The ‘next wave’ of Microsoft’s Copilot AI is here

Microsoft (MSFT) has released “the next wave” of its Copilot artificial intelligence tools in its suite of work apps.

New AI-powered features include Business Chat, which databases web data, work data, and business data into a new tool called Copilot Pages, where human and AI-generated data can be edited, added to, and shared between work teams. Microsoft also launched Copilot in Excel with Python, making it possible to use the programming language to work with data in Excel with natural language, not coding.

The newly launched version of Copilot also includes AI-enabled features for Powerpoint, Outlook, Word, OneDrive, and Teams, which Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has said he uses “a lot.”

Microsoft also introduced Copilot agents, or AI assistants, that can be used to automate certain business tasks. Copilot agents are like other AI assistants which “range in capability from simple, prompt-and-response agents to agents that replace repetitive tasks to more advanced, fully autonomous agents,” Microsoft said. And Copilot agents are equipped with the company’s Responsible AI, so data doesn’t leave Microsoft 365’s “trust boundary,” according to the company. Microsoft also has an agent builder, which allows users to create their own Copilot agent.

Since Copilot was made generally available, Microsoft said it has received feedback from nearly 1,000 customers, and the company has shipped over 150 features and capabilities. And Copilot is now powered with OpenAI’s GPT-4o, according to Microsoft, which has “dramatically improved performance.”

In March, it was reported that some Microsoft customers were complaining that Copilot was falling short of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

“Every time a customer starts using it, they start comparing it to ChatGPT and saying, ‘Aren’t you guys using the same technology?’” an unnamed Microsoft employee with knowledge of customer feedback told Business Insider.

However, employees said Microsoft 365 Copilot had mostly positive feedback, but some customers using older versions of Microsoft’s suite of business tools were expecting the more advanced Copilot to work with it, leading to the unfavorable comparisons with ChatGPT.

In November, Microsoft made Microsoft 365 Copilot available for companies to buy.