In its push towards AI early this year, Microsoft has officially rebranded Bing Chat into Copilot. The Copilot rebranding applies to all of Microsoft’s ChatGPT-like interfaces for Bing, Edge, and Windows 11.
Microsoft’s decision to push for Copilot branding comes at a time when OpenAI revealed that over 100 million people use ChatGPT on a weekly basis. The scope of Copilot is massive: aside from the one you have in the current version of Windows 11 (which is currently in preview mode as of writing this article), there are other versions that include Copilot for Microsoft 365, a web-based version (which is formerly Bing Chat), and an enterprise version that caters to the needs of various businesses.
During our media session with Microsoft Philippines, we were told that Copilot’s prompt-based generative AI interface is set to be the next evolution of search engines, where users get better results based on the prompts they give to Copilot.
We were given a demonstration of what Microsoft 365 Copilot can do, and we were blown: as long as you give the right prompts, it can generate things like summarized reports, briefing decks, a list of video shooting ideas, and even cohesive press releases. Microsoft Philippines Communications head Josh Aquino explained to us that Copilot wants to differentiate itself from ChatGPT (which uses Microsoft Azure) by simplifying the workflow of businesses. Some of the examples Aquino gave us during the media briefing include shortening the timeline for producing video campaigns, where Copilot helps users in generating ideas for scripts, storyboarding, and how to do the actual video production efficiently.
The rise of generative AI has sparked concerns on whether it will replace people’s jobs, but Aquino says otherwise: according to IDC’s The Business Opportunity of AI, every $1 spent on AI has generated 3.5x ROI, with organizations getting their returns in 14 months–without the need to reduce manpower. This is what Microsoft wants to achieve with Copilot: equipping people with an extra set of tools to make them more productive and more efficient with their work.
There’s no denying at Copilot competing against ChatGPT, but our early impressions shows that Microsoft’s generative AI assistant has its own pros and cons–and that there’s still room for improvement before they will make Copilot 365 available to consumers by 2024.