Microsoft’s generative AI assistant, Bing Chat, is undergoing a rebranding and transitioning to a new name, “Copilot,” in an effort to create a consistent identity across its products. This change will also apply to Bing Chat Enterprise, which will be rebranded as Copilot as well. The new version of Copilot will be generally available starting on December 1, and it will continue to be free for specific Microsoft 365 licenses, including F3 accounts for frontline workers. Additionally, a $5-a-month standalone subscription will be available on that day.
Copilot is built on OpenAI’s latest models, GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. Microsoft has emphasized that the assistant will not save prompts and responses, and the company will not have access to the interactions that occur within Copilot. Furthermore, Microsoft will not use customers’ chats to further train the underlying models.
In addition to the rebranding, Microsoft also announced that Copilot for Microsoft 365 will offer more personalization options. Users will have the ability to set their preferred formatting, style, and tone, starting with Word and PowerPoint, and later extending to other apps.
Teams, Microsoft’s collaborative communication platform, will also see enhancements to Copilot. The AI assistant will soon have the ability to take notes throughout the meeting, with users being able to specify information to include in the notes. Copilot will also be capable of providing real-time answers during meetings without enabling transcription, as well as visualizing Teams discussions in a collaborative space in Whiteboard.
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In Outlook, Copilot will be able to extract information from invitation details, related emails, and documents to generate summaries of events. This feature is expected to roll out in the spring of the following year. Additionally, a new feature coming soon to Word will allow users to easily track changes to a document by asking Copilot specific questions. In PowerPoint, users will be able to leverage AI-generated visuals to reimagine corporate brand assets.
These announcements were made at Microsoft’s Ignite AI event, which also introduced the company’s two new in-house AI chips: the Azure Maia AI Accelerator and Azure Cobalt CPU.
It should be noted that an update on November 15, 2023, clarified that all of Microsoft’s offerings will be referred to as Copilot, replacing the previously mentioned “Copilot Pro” designation.
Overall, the rebranding of Bing Chat to Copilot, along with the introduction of new features and capabilities, represents Microsoft’s commitment to leveraging advanced AI technology to enhance its suite of productivity tools and provide a more personalized and intuitive user experience. The transition to Copilot signifies a major step forward in Microsoft’s AI strategy, as the company continues to innovate and expand the capabilities of its digital assistant across various Microsoft products and platforms.
