompts, making data analysis more accessible. This new feature is currently available for public testing.
“We’ll continue to rapidly bring all the latest models to Copilot and rapidly improve the product based on your input, adding new capabilities and new models, including OpenAI o1 with advanced reasoning,” Spataro added.
See More: OpenAI’s ‘Strawberry’ Set to Redefine AI Capabilities
Key Highlights
- Streamlined Workflows: Microsoft has rolled out new features, such as advanced text prediction in Word, personalized insights in Excel, and improved meeting summaries in Teams.
- Copilot as Your AI Partner: The Copilot AI assistant integrates smoothly across Microsoft 365 apps, offering real-time suggestions, automating routine tasks, and helping with content creation, data analysis, and presentations.
- “Together Mode” in Teams: This feature creates a more immersive meeting experience by placing participants in a shared virtual space.
- Copilot Agents: Virtual assistants that automate tasks, monitor your inbox, and perform various actions based on your needs.
- A New Collaboration Canvas: Copilot Pages allows users to work with AI to edit, add to, and share content with your team.
Customer Success Stories
In the past 18 months, Microsoft shared that Copilot has become a vital tool for many, speeding up task completion, making meetings more focused, improving collaboration, and streamlining business processes. Copilot customers have grown by over 60% each quarter, and daily use at work has doubled.
Recent Highlights:
- Vodafone: Invested in Copilot for 68,000 employees.
- Amgen: Uses Copilot to accelerate research on rare diseases.
- Teladoc: Customer service agents can save up to five hours a week by using Copilot to draft responses to common questions.
- Finastra: Marketing teams complete content projects 75% faster with Copilot.
- Honeywell: Copilot users save an average of 92 minutes per week, totaling 74 hours annually.
AI is Here to Expand Businesses!
The introduction of Copilot Pages and Copilot agents is part of Microsoft’s ongoing effort to integrate AI into everyday workflows.
These tools aim to streamline processes across various industries.
As more businesses adopt these AI-driven solutions, Microsoft continues to refine and expand its capabilities, positioning Copilot as a central tool for improving productivity.
Co-founder and Chief growth officer