Microsoft has announced a new series of updates for its artificial intelligence assistant, Copilot, integrated into Microsoft 365. This “second wave” of innovations promises to transform the way people work and collaborate in the digital environment.
Copilot Pages: A new way of collaboration
One of the most prominent novelties is Copilot Pages, described by the company as “the first new digital artifact for the AI era.” It is a dynamic and persistent canvas designed for multi-person collaboration with AI assistance. This tool allows AI-generated content to be turned into something durable, editable, and shareable, fostering a new pattern of collaborative work between humans and AI.
Improvements in Microsoft 365 applications
Excel with Python Microsoft has announced the general availability of Copilot in Excel, with new capabilities including support for more formulas and the ability to work with non-tabular data. Additionally, Copilot in Excel with Python is introduced, enabling advanced analysis such as forecasts and machine learning using natural language, without the need for programming knowledge.
Smarter PowerPoint Copilot in PowerPoint now offers a “narrative builder” that helps create presentation drafts in minutes, keeping the user in control of the creative process. Soon, it will also be able to incorporate approved corporate images from SharePoint.
Optimized Teams and Outlook In Teams, Copilot can now analyze both meeting transcription and chat to provide a comprehensive summary. In Outlook, the new “Prioritize my inbox” feature helps users focus on the most important messages, automatically generating concise summaries of each email.
Copilot Agents: Automation at scale
Microsoft introduces Copilot agents, AI assistants designed to automate and execute business processes. These agents can range from simple responses to instructions to fully autonomous tasks. To facilitate their creation, the “agent builder” is launched, a streamlined experience that allows any user to quickly create a Copilot agent.
Impact on businesses
Several companies are already experiencing significant benefits with Copilot. For example, Vodafone has invested in Copilot for 68,000 employees, while at Honeywell, Copilot users saved an average of 92 minutes per week, equivalent to 74 hours in a year of use.
Future outlook
Microsoft anticipates that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Copilot innovations. In the next two months, the company promises to share more information on how Copilot is driving productivity and accelerating business value for all its customers.