OpenAI released the most recent version of the GPT-4 language model, and two days later, Microsoft announced Microsoft 365 Copilot – with generative AI capabilities for Office products.
Microsoft demonstrated that AI can process various requests in a matter of seconds, while a human takes half an hour or more to do this.
Technology was able to send an Outlook email to invite friends to a high school prom. Copilot then created a PowerPoint presentation of the high school student, taking photographs from his OneDrive account.
Microsoft provided an example of a Microsoft Graph feature that creates a business proposal for the user in Word; adds a brief summary at the beginning; and then converts the sentence into a PowerPoint presentation.
Microsoft Graph allows programs to "see" your emails, calendar, documents, and other data stored in the Microsoft cloud — Outlook.com, OneDrive, Office 365, Teams, and more. This information becomes extremely valuable for the purposes of a generative AI tool, since it provides a foundation for content creation.
Copilot was able to analyze the data and give an overview of key trends in Excel. It can also create additional graphics highlighting different business scenarios. In Teams, the system will attend the meeting for you, creating a transcript and notes of key points. Subsequently, Copilot can ask questions for further information.
Microsoft plans to provide the software to a "small number of customers" (that's 20 companies) initially, and then extend it to a wider audience in the coming months.
