Unlike traditional AI, Generative AI-powered AI chatbots are ideal tools to help complete professional and daily tasks. You can use AI-powered chatbots as personal assistants/copilots or as enterprise copilots. You can lighten your workload by using AI chatbots as your assistants or boost your company's overall efficiency by using them as enterprise copilots. Although some AI chatbots function as personal assistants, some are designed as enterprise copilots. Microsoft has developed a copilot that will reduce the daily workload of individual users and boost their productivity.

In this article, we will explore what Microsoft Copilot is and its features.

Ready? Let's dive in!

TL; DR

  • Microsoft Copilot is an AI assistant designed to reduce the workload of individual users and improve their AI experience.
  • To access Microsoft Copilot, download it from the Microsoft store.
  • You do not need to pay any fee to use and experience Microsoft Copilot.
  • Microsoft Copilot can access online data using the Bing search engine and use it to generate output.
  • Microsoft Copilot offers DALL-E 3 powered AI art generation feature.
  • You can complete your textual tasks with Microsoft Copilot and expand its use cases with plugins.
  • If you are looking for a better AI copilot than Microsoft Copilot, TextCortex is designed for you with its customizable AI features.

What is Microsoft Copilot?

Just as we woke up one morning and saw Microsoft Bing in the menu of our Windows operating system, this time we encountered Microsoft Copilot. Although Microsoft Copilot is added to the taskbar of Windows 11 users by default, it is possible to remove it. Microsoft Copilot is a personal assistant that uses Microsoft Bing AI and offers generative AI features.

How Does Microsoft Copilot Work?

Microsoft Copilot uses the GPT-4 large language model developed by OpenAI to generate output for users' queries. Since the GPT-4 model is trained with a large amount of data, it can understand the input in any language and generate accurate outputs. Moreover, Microsoft Copilot can generate visual outputs thanks to DALL-E 3, also developed by OpenAI.

How to Access Microsoft Copilot?

If you are a Windows 11 user, Microsoft Copilot (preview) has already been added to your taskbar. By clicking on the Microsoft Copilot icon in your taskbar, you can open it and complete basic Windows tasks such as "take a screenshot" in writing or experience a conversation with the GPT-4 powered AI chatbot.

microsoft copilot review

If you are not a Windows 11 user, you can download Microsoft Copilot from the "Microsoft Store" to access it. Although Microsoft Copilot has a simple screen as an application, it offers various AI features such as text generation, image creation, and web search. You can also install the Microsoft Copilot application on your mobile device.

how to access microsoft copilot

Microsoft Copilot Pricing

Copilot has three different price tiers. First one is the free version. You can use it for free and access many of its features without any charges. 

Copilot Pro offers faster responses during peak times, ability to use Copilot in select 365 apps and faster image generation for $20 USD/month. 

On the other hand if you are considering to deploy Copilot for Microsoft 365, your enterprise have to pay $30 USD/per user in addition to your regular Microsoft 365 Business licence with a 12-month commitment.

microsoft copilot pricing

Microsoft Copilot Features

Microsoft Copilot is an AI assistant that offers basic AI features to its users. In other words, you can generate text, paraphrase your existing texts, translate them into another language or generate images using Microsoft Copilot. Let's take a closer look at the features of Microsoft Copilot.

Web Access

The feature that makes Microsoft Copilot stand out and distinguishes it from most AI copilots on the market is its web access. Microsoft Copilot uses online data via the Microsoft Bing browser to generate output. In other words, Microsoft Copilot always follows current topics and trends and generates output using them.

Thanks to Microsoft Copilot's web access feature, you can complete your web-related tasks such as keywords, research, and social media captions with high efficiency. Moreover, you can generate results on any topic without having to visit dozens of websites and see ads to access online data.

Designer (Formerly Bing Image Creator)

Another feature that Microsoft Copilot offers to its users is AI art generation. Microsoft Copilot uses the DALL-E 3 model developed by OpenAI to generate AI art. To generate AI art via Microsoft Copilot, all you have to do is write a prompt. Afterwards, Microsoft Copilot will analyse the given prompt and generate an output using the DALL-E 3 model. If you are not satisfied with the images generated by Microsoft Copilot, you can diversify the outputs by continually prompting.

A screenshot of a computerDescription automatically generated

Natural Language Capabilities

Microsoft Copilot uses the GPT-4 model, which works with natural language processing, to generate output and understand users' input. For this reason, you can use Microsoft Copilot to complete natural language tasks such as generating articles, emails, and product descriptions or rewrite your existing texts. In addition to text generation, you can also complete natural language tasks such as translation, text expansion and summarization via Microsoft Copilot.

A screenshot of a computerDescription automatically generated

Microsoft Copilot Plugins

In addition to various AI features, Microsoft Copilot also offers plugins that will increase the quality of life. By activating these plugins, you can add new features to your Microsoft Copilot and enhance your usage. For example, you can adjust your holiday or travel plan with an AI assistant powered by downloading “Kayak” among Microsoft Copilot plugins. Plugins offered by Microsoft Copilot include:

  • Search
  • Instacart
  • Skiing
  • Klarna
  • OpenTable
  • Phone
  • Shop
  • Suno

Each plugin adds different features to Microsoft Copilot, and some are only available in limited regions.

A Better Alternative: TextCortex

If you are looking for a customizable AI copilot that will support you in both your personal and professional tasks, TextCortex is designed for you.

As a sophisticated processing and orchestration engine, TextCortex combines the power of multiple LLMs, public search engine aggregation, and a powerful RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) infrastructure to understand the necessary context for your work and produce relevant, high-quality responses with the knowledge of your internal data. 

By providing a comprehensive set of references and sources alongside generated content, we enable our users to quickly verify the accuracy of the information. This system significantly enhances the user's ability to assess the reliability of answers, ensuring they are both relevant to their query and backed by credible sources.

TextCortex references

Our approach not only minimizes the risk of misinformation but also builds user confidence in the AI-generated outputs. By bridging the gap between AI capabilities and human expertise, we strive to create a more transparent and trustworthy AI experience, leaving minimal room for error and maximizing the value of our platform for all users.

See the results from one of our case studies:

  • TextCortex was implemented for Kemény Boehme Consultants as a solution to tackle these challenges and today employees report increased efficiency and productivity (saving 24 hours/month per employee on average).
  • AICX, an ecosystem partner of TextCortex, was integral to the onboarding and helped achieve a 70% activation rate of the team within the first weeks.
  • Employee confidence in using and working with AI increased by 60%.‍
  • The implementation results in a 28x return on investment (ROI).