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Microsoft launches Copilot Pro, a $20 subscription with advanced AI features for individuals by Taras Buria Microsoft has officially unveiled Copilot Pro—a subscription service targeting individual consumers to give them more advanced AI capabilities and "supercharge their Copilot experience." Copilot has been a free service for regular users so far, but now Microsoft is ready to step it up and offer a paid tier with more features. Copilot Pro is now available for $20 per month for one user. For that price, customers get access to Copilot in Office applications, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote on Windows, macOS, and iPad (currently in preview with English being the only supported language, plus you need an active Microsoft 365 subscription). You can type your request directly in the app you need, plus get additional features, such as email summary, etc. The subscription also gives you priority access to the latest models, starting with OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo, which ensures fast performance during peak hours and gives you the option to toggle between different models to optimize your experience and interaction with the service. Copilot Pro offers a few extra perks for image generation via Designed (also known as Bing Image Creator). You get 100 boosts per day for faster generation, more detailed outputs, and landscape mode support. Finally, Copilot Pro will soon let you build a custom Copilot GPT tailored to your specific need or topic. This feature is coming soon in Copilot GPT Builder. However, Microsoft is rolling out an initial set of Copilot GPTs with a focus on particular purposes, such as cooking, travel, fitness, and more. All Copilot users can access Copilot GPTs, while Pro subscribers will soon be able to create their own using simple prompts. In addition to Copilot Pro, Microsoft formally announced Copilot apps for iOS and Android, plus expanded Copilot for Microsoft 365 availability to small and medium-sized businesses, eliminating the minimum seat requirement for commercial plans.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available for all businesses, large and small by John Callaham In November 2023, Microsoft officially launched Copilot for Microsoft 365 Enterprise customers, specifically for large companies that had signed up for Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 enterprise plans. The cost to access the Copilot generative AI features was set up as $30 a month per person. Today, Microsoft announced an expansion of that effort. Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available for all businesses, both big and small. Now, customers with Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Business Standard plans can add Copilot and all of its features and uses. Like the Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans, the smaller Business Premium and Business Standard plans are $30 a month per person. Not only is the service expanding to more businesses, but Microsoft is also ditching the previous 300-seat minimum to get Copilot added to a Microsoft 365 business subscription. Now, there is no minimal seat amount needed, which means a single person who runs a business on their own can add Copilot with just one seat required. If any customers are still on the older Office 365 E3 and E5 plans, they can also access Copilot for the first time without the need to have a Microsoft 365 account. Finally, any commercial business customers can go through the many different Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider partners to subscribe to Copilot for Microsoft 365. Microsoft also offered up an update on Copilot for Microsoft 365 since it launched in November. Since it became generally available in late 2023, the list of companies that use the service has expanded to include Visa, BP, Honda, Pfizer, Accenture, KPMG, and PwC. These new announcements come on the same day as Microsoft's reveal of Copilot Pro. It will give individuals more features and more powerful access to the Copilot AI compared to the current free version for the cost of $20 a month.

Microsoft will soon let people make their own Copilot chatbots similar to OpenAI's GPTs by John Callaham In November 2023, OpenAI announced plans to release GPTs, custom chatbots based on the company's ChatGPT. Today, Microsoft announced its own plans to offer custom AI chatbots tailored to specific needs and topics. As part of today's many Copilot announcements, including Copilot Pro and the expansion of Copilot for Microsoft 365, the company also announced Copilot GPTs. Like OpenAI's GPTs, Copilot GPTs will allow users to "customize the behavior of Microsoft Copilot on a topic that is of particular interest to you." Microsoft added that it will offer up a number of previously created custom Copilot GPTs starting today. They will be able to answer questions from users on topics like fitness, travel, and cooking. As part of the features that will be enabled for people who pay $20 a month to access the Copilot Pro service, those subscribers will be able to make their own custom Copilot GPTs. Microsoft plans to launch a new app called Copilot GPT Builder, which is made specifically for these kinds of tasks. So far, Microsoft has not revealed anything more about how Pro users will be able to make their own chatbots with Copilot GPT Builder, saying only, "Stay tuned for more on this experience as we get closer to availability." There's no word on what the app itself will be like, how easy or hard it will be to use, and what platform or platforms it will support. When OpenAI announced GPTs, it also revealed that users would be able to share their custom chatbots with the rest of the world via the GPT store. That store finally launched last week, and OpenAI indicated that later in the first quarter of 2024, creators of those custom chatbots would be able to get some revenue if people actually used their custom GPTs. Microsoft has yet to announce plans to offer a similar revenue path for custom Copilot GPTs.

Microsoft announces dedicated Copilot apps for iOS and Android by Taras Buria Microsoft has formally announced the recently spotted Copilot apps for Android and iOS. Copilot mobile apps are now official as a part of today's feature drop for Microsoft's AI-powered assistant. Microsoft says the new Copilot apps for iOS and Android give customers access to the power of Copilot on the go. You can sign in with your Microsoft account and sync chats across devices, continue conversations started earlier, and use most of Copilot's "magical capabilities" on a smaller screen. Supported features also include access to GPT-4, DALLE-3 image generator, and the ability to upload pictures from your phone into conversations with Copilot. Future additions and upgrades will be available on mobile as well. In addition to dedicated Copilot apps, Microsoft will soon launch an updated Microsoft 365 app with access to Copilot for individuals with Microsoft accounts, allowing you to interact with Copilot without leaving the app and exporting the content of your conversations into Word or PDF documents. However, if you want to use Copilot for drafting documents directly in Word or summarizing emails in Outlook, prepare to pay since those capabilities are part of Copilot Pro, a $20/mo subscription. Other Copilot-related announcements include updates for commercial users (no more minimum seat requirement), Copilot GPTs focusing on specific topics, and the upcoming ability to build your own Copilot GPT using a simple set of prompts. You can download the new Copilot app for Android from the Google Play Store. Those using iPhones and iPads can get the same app from the App Store using this link. The Microsoft 365 app is available here (Android) and here (iOS). Interestingly, Copilot is also available on mobile via the Microsoft Edge browser, which recently got the new "AI Browser" name. Now you have a new way to interact with Copilot without switching from Chrome, Safari, or other mobile browsers.

Microsoft wants you to use Copilot as soon as your widescreen PC starts by Taras Buria Microsoft is experimenting with forcing encouraging more Windows customers to use Copilot. The company is toying around with the idea of opening its AI-powered assistant whenever your computer turns on, saving you one taskbar click. Users spotted it several months ago, and now it is official. Microsoft announced the change in the release notes for build 23615, which shipped in the Dev Channel earlier this week. Shortly after that, Microsoft added more insights into it. There is still no information on what the logic behind the decision was (besides the obvious engagement-boosting). Still, at least it is limited to large displays with 27 inches in diagonal and a minimum width of 1920 pixels. More importantly, Copilot autostart is limited to multi-monitor setups only—you should not expect that thing to pop on your screen every time you power on the computer if you use only one display. Microsoft knows that such changes are likely to upset a few Windows users, so it provides the option to turn off Copilot autostart. Head to Settings > Personalization > Copilot in Windows and toggle off the "Open Copilot when Windows starts" option. It is worth reminding that changes and new features in Windows 11 preview builds are often experimental and temporary. Some of them will never see the light of day, so it is too early to tell whether Microsoft will ship Copilot autostart to all users. If you want or do not want that to happen, send your feedback to Microsoft using the Feedback Hub app. Here is what Microsoft said about that in the release notes for build 23615. We regularly try out different experiences with Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel that may not ever ship, and others could show up in future Windows releases when they’re ready. What do you think about Copilot autostart in Windows 11?

Copilot rebels rejoice: Microsoft says new key won't be part of Windows device certification by Sayan Sen The tech sphere is abuzz at the moment with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and all that it can do. Microsoft of course is no exception to that as it hasn't taken its foot off the gas when it comes to AI integration in its various products and services including Windows. Microsoft's AI products are generally under the banner name of Copilot, and the company has been trying very hard to build up the hype in order to convince the industry and people why it is such a great thing to have. Back in November, Microsoft published a blog post explaining how users really needed to have Copilot even though they may not have wanted it. This was only a month after Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella expressed how they felt about Copilot, and even likened it to the second coming of the Windows Start button in terms of its potential revolutionary impact. Taking inspiration from its own idea perhaps, Microsoft, this CES, introduced the new Copilot button on keyboards that will launch Copilot, similar to the Windows key that launches the Start menu. This key, the company says, will be on new laptops and desktop keyboards starting this January; the tech giant is clearly trying to replicate the success of the Start button with this move, while also stimulating new hardware sales for manufacturers who will have to bring to market a keyboard with the new key. In a statement to Dr. Windows, Microsoft has elaborated on the position of the key. The company said: The placement of the Copilot key varies depending on the manufacturer, but generally it is on the right side of the space bar opposite the WIN key. In some cases the key replaces the right CTRL key, on some larger keyboards there is space for both the right CTRL key and the Copilot key, and in other cases the Copilot key is combined with the “Menu” key (the Menu key is accessed secondary with the Fn key + Copilot key). And if you are one of the naysayers of this key, there is some good news for you too as the article further notes that the Copilot key is apparently not mandatory and hence won't be part of Windows device certification, at least not for the moment. Hence, if you don't want the Copilot key taking up any real estate space on your keyboard, you will still have the option to choose not to, although, on laptops and notebooks, this choice will likely become very limited as they are prebuilt and you will have to balance features and performance aspects of the device as well.

Microsoft teams up with Typeface to add AI features to Dynamics 365 Customer Insights by John Callaham Business marketing teams who want to come up with new campaigns will soon be able to use new AI features with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights platform, with some assistance from startup AI company Typeface. In a press release, Typeface announced it will be a part of the content creation features for a future version of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights. The platform will soon add Microsoft Copilot AI assistance features. Marketing teams can type in a campaign proposal using natural language or upload a previously created marketing brief. The platform will utilize Copilot to create a marketing board with information like "audience data, journey orchestration, and channels" for their proposed campaign. Microsoft stated that marketing teams can also use the board to check out "recommendations from Copilot for additional segments that may not have been previously considered." The Typeface's features then come into play. Marketing teams can use the them inside Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to access content for their campaigns, like images, fonts, themes, and more, from the company's library of assets. In Microsoft's own blog post about this new partnership, the company said: This is just the beginning; we will be delivering further content curation, journey testing, and metrics monitoring to optimize campaigns. Our vision is that, together, this new AI-first experience will transform how marketers work by reducing the complexities of end-to-end campaign management and enhancing marketer productivity and ROI. Current Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights customers will be able to access the new Copilot and Typeface AI features via an early access public preview that will begin sometime in the first quarter of 2024. Those customers can learn more about the public preview and sign up for that preview at Typface's site. The general availability of these AI features is expected sometime in the third quarter of 2024.

It looks like Microsoft will soon add AI writing assistance features to Notepad by John Callaham Microsoft has made it clear that the company is all in for generative AI, putting support for such features in as many apps and services as it can. Now it looks like not even one of Microsoft's oldest apps, Notepad, will be free of the AI influence. Noted Windows code enthusiast "PhantomOcean3" posted today on his X (formerly Twitter) account a screenshot of a new test version of the Windows 11 edition of Notepad, with the version number 11.2312.17.0. It shows a new menu selection called "Cowriter" with options like "Rewrite", "Make shorter", "Make longer", "Change tone", and "Change format". New Notepad feature soon™️ pic.twitter.com/yv6axwuG2e — PhantomOcean3 ☃️ (@PhantomOfEarth) January 9, 2024 The obvious conclusion is that Microsoft is making some changes to Notepad so it can offer some AI features made to "help" others with their writing. "PhantomOcean3" noted in a follow up post that "Cowriter" doesn't appear to work just yet. We would expect that feature to be turned on sometime in the near future for members of the Windows Insider Program to test. In September 2023, Microsoft added an AI art generation feature to the Windows 11 version of its Paint app, called Cocreator. It's similar to Bing Image Creator in that you can type in a few text prompts for the Paint app to make something that you described. The Cocreator feature, based on OpenAI's DALL-E AI model, became available for all Windows 11 Paint users in November 2023. Based on how Cocreator was launched for Paint, we think that Microsoft will have a waitlist for Windows Insider Program users to access the Cowriter feature in Notepad for Windows 11. However, it remains to be seen how fans of Notepad, who really enjoy its simplicity and its minimal UI, will react to Microsoft adding this AI writing feature.

A quick look back at the launch of Microsoft's first keyboard and the Windows key by John Callaham The first week of January was a busy one for people who follow Microsoft hardware news. First, the company revealed that the upcoming Windows laptops, along with desktop keyboards, will be getting a dedicated Copilot key, designed to launch the Copilot generative AI assistant in Windows 11. The other big news item is that, several months after Microsoft announced it was getting out of the PC hardware accessory business, it revealed a new partnership with Incase. That company will make and sell PC accessories that were originally designed and sold by Microsoft, including keyboards, mice, webcams, etc. Furthermore, Incase plans to make and sell new accessories that Microsoft previously designed but did not release. One of those future products is reportedly a new ergonomic keyboard. Interestingly, Microsoft's first-ever PC keyboard was also designed to be ergonomic. It also was the first keyboard to include a dedicated Windows key, similar to this week's reveal of the new Copilot Key. We've already posted articles about Microsoft's earlier hardware products, including add-in cards for Apple II PCs, along with cards made for IBM-based PCs. However, with the exception of the Microsoft Mouse products that first launched nearly 40 years ago, the company had never entered the PC accessory business until the launch of the Microsoft Natural Keyboard. Before then, keyboards were mostly designed as straight rectangles full of keys. However, the result was that tons of people who had to use them for work for hours at a time started getting carpal tunnel syndrome on their wrists due to their uncomfortable positions while typing. The idea of designing a keyboard that would be more comfortable to use for long periods of time was not a new concept in the early 1990s. Indeed, in 1993, Apple released its own Adjustable Keyboard for its Mac PCs. On the surface, the main keyboard looked like most others, but the center of the keyboard had a hinge that allowed the two halves to separate on a fixed base while the spacebar remained in place. There were also two removable wristrests for each side of the keyboard, and a separate keypad with all the number, arrow, function keys, and its own wristrest. In short, the Apple Adjustable Keyboard was a bust. It took up a lot of desktop space, and the people who bought it said that it was not comfortable to use. It was also reportedly very expensive when it launched. When Microsoft decided it wanted to make its keyboards, it got some help from an outside firm, Ziba Design. In a post on its own site, Ziba stated that Microsoft "came to us to help make the ergonomic keyboard as accessible to home users as they'd made the word processor." The final result was a curved keyboard design that split the main key layout and still included the number and arrow keys on the right side. The wrist rest was integrated into the keyboard instead of being removable. The angles of the keyboard were made so people could type while their wrists would remain straight. Ziba's site says that many keyboard designs were sent to testers at Microsoft who "would simulate typing—sometimes for hours—under the watchful eye of ergonomics experts and a suite of pressure sensors." Another company, Key Tronic Corporation, made the actual keyboards and also had some input in their design. Microsoft also introduced the Windows key in the Natural Keyboard over a year before the release of Windows 95. The keyboard actually had two of these Windows keys, which were designed to launch the Start menu. There was also a third new key added, the menu key, designed to let users bring up a menu that they might normally launch with the right-side mouse key. Unlike the Windows key, which has been included in the majority of PC keyboards and laptops, the new Menu key has not always been included in third-party products. The Microsoft Natural Keyboard was first announced in September 1994. As first reported by The New York Times, the keyboard actually went on sale in early October 1994 for the price of $99. That price made this ergonomic keyboard far more affordable than other similar products, including Apple's. A number of computer makers, including Dell, started including the new keyboard with their new PCs in the same year. The final result was that the Microsoft Natural Keyboard was a huge critical and sales hit. In November 1997, when Key Tronic announced it was going to make the second generation version of the keyboard, The Spokesman-Review reported that the first version had sold over 2.9 million units since the October 1994 launch. With Incase announcing it will continue to sell Microsoft-designed ergonomic keyboards, it would appear that the legacy of Microsoft's PC accessory lineup will continue in some form, and that's great news for the many fans of the company's products.

The Microsoft Copilot key will start appearing on new Windows 11 PCs later in January by John Callaham In September 2023, Microsoft launched a major feature update for Windows 11 that officially added the Copilot generative AI assistant to its list of features. Later in 2023, the company launched a public preview of a Windows 10 update that included Copilot support. Today, Microsoft announced a new development that will see a new Copilot key added to new Windows 11 laptop PCs and keyboards over the coming months. In a blog post, Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, its Executive Vice President and Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, writes that the company believes the introduction of the Copilot key "will empower people to participate in the AI transformation more easily." As you might have guessed, pressing the Copilot key on a Windows 11 laptop, or on a keyboard made to work with Windows 11, will automatically launch the Copilot AI assistant. In the blog post, Mehdi writes: We see this as another transformative moment in our journey with Windows where Copilot will be the entry point into the world of AI on the PC. It should be noted that if the Copilot key is pressed on a Windows 11 PC where Copilot is either not available or not enabled on that computer, Windows Search will be launched instead. Mehdi states that the new Copilot key is the "first significant change to the Windows PC keyboard in nearly three decades." He is likely referring to the introduction of the Windows key, starting with the launch of the Windows Natural Keyboard in September 1994. Pressing on the key launched the Start menu in Windows 95. The Windows key became a standard button for most Windows laptops and most desktop keyboards, with the logo changing alongside the logo of each Windows OS release. The blog post stated that in the coming days leading up to the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft's partners will show off new PCs with the Copilot key. Consumers will be able to purchase new Windows 11 PCs with the Copilot key starting later in January and through the coming winter and spring months. The Copilot key will also be added to future Microsoft Surface devices.

Microsoft might add Copilot to File Explorer's context menus in Windows 11 by Taras Buria The Windows developer team is back from holidays, and it has already released two new builds to test: one in the Dev Channel and one in the Canary Channel. Both builds contain an interesting code change suggesting that Copilot might show up in more areas across the operating system. As of right now, Windows 11 users can access Copilot by pressing its icon on the taskbar, which may soon move to the bottom-right corner, replacing the "Show desktop" button. However, future Windows 11 builds could add new Copilot entries for specific tasks or file-related activities. Of course, at this point, that is nothing but speculation based on the code line and feature ID found by X user @PhantomOfEarth deep inside build 26016: CopilotFEContextMenu: 45647150 You can try enabling that ID using the ViVeTool app, but you will not get any substantial results. Therefore, all we have to do is sit tight and wait for Microsoft to release new preview builds and share more details about how it plans to improve Copilot integration in Windows 11. The latter, sadly, still leaves a lot to be desired. The current Copilot implementation can do very little to help you use your computer, a far cry from what you may want a true AI-powered assistant to do. Code lines like the one discovered today align with the recent report about Microsoft adding more AI features to its next-generation Windows release, scheduled to arrive somewhere in the second half of 2024. One of the rumored features is a return of Timeline with the ability to get back into any app or screen containing a certain request. Also, Microsoft plans to implement natural language search, among other things. It is reasonable to expect Microsoft to add Copilot-related entries to more areas across the shell to make interaction with the assistant and its features easier and more accessible. Let's hope those entries will be much more polished than the current Copilot state in Windows 11 (and yes, in Windows 10, too, even though its end of support is getting nigh).

Microsoft Teams will add Intelligent Recap for Copilot users in January 2024 by John Callaham We were not planning on doing a Microsoft 365 Roadmap Weekly post this week, as we thought there would not be any new entries during the holiday week. However, there were a few new posts on the site that went live on December 28, and two of them revealed new features for Microsoft Teams users that will roll out in January 2024. One of the new features that will launch in January is for Desktop and Mac users of Teams. Microsoft plans to add the Intelligent Recap feature for people who use Teams with the Copilot chatbot. The Intelligent Recap feature was first added in May 2023. It lets Teams Premium users who either missed an online meeting or simply didn't pay a lot of attention during the event, get an AI-created summary of that meeting. The summary includes "automatic generated meeting notes, recommended tasks, and personalized highlights" according to Microsoft. The Microsoft 365 Roadmap description for the Teams Intelligence Recap feature in Copilot states: Copilot users can access intelligent recap after meetings to get a summary of the meeting, including: personalized timeline markers to easily browse the recordings by when you joined or left, when a screen was shared, and when your name was mentioned; browse recordings by speakers, chapters, and topics; as well as access AI-generated meeting notes, tasks, and jump to name mentions in the transcript. The other new feature that will be rolled out for Teams Desktop and Mac users in January 2024 will provide an easier way for people in Teams chat to share contact info: Users can now share the contact information of someone who is not in a chat to make it easy for others to confidently get to know other collaborators. As we reach the end of 2023, it's likely that 2024 will see a ton of new features added for Microsoft 365 customers, and we will stay on top of those features with our weekly Roadmap features.

Microsoft's Copilot app for iOS is here only days after Android launch by Martin Hodás As reported by The Verge, the official Copilot app for iOS is now available in the App Store for free. The owners of Apple devices didn’t have to wait much longer than their Android counterparts who got the app as a Christmas gift from Microsoft just a couple of days earlier. The AI-powered assistant – or “your everyday AI companion” as Microsoft’s sales department prefers to say – allows you to ask anything (probably apart from election-related questions), quickly draft e-mails, compose stories or scripts, summarize complex texts, and much more. Copilot’s best feature is probably the fact that it runs on OpenAI’s latest GPT-4, essentially giving you free access to its most robust large language model (LLM) normally hidden behind the paywall of ChatGPT. The iOS app also serves as an image generator creating AI artworks right in your mobile device. For these, purposes the Copilot app utilizes OpenAI’s DALL·E 3. “By combining the power of GPT-4 with the imaginative capabilities of DALL·E 3, Copilot not only enhances your design workflow, but can also bring your creativity to inspiring new heights,” claims Microsoft. But if you don’t prefer the mobile experience, you can always run the standalone Copilot web service on a desktop or laptop – even outside the Edge browser. Generally, the Redmond company is pushing for wider availability of Copilot and more use cases across its product portfolio. In just the past two weeks, Microsoft added Copilot to Dev Tools in Edge to help developers with troubleshooting, expanded its possibilities within the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, launched a standalone Android app, and made the Copilot Chat generally available on GitHub. Copilot is undoubtedly a top priority for the company, as their representatives repeatedly compared its importance to the Start button in Windows and dubbed it “the entry point into this world of AI on the PC”.

Microsoft says shopping tools helped Edge users save on average $400 per year by John Callaham Microsoft is trying to transform itself as the leader in developing generative AI services, and that includes adding those services and features to the Edge browser. Today, the company revealed some Edge stats for 2023 that show how people are using the browser for things like making conversations with the Copilot chatbot, shopping, entertainment, and more. The blog post states that in the past 12 months, Edge users, along with people who used Bing search, engaged in "more than 1.9 billion Copilot chats". It added that Edge users "created over 1.8 billion AI-generated images". Microsoft also noted that Edge users who shopped online had a "yearly average savings of $400." It said that " worldwide shoppers were offered a total of more than $4 billion in savings on Edge." In November, Microsoft rolled out Copilot Shopping services, which let users type in generative AI text prompts to find deals on the internet for extra savings. Microsoft added support for playing casual games in Edge a while ago. Today, the company revealed that "users played almost 9000 years of casual free games," or 4.7 billion minutes, since that feature was added to the browser. In terms of security, Microsoft claims that in 2023, "Edge stopped over 127 million phishing attacks". The company stated that was the same as "four phishing attacks stopped every second for an entire year." Finally, Microsoft said that in 2023, members of the Microsoft Rewards program earned "148 million rewards points on Edge." This particular bragging point is pretty ironic, considering that Microsoft cut back the number of reward points that people can earn every day on Edge just a few weeks ago. With 2024 just a few days away, we will have to see how Microsoft continues to add AI features to Edge. Hopefully, the company will also cut down on the intrusive promotion of Edge and Bing that has resulted in many users complaining about those efforts.

Dell shows off mockups of Windows 11 using Copilot AI to help change settings on PCs by John Callaham Without a doubt, Microsoft's biggest update to Windows 11 in 2023 was the addition of Copilot (formerly Bing Chat). The generative AI chatbot, which is also being tested by Windows Insider members for Windows 10, is being marketed by Microsoft as more than just a Cortana-like digital assistant. Indeed, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said that Copilot will be "the entry point into this world of AI on the PC." However, it seems like computer makers are coming up with new ideas of how a generative AI feature like Copilot could be used in future Windows PCs. Today, Gizmodo posted an article about viewing a recent demo from Dell that showed how something similar to Copilot could make it easier to change settings on a PC. The demo included mockups of Windows 11 running with advanced Copilot-like features. Gizmodo said that Dell showed how a Copilot icon could be set up on the Windows 11 taskbar. Clicking on that icon could enable users to either type or speak prompts. These prompts could be used to ask Copilot to bring up a trackball's brightness controls or see which graphics driver version you have installed, instead of going through a ton of menu and settings options to find them on your PC. In another Windows 11 mockup demo, Dell showed how Copilot might be able to automatically set up Wi-Fi security settings when you try to log into a public Wi-Fi router. Users could type or speak into Copilot and ask it to have their PC run at the faster performance settings possible. That command is then accomplished by Copilot, again without the user having to make these changes manually. It's important to note that Dell's Windows 11 demo does not mean Microsoft is actively working to expand Copilot in these directions. This is simply a possible look at what Copilot could do in future versions of Windows. However, the fact that Dell went to the trouble of making these Windows 11 Copilot mockups shows that at least one major PC maker has some ideas about where these AI features could be used. Microsoft might want to take some notes as it looks to expand the use of Copilot in 2024.

Microsoft and OpenAI are being sued by the New York Times for copyright infringement by John Callaham The legal fight over how copyrighted content may be used to train generative AI models took a big step today. The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against both Microsoft and OpenAI in the Federal District Court in Manhattan. The media company, best known for their newspaper and website, claim that AI models from both companies illegally accessed "millions of articles published by The Times." In its own story about its lawsuit, the NY Times stated: The suit does not include an exact monetary demand. But it says the defendants should be held responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” related to the “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” It also calls for the companies to destroy any chatbot models and training data that use copyrighted material from The Times. The article cites examples of how this alleged copyright infringement was conducted. The story says that Microsoft's Browse with Bing feature, which uses OpenAI's ChatGPT model, generated "almost verbatim results" from the NY Times's Wirecutter review site, but did not actually link to Wirecutter, and also removed any financial affiliate links which the site users to generate revenue. The story adds that the NY Times entered into talks with Microsoft and OpenAI back in April to come up with "an amicable resolution” on this alleged copyright infringement. However, the article says those talks did not result in a mutual agreement. So far, neither Microsoft nor Open AI have issued a statement about this lawsuit. This is just the latest legal fight over the use of generative AI. In June Microsoft and OpenAI were sued by 16 people, who claim the companies "systematically scraped 300 billion words from the internet, 'books, articles, websites and posts – including personal information obtained without consent." In July, OpenAI was sued by authors Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad, who stated the company's ChatGPT model accessed their copyrighted material from their novels.

Microsoft quietly launches dedicated Copilot app for Android by Taras Buria Quietly and without much fanfare, Microsoft launched a new Copilot app on Android, giving users a new way to interact with the AI-powered assistant and its features. Spotted by @technosarusrex on X (formerly Twitter), It is now available for download from the Google Play Store, and the app's listing suggests it arrived in the marketplace about a week ago. https://t.co/ENhlMO2EoL pic.twitter.com/jfDilAF2s7 — techosarusrex (@techosarusrex) December 26, 2023 The new Copilot app for Android is not entirely a new thing. At first sight, it looks similar to the Bing Chat app, which still lets you access the same chat features. In addition, you can use Copilot within the Microsoft Edge browser for Android, SwiftKey, Skype, and more. Copilot for Android supports plenty of features (you can also toggle between light and dark themes) that are already available on desktop. You can ask complex questions, generate images using DALL-E 3, draft documents or emails, or just have a casual conversation about anything. In addition, the app lets you turn off or on the recently added GPT-4. Here is how Microsoft describes the new application: Improve Your Productivity with Copilot–Your AI-Powered Chat Assistant Copilot is a pioneering chat assistant from Microsoft powered by the latest OpenAI models, GPT-4 and DALL·E 3. These advanced AI technologies provide fast, complex, and precise responses, as well as the ability to create breathtaking visuals from simple text descriptions. Chat and create all in one place—for free! The Microsoft Copilot app is currently available only on Android. However, iOS users should not feel abandoned since the same capabilities are still accessible via the Bing app, which you can download from the App Store using this link. If an Android smartphone is your main device and you want to try the new Copilot app, get it from the Google Play Store for free.

Microsoft launches private preview of Azure AI Health Bot Copilot for healthcare companies by John Callaham One of the businesses that could be changed greatly by the use of generative AI in the workplace is the healthcare industry. Microsoft has already been working to provide generative AI services to businesses in that field. In August, the company announced a partnership with healthcare technology company Epic that includes features like note summarization for doctors and more. Today, Microsoft announced it is expanding its efforts to add AI features in healthcare with the private preview launch of Azure AI Health Bot Copilot features. In a blog post, Microsoft stated this service would integrate its Azure AI Health bot with many of its AI services, including Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search service, and Bing Custom Search. Microsoft says that this service will enable healthcare businesses to create their own Copilots that will use the company's data to help streamline services that can often be tedious for healthcare workers to handle. Here are some of the supported features:. Generate customized responses by tapping into your own data sources. Integrate your Azure OpenAI service endpoint and Azure AI Search index to produce answers tailored to your preferred sources. Generate responses using your own websites. Incorporate your Azure OpenAI service endpoint and Big Custom Search service to utilize trusted website content for refining the Language Model. Harness healthcare intelligence capabilities for generative answers from reliable healthcare sources. Make use of the Azure AI Health Bot's built-in Credible sources, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Implement a comprehensive fallback sequence incorporating the above capabilities. Design a copilot that follows a fallback sequence if no answer is found, ensuring a robust response strategy Microsoft says it is also developing Azure AI Health Bot Copilot features so they will comply with the required data protection regulations. It also includes feedback systemfor users to give their opinions on the generative AI features, along with real-time monitoring of any prompts from Copilots that might be problematic. Healthcare businesses who want to participate in the private preview can do so by filling out an online form. There's no word yet on when the Azure AI Health Bot Copilot features will become generally available, nor how much Microsoft will charge for the services.

Microsoft 365 Copilot will soon let you pin up to 15 chats by John Callaham Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscribers will soon get a new feature similar to one that is already available in Microsoft Teams. A newly added entry to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap site says that Copilot will soon support pinned chats on the website. The specific description is: Users of Microsoft Copilot with Graph-grounded chat can easily return to their recent chats and organize their work in Microsoft Copilot. With the new pinned chats feature, they can pin up to 15 chats for easy access later. The roadmap says that this new pinned chats feature will be available as a preview in January 2024 and will officially roll out to all users in February 2024. There's no word yet on how exactly the pinned chats feature in Copilot will actually work. Having said that, pinning chats are already a feature found in Microsoft Teams. Users can hover over the chat they want to pin in Teams and then click on the More options menu. Then they can select the Pin icon in the menu to put that chat over other conversations. It's possible that the pinning chats feature that's in the works for Copilot might be handled in a similar way. Microsoft is already working on adding even more new features to Copilot soon. In a recent chat on X (formerly Twitter), Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft's head of Advertising and Web Services, responded to a person's inquiry about the full availability of Plugins for Copilot, along with dark mode, GPTs, and, pinning chats. Paraklin's response was as expected: Working on all of the above. Holiday lockdown doesn't help (we reduce production changes at this period, because so many people are on vacation). It sounds like we can expect a new push for Copilot features to begin after January 1.

Microsoft Copilot lets you become a song writer thanks to a new Suno plugin by John Callaham Microsoft continues to update its Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) generative AI chatbot on the web with new features. Today, the company announced that a new plugin developed by a company called Suno will allow Copilot user to create songs with just a few words of text. In a blog post, Microsoft stated: Through this partnership, people will have at their fingertips the ability, regardless of musical background, to create fun, clever, and personalized songs with a simple prompt. Suno has been a leader in AI music technology, pioneering the ability to generate complete songs—lyrics, instrumentals, and singing voices—from a single sentence. You will need to use the Microsoft Edge web browser to access the Copilot site, and sign into your Microsoft account. After that, you can enable the Suno plugin toggle or simply click on the logo which says, “Make music with Suno." Then all you have to do is type in a brief description of the song you want Copilot to generate for you, such as "Make an upbeat, motivational son designed for gym workout." The Suno plugin will then create the song which you then can share with others. The new song creation plugin for Copilot was made by Suno, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and founded by veterans of Meta and TikTok. It's own site includes subscription plans starting at $10 a month, which gives users credits to create 500 songs a month. Paid subscribers can also upload their songs to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and other services so they can make money off their AI song creations. This new plugin for Copilot reminds us of an earlier Microsoft app called Songsmith, which allowed people to start singing any song they create into a microphone. The app then automatically generated music to match the lyrics and tone of the song.

Microsoft adds Copilot to Dev Tools in Edge to help developers with troubleshooting by Taras Buria With the release of Microsoft Edge 120, Copilot is available in more areas, giving web developers a helping hand when troubleshooting errors and warnings. Microsoft published a post on the official Microsoft Edge Blog detailing how Copilot can make life easier for developers, especially when dealing with cryptic messages. Errors and warnings are something developers deal with regardless of their experience. While some messages are straightforward and easy to understand, other warnings will grind your gears hard. Reading the DevTools console in Microsoft Edge is sometimes a real challenge. Microsoft wants Copilot to be your always-available coworker capable of explaining complicated topics and saving you time on Googling things. Starting with Edge 120, the DevTools console places a small Copilot icon next to every error or warning. You can click that icon to launch Copilot and generate a detailed explanation of a particular message. Besides, you can ask Copilot to explain any code snippet from the Sources tool. Select the part you do not understand, right-click it, and press "Copilot: Explain these lines of code." After that, Edge will open Copilot in a sidebar and present you with the necessary information. DevTools will give Copilot the context to understand and explain a specific problem. It is worth noting that Copilot for DevTools is still under active development, so you must enable it manually in Microsoft Edge 120 and newer. Here is how to do it: Sign in with your Microsoft Account in the Edge browser and turn on the Copilot icon in the upper-right corner of the screen under Settings > Sidebar > Copilot. Type edge://flags and search for "Explain DevTools with AI." Enable the flag and restart the browser. Launch DevTools with the F12 key and click a Copilot icon next to any warning or error. You can learn more about using Copilot to troubleshoot errors in DevTools in the official documentation. Microsoft also wants to hear more from developers, and it encourages everyone to share their feedback, questions, comments, and ideas on GitHub.

A new report says Microsoft Copilot frequently offers false info to election questions by John Callaham In the beginning of December, Microsoft announced that its Copilot AI chatbot, previously known as Bing Chat, had left the public preview stage and is now generally available. At the time, Microsoft said that "organizations and users can feel even more confident adopting it as part of their daily workflows." However, research undertaken by two nonprofit groups that track how the use of AI impacts people and society found that Copilot frequently offers up false or incorrect information when asked about upcoming elections, in both the US and abroad. Wired has a story on this research, which was conducted by AI Forensics and AlgorithmWatch, The groups asked Copilot questions from late August to early October about upcoming elections in Switzerland and Germany that were finally conducted in October The story states: In their study, the researchers concluded that a third of the answers given by Copilot contained factual errors and that the tool was “an unreliable source of information for voters.” In 31 percent of the smaller subset of recorded conversations, they found that Copilot offered inaccurate answers, some of which were made up entirely. On its own, Wired asked Copilot questions about the upcoming 2024 US elections. It stated that when asked to give a list of the current Republican candidates for US President, the chatbot listed a number of candidates that had already pulled out of the race. In another example, Wired asked Copilot to create an image of a person at a voting box in Arizona. The chatbot replied it could not create such an image, but then it showed a number of other images linked to articles that had false conspiracy claims about the 2020 US elections. The research firm that did the initial report in Europe sent their findings to Microsoft, The story stated that some improvements were made, but that Wired was still able to get Copilot to repeat many of the same false and inaccurate info to some of the same text prompts. Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw offered a comment to Wired's story, stating that the company was taking action to improve Copilot's answers ahead of the 2024 US elections. Shaw added: That includes an ongoing focus on providing Copilot users with election information from authoritative sources. As we continue to make progress, we encourage people to use Copilot with their best judgment when viewing results. This includes verifying source materials and checking web links to learn more. There are already fears of misinformation and "deep fake" content being made by people using AI apps and services in efforts to influence upcoming elections. It remains to be seen if Microsoft will be able to keep that kind of content out of Copilot in the months ahead.

Microsoft expands Copilot access for education customers by Taras Buria Microsoft has announced the expansion of its Copilot with commercial data protection to more customers. Starting in early 2024, all faculty and higher education students (ages 18+) will be eligible for Copilot with commercial data protection, formerly Bing Chat Enterprise. That will let them use Microsoft's AI-powered chat with access to GPT-4, DALL-E 3 image generator, and other features without sharing prompts and responses with Microsoft for future model training. Access to Copilot with commercial data protection will require a school Microsoft Account. Microsoft says students can use Copilot to summarize articles, get step-by-step explanations, improve writing skills, get feedback on their work, brainstorm ideas, and more. Jonathan Fozard, Associate VP at Florida State University, said the following about how Copilot improves education: Artificial intelligence has the power to revolutionize higher education. Our partnership with Microsoft has allowed us to improve learning for students and support innovative research across Florida State University through an automated, safe, and reliable platform. I am excited to see what our next generation of leaders can achieve with tools such as Copilot. In addition to giving access to Copilot with commercial data protection, Microsoft will soon offer Copilot for Microsoft 365 to faculty and staff. Starting January 1, 2024, education clients will be able to access Copilot for Microsoft 365 at $30/user per month. As a reminder, Copilot for Microsoft 365 combines large language models (LLMs) with your organization's data for better productivity. That data includes emails, meetings, chats, documents, and more in addition to standard features, such as answers or image generation. Microsoft also reminded about the company's Customer Copyright Commitment, which ensures clients are protected from copyright claims when using generative artificial intelligence. You can learn more about Microsoft's efforts to expand Copilot to more users in a post on the Microsoft Education Blog.

Clean Windows 11 23H2 benchmarked against Windows 11 22H2 by Steven Parker Sayan Sen contributed to this feature, and also provided the benchmark graphics. As you may be aware, we have been benchmarking different scenarios with the Intel Core i9-14900K sent to us. It provides an ultra-modern test bed to test Microsoft's flagship Windows 11 OS, but also against the older, but more trusted, Windows 10 counterpart. However, today's benchmarks pitches Windows 11 against itself! To put it plainly, which is better, Windows 11 22H2, or the newest 23H2 with Copilot and all the changes that it brought with it? First up, here is a run-down of our test system, you may recognize it from the 14th gen Intel Core i5 and i9 CPUs review we did in October: Test Hardware Intel Core i9-14900K (Amazon|Newegg) ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-H GAMING WIFI (BIOS v1402) (Amazon|Newegg) ASUS ROG STRIX 850W Gold (Amazon|Newegg) Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB CPU Air Cooler (Amazon|Newegg) Carbonaut thermal grizzly 0.2mm (Amazon|Newegg) 2x 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5 6000MT/s in XMP (Amazon|Newegg) Sabrent 1TB Rocket 4 Plus-G (PCIe 4.0) (Amazon|Newegg) MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Ventus 3X (Amazon|Newegg) Samsung Odyssey G9 Neo at 5120 x 1440 @ 240Hz on DisplayPort (Amazon|Newegg) Software test scenarios On both systems, ASUS Armoury Crate was allowed to install all the drivers that our system needed. October (Windows 11 22H2) Data used below is from when Windows 11 Pro was clean installed for the Intel 14th gen CPU review, 22H2 was updated to Build 22621.2468 (Moment 4) and Nvidia driver 538.58 was used, which was the latest at that time. November (Windows 11 23H2) The same hardware was clean installed and updated to build 22631.2715 (KB5032190) and Nvidia driver 545.92 was used, which at the time of testing, was the latest. The ambient room temperature while testing was measured to be between 19C (66.2 °F) and 20C (68 °F), and our test rig was open plan. Benchmarks In 3DMark, supplied to us by UL Benchmarks, it's clear to see that 23H2 does a better job overall in the Time Spy benchmark (DirectX 12), that was allowed to run three times, with the best score used. For CPU score, 23H2 has a 958 point lead, and an impressive 427 point gap in the overall score, which combines GPU as well as the CPU score. In terms of percentages, those are 4.4% and 2% better respectively. In Fire Strike Extreme, which is DirectX 11, the gap narrows in Physics to just 82 points, and 134 in the overall score with 23H2 again proving to be better than its predecessor (best score after three runs). Hence the gap is not really as significant as in Time Spy. In the CPU Profile test, which tries to gauge how good the scaling is across CPU threads, 23H2 once again takes the crown, besting 22H2 at every stage except for the single thread; however, it is completely within the margin of error with a difference of only 3 points. The highest scores were used after running the benchmark three times. The PCMark 10 benchmark suite, performance is a mixed bag with 22H2 coming out on top overall in six of the eleven tests, but specifically in the productivity benchmark. And the difference is quite astounding, to put it mildly. Going from 22H2 to 23H2, we see a 15.24% drop in the spreadsheet processing test and a 7.57% drop in the case of writing. In the Digital Content Creation, they trade blows with 23H2 taking the win in Rendering and Visualisation while 22H2 emerges victorious in Photo Editing. Finally, in the Essentials benchmark which considers app startup, web browsing and video conferencing, the two versions of Windows are quite close to one another with 23H2 winning two out of the three tests, though by very small margins. 23H2 beat out 22H2, though, by only 14 points in the Cinebench 2024 CPU benchmark. This falls in line with PCMark 10's Digital suite, which means you wouldn't really feel the difference in a blind test. We also ran the default 32MB 7-Zip benchmark which measures in GIPS (billion instructions per second). Here 23H2 edges out 22H2 in both Compression and Decompression tests, but the differences are once again within the margin of error. So what have we proven here? Well, we can see that 23H2 really is a worthwhile update, as it bests 22H2 in 17 of the 24 data points tested versus just seven victories for 22H2. Microsoft could claim some performance gains with this update and they would not be lying. You might be wondering why we didn't mention the PCMark 10 productivity suite and that's because we are considering this benchmark as an outlier similar to what we found in the previous Windows 11 vs 10 comparison where the Rendering and Visualisation numbers heavily favored one over the other. Outside of PCMark productivity, we also did not notice much of a dip going from 22H2 to 23H2 and hence, the recent reports about performance loss are most likely limited to buggy Defender. Officially, our advice is to update. Check out our other benchmark coverage of Clean installed Windows 10 22H2 vs Windows 11 23H2 benchmarked for performance, Windows 10 clean install vs Windows 11 in-place upgrade and our Intel Core i5-14600K and i9-14900K review. 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Microsoft 365 Roadmap Weekly: Copilot is coming in Feb. 2024 for Outlook and more by John Callaham It's been yet another fairly slow week on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, as we get into the holiday season. However, there's always something new that might be of interest to people who use the service. Microsoft Outlook - Copilot is coming to classic Outlook in February 2024 The classic version of the Outlook email client for Windows will be getting Copilot features in 2024, according to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. One will add a way for Copilot to draft a new email in Outlook, which is pretty straightforward. The other new roadmap entry might be a bit more interesting: Copilot coaches you on how to best get your message across and you can adjust the tone and length of your message. The web version of Outlook is also getting a new feature for admins in January 2024. When an app is deployed in Integrated Apps (Get Apps & Upload Custom LOB apps) in the Microsoft Admin Center, it will be available in Outlook on the web in Read Message Actions and Compose Ribbon. Microsoft Teams - Making channels earlier to make and more Microsoft Teams will make it easier to create channels across all of its supported platforms sometime in January 2024. We added the option to create a channel directly from the + button in the Teams app, making it easier for the user to create a channel. It will also be easier to make new teams in Microsoft Teams next month as well. When creating a team, the new default experience will be ‘create a team from scratch’, making it a simpler and quicker experience. Also planned for January is a new Teams feed for desktop and web users: Users can access a personalized feed based on important updates in the channels they are a part of. Teams users on its mobile apps will get a new feature as well in January. Teams calendar on mobile devices displays the live status of a meeting with avatars of the participants who are in the call, whether the meeting is being recorded and the duration of the meeting. Come back next week for yet another look at the Microsoft 365 Roadmap.