Copilot update: New AI functions

Everywhere you look, countless news items about artificial intelligence appear every day. The hype continues unabated. Since we reported last year about Microsoft's Copilot last yeara lot has happened. Not only has the AI assistant been available to all users with a Microsoft license since February. A look at Microsoft Roadmap shows that many new functions have also been added. We provide an overview.

Mistral AI and Azure

The latest scoop: Microsoft is expanding its commitment to AI research by investing 15 million euros in the French start-up Mistral AI. This partnership aims to further drive AI innovation and integrate Mistral AI's language model, Mistral Large, on Microsoft Azure. Mistral Large is a versatile model that is able to process multiple documents in a single pass while supporting multiple languages.

Copilot and OneDrive

Copilot functions will be available in OneDrive from the end of April. The tool can find and summarize files and extract information from a variety of file formats. users can instruct Copilot to customize summaries according to their wishes, for example to include only essential information or highlights from a specific section.

The AI assistant will be able to respond to natural voice commands and answer specific questions about the content of the files. Copilot in OneDrive will be accessible in the web version of OneDrive as well as in the file viewers of Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint.

Copilot for Finance

A new add-on for Microsoft 365 designed to support finance teams is "Copilot for Finance". This tool complements existing Copilot offerings and can streamline financial tasks, automate workflows and improve insights into financial processes.

Copilot for Finance integrates with applications such as Excel and Outlook and uses existing financial data sources to enable professionals to work more effectively to make decisions. For example, by performing variance analysis in Excel using natural language prompts.

Copilot for Service

In addition to the functions that Copilot offers for Dynamics 365 Customer Services, Copilot for Service is now designed to connect data sources with existing CRM systems without replacing them. It integrates Microsoft 365 with external systems such as Salesforce and Zendesk in order to process customer inquiries efficiently.

Copilot Studio can be used to create custom bots that respond to specific requests and can be integrated into Copilot for Service. New features that are still in the preview phase: Draft reply emails, summaries for emails, support cases and Teams meetings.

GitHub Copilot Enterprise

Microsoft subsidiary GitHub has also launched GitHub Copilot Enterprise, an AI-based programming assistant specifically for companies. This service uses a company's code base and internal documents to help developers familiarize themselves with company-specific best practices and automate everyday tasks such as writing pull requests.

Copilot Enterprise also integrates a Bing search to provide up-to-date information. It also enables fine-tuning of the AI model with the company's own repositories.

Copilot apps and designers

Last year, Microsoft presented the Copilot app for iOS and Android as well as iPadOS. Now they are being expanded with new design-oriented functions. An improved AI model called Deucalion ensures a better overall look and feel - with clear answers and a carousel display for input suggestions.

The app offers features similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, including the ability to draft emails, summarize complex texts and create personalized itineraries. The app also offers an "Image Creator" function, powered by DALL-E 3, to explore new styles and ideas.

English-speaking users of Copilot can edit images directly in a chat. For example, they can recolor an element, change the depth of field of an image or even change the style in pixel art. Copilot Pro subscribers have the option to change the image format or have it recreated. Designer GPT will soon be added to Copilot to allow even more design freedom.

Be prepared with skill IT

With our extensive Microsoft course program, you can deepen your knowledge and develop your career. Whether you want to familiarize yourself with the latest developments in cloud technology, AI or other key areas of Microsoft. Our "Microsoft Dynamics 365"-course prepares you for the new AI functions with the basics of CRM and ERP solutions.