ChatGPT in Microsoft 365 is a game changer - meet Copilot

This is your captain speaking…

Please fasten your seatbelts.

Put your seat and table trays in the upright position.

Secure all baggage underneath your seat or in the overhead compartments.

Get ready for the all-new, all-sexy Copilot…

Today's headlines

• Microsoft 365 Copilot is a game-changer!

• What is Microsoft 365 anyways?

• What is Copilot, and how does it work?

• Copilot and Word

• Copilot and Excel

• Copilot and Powerpoint

• Copilot and Outlook

• Copilot and Teams

• Copilot enterprise level

• Copilot for security

• Copilot implications

• Quicklinks - interesting AI news

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a game-changer!

It's been a crazy few weeks, not to mention a crazy 4 months, since the AI arms race began.

Once again, Microsoft is the cream of the crops, top of the pops!

Despite Google beating Microsoft in announcing AI into their productivity tools (Workspace), as usual, Microsoft is the one that takes the limelight.

And rightly so…

Despite only a select few having access to the all-new Microsoft 365, as it is now called, it is clear that this will change everything!

Let’s dissect what Microsoft 365 and their sexy ChatGPT “lookalike” can do for you.

What is Microsoft 365 anyways?

Office 365 has rebranded to Microsoft 365.

It is the same product as before (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.), but will very soon get the ChatGPT functionalities everyone is buzzing about.

And the baby’s name is Copilot.

What is Copilot, and how does it work?

Microsoft calls it “your copilot for work.”

It signifies that you are in charge, but it is there to assist you.

And that is exactly what AI is - and should be.

An assistant.

An assistant that helps you work better, whatever that means to each of us.

And that is precisely what Microsoft 365 Copilot is.

You and AI are working together in perfect harmony.

Copilot combines the power of AI with your data (Microsoft Graph) and natural language (your prompts) to make it the most powerful productivity tool ever.

In short, from your prompt, it can create text, reports, graphs, find trends, send emails, make meeting notes, create follow-ups and to-do’s, and most importantly, combine it all.

Isn’t that crazy???

My brain right now:

Copilot in Word

Microsoft talks about unleashing your creativity with AI.

When you want to write a blog post or an article or anything really, all you have to do is launch Copilot by pressing the Copilot button.

Then your prompt window will open in your document, and you can simply tell the AI what you want to create.

And then, it becomes an iterative process where you can add or remove, ask it to do it again, make it shorter, longer, more formal, more fun, etc.

And another really fantastic thing is that you can ask the AI to add content or find inspiration from stuff you have already prepared or written.

Notice the “attachment” option at the bottom.

This is crazy!

We do not have this in ChatGPT - at least not for now.

It is revolutionary that you can generate new content drawing from multiple sources seamlessly.

As a marketeer and a business person, I have a lot of notes lying around.

It can be anything from a business journal to swipe files from cool Google ads I have seen to excellent copywriting in emails or sales letters.

With Microsoft 365 Copilot, I can basically link one or more documents with notes/swipes and say, “help me create an email outreach campaign using writing styles and ideas from the attached file.”

Voila!

It will give me a first draft.

Then I can iterate.

What if I have some awesome screenshots of customer testimonials?

Attach it from the prompt and let the AI find the one that fits best (don’t forget, the AI will be able to read and understand images).

Want some cool graphs?

No problem.

Copilot got you!

I realize that this sounds like an ad for Copilot and Microsoft.

But it is not.

This revolutionary technology will be integrated into a productivity tool that will elevate your work and productivity.

And the craziest thing is that it comes inside the tool you are already using (most likely).

There is no extra cost.

There are no extra subscriptions needed.

Or higher-tier plans.

It comes inside the Office product you already have.

The only difference is that it is called Microsoft 365.

Copilot in Excel

In many ways, I am the most excited about Copilot in Excel.

Excel is not my strong suit, and I sometimes find it overwhelming.

Not that I use it a lot, but I understand its power.

Now Copilot can help me understand the data better.

It can help with anything from basic formulas to finding trends in the data.

Copilot lives in the chat window on the right side of the screen.

And it can create new tables or graphs according to your data.

In my case, often, I am not sure what graph is the most suitable for the data I have.

Now, this is a problem of the past.

But Copilot is also a patient teacher.

If I do not understand what it did, it can explain it to me.

So it facilitates learning and understanding.

And better yet, the data it pulls out of the data sets goes into a “sandbox”, meaning you can play with the data in the sandbox without ruining the original dataset.

(Although, I am sure I will manage to break it).

But you can, as with ChatGPT, hold a conversation with Copilot.

And having that option inside your files is a brand new world.

Ask the AI questions like “what would happen if X was 5% more” or “what would the results have been had we achieved our projected sales in Q2”.

It is easy to see how one can get lost in this and ask many “what if” questions.

But what you have here is powerful business intelligence inside your spreadsheet tool.

Disruptive much?

Copilot in Powerpoint

Copilot inside Powerpoint will create a whole lot of impressive-looking slides, that’s for sure…

Via the prompt, you ask Powerpoint to create a slide deck for X.

You can add data from Excel via the attachment option or pictures, videos, or other files.

And then, you can adjust the style of the PowerPoint you are creating.

Is it fun (my kind), colorful, professional (definitely not me), minimalist, sentimental, or festive?

And then simply ask Copilot to do its thing.

In a manner of seconds, you have a draft.

Next, the iterative process begins.

I will be the first to say that my PowerPoint presentations are unimpressive, heavily templated, and will never win any awards.

And what I lack in design skills, I try to make up with Memes…

And lastly, going back to it being a “teacher” of sorts.

Copilot can also write your speaker notes, making you an even better presenter.

How cool is that?

Copilot in Outlook

Copilot inside Outlook is another excellent feature.

I spend a lot of time writing emails.

I am “famous” for my long emails...

Makes sense now, right?

I could never do a short AI newsletter.

It had to be long. It had to!

I am a bit of a sadist that way…

But don’t worry; Copilot will not write this newsletter.

It will, however, save me lots of time with other emails.

The process in Outlook is pretty much the same as with the other programs.

You start a draft and iterate until you get it how you want it to be (you can add your own words also - you should, to be honest…).

But one thing that I think is really powerful with Copilot inside Outlook is that you can ask it to summarize your emails and conversations.

One-click and boom!

Do you do a lot of emails on your phone?

I do!

But writing on that small screen with my fat fingers is a bit of a challenge.

And long form is out of the question…

Having Copilot inside my Outlook iOS app will be a game changer!

And imagine having your emails drafted in a second, then being able to add graphs from excel that you can ask the AI to run through and more.

Instead of creating short emails on the go, you can now reply and have all kinds of data, images, graphs, etc., included at a touch of a button!

Copilot in Teams

Who doesn’t love online meetings…

Zoom, Teams, Hangouts, Meet, and more.

Imagine having Copilot get your data from One Drive in real-time, present them nicely inside the meeting, then create transcripts, follow-up points, to-do lists, and a summary with action points. Then, if needed, schedule follow-up meetings with the talking points and more.

No more “Who’s going to write the meeting minutes today”?

Copilot enterprise level

Microsoft is a massive business because of its enterprise customers.

Sure, most people have Office on their private computers as well.

But imagine the power Microsoft unleashes when they build Copilot at an enterprise level.

And that is precisely what is happening.

The key to unlocking enterprise-scale productivity is to connect the AI with your business data and train in on the enterprise.

Enterprises will get their “own” AI - their own “ChatGPT” (or, I guess, Copilot).

Obviously, there are security and privacy issues to be addressed, but they are being built into the tools.

AI on an enterprise level is a whole other beast which I will not tackle here.

Just know that it is coming.

So if you run a large enterprise or work in one, you will soon have superpowers.

Copilot for security

Tuesday this week, Microsoft announced Security Copilot.

Security Copilot is a security analysis tool that enables cybersecurity analysts to quickly respond to threats, process signals, and assess risk exposure.

It is connected to other Microsoft products like Sentinel, Defente, and Intune to help security teams.

This was just announced, and as far as I understand it, it is not a part of Microsoft 365.

So it may not be relevant to this article.

However, it shows that Microsoft is going heavy on the “Copilot” brand as an assistant for anything using GPT4/AI.

And using AI with a security tool makes total sense. It is fast, accurate, can quickly chew through a lot of data, and can make advanced analyses in seconds.

You can read more here if interested.

Copilot implications

Prompting will become a skill we cannot live without very soon.

Understanding how one can prompt to get the maximum benefit from the various generative AIs becomes key.

But let’s look at what is really happening here…

Microsoft 365 is a suite of productivity tools.

It was quite revolutionary in its day when we got Word, Excel, and Powerpoint (and the computer in general).

It has laminated Microsofts position as one of the most successful companies in the world and made Bill Gates the wealthiest man on the planet.

But what happens when the tools we use turn us into productivity beasts?

That’s what happened when robots got introduced into factories.

They offered efficiencies and could work 24/7 without a salary, with precision, and without any unions to worry about.

I think what will happen now is somewhat comparable.

Not that people get replaced entirely, or we will work 24/7.

But the efficiencies will mean fewer people will be needed to perform the same tasks as today.

Maybe they will not be fired, but the business can grow without hiring more people.

One metric that will be interesting to pay attention to is “profit per head.”

I guess that Copilot will increase profit for growing businesses.

If the business is stagnant, this increased productivity will eventually mean people lose their jobs…

[I am planning to write about jobs being replaced by AI in an upcoming issue, probably in mid/late April].

As an entrepreneur, all this productivity excites me!

But I run a small business.

We are only 3 people (soon 4).

I already see huge gains due to ChatGPT alone.

But if I was an employee in a large company, I might not be so excited about Copilot…

If I were an AI entrepreneur with an AI product, I would be petrified by now...

Especially if my product creates 1) text, 2) slides, 3) formulation in Excel/Sheets, and 4) helps in Gmail/Outlook/email.

Microsoft and Google are working on including AI tools in their productivity suites.

When we all have access to one of the most powerful AIs in the world, why would you ever pay for a tool that does the same as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace does for you for free?

Jasper AI raised $125 million dollar at a $1.5 billion valuation in October 2022.

One month later, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, and shortly after, Microsoft bought 49% of OpenAI.

And the rest is history…

I wonder if Jasper AI is still a unicorn.

What about all the other small clones and “me too” AI writing tools?

I think they are all dead in the water!

I would be pissing my pants if I were an owner or investor.

I also wonder if Dropbox is going to be hurt by this AI race.

I love Dropbox and have been using it since its early days.

I cannot imagine switching.

However, I use Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace (one in each business), so I have both One Drive and Google Drive (but don’t use any of them).

Will Copilot work with Dropbox?

Will Bard work with Dropbox?

Will I lose essential functionality using Dropbox vs. One Drive or Google Drive?

If Microsoft and Google keep Dropbox out, I will start migrating my stuff to those services and cancel Dropbox pretty quickly…

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Where do you stand on all this?

What do you think about Copilot?

Let me know by replying to this email!

Quick links - interesting AI news

• Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and a group of AI experts and industry executives call for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than GPT-4 in an open letter citing potential risks to society.

• The open letter the article about talks about (I signed, maybe you should too?). 

• Adobe launched enterprise-focused AI tools across its productivity apps called Firefly. 

• Goldman Sachs report says generative AI could affect as many as 300 million full-time jobs.

That’s all for today!

If you have been with me since the beginning, you may have noticed that the form factor of the newsletter is changing.

And you would be right…

I am starting to find a form that I am happy about.

What do you think?

Is this a good way to do it?

Or do you want 10 topics in each newsletter…

Reply to this email and let me know your thoughts.

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If you have any questions about AI or any feedback, just hit reply or tweet me @thomassorheim 

AI’ll be back!

Thomas

PS!
Why did Microsoft make a great comedian?

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.

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Because it always found the right "Excel"eration for a punchline!

This is not the end. It is where the fun begins!