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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Straightforward guidance on the AI tool that's built into Windows, Microsoft 365, and more
Microsoft is enhancing all its most widely used productivity software—including Windows and apps like Word and Excel—with the power of AI. And now you can learn to make the most of this revolutionary new tool with Microsoft Copilot For Dummies!
You'll discover how to write Copilot-friendly prompts, enhance output with integrated Copilot tools, and how to apply Copilot functions to project management and other specific tasks and disciplines. In the book, you'll find out how to:
- Use text or your voice to prompt reliable results from Microsoft Copilot
- Customize Microsoft Copilot to respond to your unique needs and demands
- Add plug-ins to the Microsoft Copilot service to extend its functionality even more
Learn to supercharge your efficiency with Microsoft Copilot For Dummies. This book is perfect for professional and home users of Windows, Microsoft 365, and other Microsoft products and software who want to increase their productivity. Grab a copy today!
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 352
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
Ähnliche
Microsoft® Copilot® For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Microsoft Copilot For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Meeting Your AI Assistant
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Microsoft Copilot
Defining Copilot
Signing Up for Copilot
Taking Copilot for a Test Flight
Using Copilot Ethically
Chapter 2: Chatting with Copilot
Using Text Prompts
Using Voice Prompts
Learning to Engineer Prompts
Refining Your Prompts
Chapter 3: Browsing with Copilot
Integrating Copilot with Microsoft Edge
Customizing the Copilot Settings in Edge
Using Edge’s Built-In Actions
Chapter 4: Going Mobile with Copilot
Getting Started with the Copilot App
Using the Unique Mobile Functionalities
Chapter 5: Using a Copilot+ PC
Understanding What Makes a PC Copilot+
Learning about the Exclusive Features of Copilot+ PCs
Using Cocreator in Paint
Taking Advantage of Live Captions
Using Windows Studio Effects
Recalling Your History
Considering the Future of Copilot+
Part 2: Getting Work Done with Microsoft 365 Copilot
Chapter 6: Writing with Copilot
Accessing Copilot Chat in Word
Summarizing Content
Using Copilot as an Editor
Getting Ideas
Chapter 7: Crunching the Numbers with Copilot
Launching Copilot in Excel
Working with Data
Preparing the Data
Automating Data Analysis
Creating Formulas with Copilot's Assistance
Visualizing Data with Copilot
Considering Copilot's Limitations in Excel
Chapter 8: Presenting with Copilot
Interacting with Copilot in PowerPoint
Designing Slides with Designer
Redesigning Slides with Copilot
Sticking to the Built-in Prompts
Organizing a Presentation
Practicing Your Presentation with Copilot Feedback
Chapter 9: Emailing with Copilot
Summarizing with Copilot
Composing Emails with Copilot
Using Copilot for Email with Discernment
Chapter 10: Meeting and Collaborating with Copilot
Using Copilot in Microsoft Teams
Understanding the Limitations of Copilot in Teams
Chapter 11: Generating and Manipulating Images
Using Copilot to Create Images
Using Microsoft Designer
Chapter 12: Using Copilot for Project Management
Planning for a Project
Introducing Microsoft Planner
Getting Started with Planner
Planning Your Project
Reporting with Copilot
Asking Copilot for Ideas
What Can Copilot Do for Project Managers?
Part 3: Jumpstarting Your Productivity with Copilot
Chapter 13: Making Custom Copilots
Building Your Own Copilot Agent with Copilot Studio
Testing and Editing Your Agent
Publishing Your Agent
Chapter 14: Expanding Copilot’s Capabilities with Plugins
Using Plugins Wisely
Creating a Copilot Plugin
Seeing Examples of Plugins
Considering the Future of Plugins
Chapter 15: Troubleshooting Common Issues with Copilot
Troubleshooting Common Setup Issues
Working Through Bad Responses
Copilot Performance Tips
Seeking Help
Part 4: The Part of Tens
Chapter 16: Ten Plugins for Copilot
Search
Instacart
Kayak
Klarna
OpenTable
Phone
Shop
Suno
Mural
Copilot Studio
Chapter 17: Ten Hidden Copilot Gems
Think Deeper
Windows Insider Program
Customize the Copilot Key
Copilot Daily
Copilot Vision
Copilot Voice Mode
Copilot Labs
Roadmap
Schedule Prompts
Clipchamp
Index
About the Author
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
FIGURE 1-1: GitHub Copilot.
FIGURE 1-2: Microsoft Copilot on the web.
FIGURE 1-3: Original Office Assistant, also known as “Clippy.”
FIGURE 1-4: The free version of Copilot Chat.
FIGURE 1-5: You have to log in to use certain Copilot features.
FIGURE 1-6: The Sign In button at
copilot.microsoft.com
.
FIGURE 1-7: The Microsoft account Sign In page.
FIGURE 1-8: The Create Account screen.
FIGURE 1-9: Selecting a new email address.
Chapter 2
FIGURE 2-1: A first attempt at an email to my landlord.
FIGURE 2-2: A revised email to my landlord.
FIGURE 2-3: Getting another option.
FIGURE 2-4: Copilot’s voice mode.
FIGURE 2-5: Copilot’s voice settings.
FIGURE 2-6: Seeing the selected voice.
FIGURE 2-7: Returning to text mode.
FIGURE 2-8: Copilot Chat can’t create PowerPoint slides.
FIGURE 2-9: Copilot Chat in PowerPoint can create and insert slides.
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: Edge on a smartphone, showing the Copilot icon.
FIGURE 3-2: Copilot open in Edge.
FIGURE 3-3: Copilot open in Edge on macOS.
FIGURE 3-4: Resizing Copilot in Edge.
FIGURE 3-5: The main features of Copilot in Edge.
FIGURE 3-6: The Compose mode.
FIGURE 3-7: The More Options menu.
FIGURE 3-8: The View History icon in the Windows 11 Copilot sidebar.
FIGURE 3-9: Viewing your history and the New Topic icon in the Windows 11 sideb...
FIGURE 3-10: The Microsoft account homepage.
FIGURE 3-11: Copilot confirms that you want to clear your history.
FIGURE 3-12: Redirecting to Bing to complete the process.
FIGURE 3-13: Going to the Search History screen in Bing.
FIGURE 3-14: The Settings & Privacy page.
FIGURE 3-15: Deleting the Copilot interaction history.
FIGURE 3-16: Selecting the history you want to delete.
FIGURE 3-17: Your history has been deleted.
FIGURE 3-18: Accessing Copilot settings in Edge.
FIGURE 3-19: Accessing the Notebook view.
FIGURE 3-20: App and Notification Settings.
FIGURE 3-21: Enabling context clues.
FIGURE 3-22: You are viewing a secure Microsoft Edge page.
FIGURE 3-23: Using dark mode.
FIGURE 3-24: Actions require a specific phrase.
FIGURE 3-25: Copilot’s suggested tab groups.
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: Finding the right Copilot.
FIGURE 4-2: Copilot’s welcome screen.
FIGURE 4-3: Copilot asks for your precise location.
FIGURE 4-4: The Copilot home screen.
FIGURE 4-5: Microsoft Copilot in Google Play.
FIGURE 4-6: The Copilot app when logged in with a work or school account.
FIGURE 4-7: Asking Copilot about an image.
FIGURE 4-8: Using Copilot to read Braille.
FIGURE 4-9: Submitting location-specific prompts.
FIGURE 4-10: A completely incorrect map to my local grocery store.
FIGURE 4-11: Enabling or disabling plugins in a work or school account.
FIGURE 4-12: Viewing options for working with a single response.
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: The Copilot window on a Copilot+ PC.
FIGURE 5-2: The Cocreator sidebar.
FIGURE 5-3: Cocreator doing its best to interpret my drawing.
FIGURE 5-4: A painter and their dog?
FIGURE 5-5: Generating new content based on generated content results in low-re...
FIGURE 5-6: Comparing subtitles: YouTube on the bottom and Live Captions on the...
FIGURE 5-7: I’m getting animated.
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6-1: The introductory message in Word’s Copilot sidebar.
FIGURE 6-2: The Copilot sidebar in the Microsoft 365 version of Word.
FIGURE 6-3: The View Prompts icon.
FIGURE 6-4: The Prompts menu.
FIGURE 6-5: The Prompts To Try webpage.
FIGURE 6-6: The Draft with Copilot message.
FIGURE 6-7: The draft mode window.
FIGURE 6-8: Referencing other documents.
FIGURE 6-9: Summarizing a referenced document.
FIGURE 6-10: The Inspire Me button.
FIGURE 6-11: The Draft with Copilot window.
FIGURE 6-12: Using the Make Changes feature to rewrite a bullet point.
FIGURE 6-13: Copilot would like me to change the topic.
FIGURE 6-14: A generated lesson plan.
FIGURE 6-15: Copilot’s rewrite of the hands-on activity.
FIGURE 6-16: A generated table of contents.
FIGURE 6-17: Copilot started creating an index, sort of, but then failed.
FIGURE 6-18: Asking for a list of key terms.
FIGURE 6-19: Copilot’s generated links to instances of keywords.
FIGURE 6-20: Copilot’s suggested elevator pitches.
Chapter 7
FIGURE 7-1: The Copilot for Excel sidebar.
FIGURE 7-2: Creating a table from data.
FIGURE 7-3: Asking Copilot in Edge to create a table header.
FIGURE 7-4: Clarifying where the replace should take place.
FIGURE 7-5: Copilot says there’s an issue with renaming column headers.
FIGURE 7-6: A strange way to sort the year.
FIGURE 7-7: Copilot’s proposed actions.
FIGURE 7-8: Copilot won’t change anything without your approval.
FIGURE 7-9: Copilot’s completion message and Undo button.
FIGURE 7-10: The data tools in Excel.
FIGURE 7-11: Copilot thinks the data is clean.
FIGURE 7-12: Copilot’s insights are often not insightful.
FIGURE 7-13: Copilot’s first insight for the tornados dataset.
FIGURE 7-14: Copilot creates scatter charts but says it can’t.
FIGURE 7-15: A small piece of my weather data spreadsheet.
FIGURE 7-16: Copilot’s proposed formula.
FIGURE 7-17: Copilot’s explanation of its formula.
FIGURE 7-18: Average popularity by year.
FIGURE 7-19: Copilot sometimes just says all the things.
FIGURE 7-20: Max of popularity by year.
FIGURE 7-21: The initial danceability chart created by Copilot.
Chapter 8
FIGURE 8-1: The Copilot sidebar in PowerPoint.
FIGURE 8-2: Copilot’s first ideas for my talk.
FIGURE 8-3: A generated slide and a proposed idea.
FIGURE 8-4: A generated PowerPoint presentation.
FIGURE 8-5: Copilot’s section overview page.
FIGURE 8-6: My revised slide is more succinct.
FIGURE 8-7: The Designer button.
FIGURE 8-8: Layout options in the Designer pane.
FIGURE 8-9: Copilot says it can’t change a slide.
FIGURE 8-10: Figuring out what Copilot can and can’t do is sometimes tricky.
FIGURE 8-11: Copilot’s first attempt.
FIGURE 8-12: Copilot’s second attempt.
FIGURE 8-13: Copilot sometimes gets it very wrong.
FIGURE 8-14: Simple, common, and specific images work better.
FIGURE 8-15: Two frogs, but where’s the rest of it?
FIGURE 8-16: The image created by Copilot Chat using DALL-E 3.
FIGURE 8-17: The Rehearse with Coach button.
FIGURE 8-18: The Welcome window.
FIGURE 8-19: Avoid filler words.
FIGURE 8-20: A sample rehearsal report.
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9-1: The Summary by Copilot link.
FIGURE 9-2: Copilot generates a summary of the thread.
FIGURE 9-3: The Draft with Copilot window.
FIGURE 9-4: Prompting for an email.
FIGURE 9-5: Copilot’s generated email.
FIGURE 9-6: The new draft and the back arrow.
FIGURE 9-7: Copilot’s thank you poem.
FIGURE 9-8: Copilot provides reply suggestions.
FIGURE 9-9: Starting Coaching by Copilot.
FIGURE 9-10: Coaching doesn’t work on short emails.
FIGURE 9-11: Copilot tells me to work on my enthusiasm.
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10-1: Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat in Teams.
FIGURE 10-2: Allowing transcriptions.
FIGURE 10-3: The Add an Agenda link.
FIGURE 10-4: The Copilot logo in the Agenda window.
FIGURE 10-5: Viewing sample prompts to populate the agenda.
FIGURE 10-6: Copilot’s generated agenda.
FIGURE 10-7: Enabling transcription.
FIGURE 10-8: The Copilot sidebar in Teams.
FIGURE 10-9: Live Captions with Translation isn’t quite there yet.
FIGURE 10-10: Your recap is ready.
FIGURE 10-11: Getting a recap.
Chapter 11
FIGURE 11-1: Copilot’s generated image of a bird flying over a glacial lake.
FIGURE 11-2: Creating images with Bing Image Creator.
FIGURE 11-3: Viewing a larger version.
FIGURE 11-4: Viewing your remaining Boosts.
FIGURE 11-5: A flying turkey.
FIGURE 11-6: The Microsoft Designer homepage.
FIGURE 11-7: Designer is not available to organizations.
FIGURE 11-8: The template options in Designer’s Create with AI tool.
FIGURE 11-9: Viewing the prompt behind the image.
FIGURE 11-10: The sample prompt editing screen.
FIGURE 11-11: AI-generated avatar suggestions.
FIGURE 11-12: Viewing a larger version of your image.
FIGURE 11-13: The Designer image editor.
FIGURE 11-14: The Edit with AI screen.
FIGURE 11-15: The Create Framed Images screen.
FIGURE 11-16: My framed avatar in the image editor.
FIGURE 11-17: The link to create a blank project.
FIGURE 11-18: Adding a heading.
FIGURE 11-19: The Generate tab in the Visuals tool.
FIGURE 11-20: My dog day graphic.
FIGURE 11-21: Selecting the object to replace.
FIGURE 11-22: Using the image-editing tools.
FIGURE 11-23: The Design from Scratch templates.
Chapter 12
FIGURE 12-1: Searching for apps.
FIGURE 12-2: The My Tasks screen in Planner.
FIGURE 12-3: Selecting a template.
FIGURE 12-4: Giving your project a name.
FIGURE 12-5: The Copilot button.
FIGURE 12-6: The Copilot sidebar in Planner.
FIGURE 12-7: Something went wrong.
FIGURE 12-8: The start of my new business plan.
FIGURE 12-9: Putting tasks in buckets.
FIGURE 12-10: Selecting a Basic or Premium plan.
FIGURE 12-11: The built-in business plan template.
FIGURE 12-12: Copilot’s ideas about cat café revenue streams.
Chapter 13
FIGURE 13-1: The Copilot Studio homepage.
FIGURE 13-2: Getting started with the Copilot Studio demo.
FIGURE 13-3: Meet your virtual assistant.
FIGURE 13-4: A response from the
chrisminnick.com
virtual assistant.
FIGURE 13-5: The Copilot Studio Welcome slideshow.
FIGURE 13-6: The Copilot Studio homepage.
FIGURE 13-7: Chatting with the agent creator.
FIGURE 13-8: Completing the AI-assisted agent-creation process.
FIGURE 13-9: The Agent Editor.
FIGURE 13-10: The available agent templates.
FIGURE 13-11: The Website Q&A template settings.
FIGURE 13-12: Copilot is sticking to the facts.
FIGURE 13-13: Viewing and editing your agent’s knowledge.
FIGURE 13-14: Viewing available connectors.
FIGURE 13-15: The Topics tab.
FIGURE 13-16: Editing a topic.
FIGURE 13-17: Choosing how to add the topic.
FIGURE 13-18: Describing your topic.
FIGURE 13-19: Editing a new action.
FIGURE 13-20: Opening the Conversation Map.
FIGURE 13-21: Asking to talk with a person.
FIGURE 13-22: Choose or create an action.
FIGURE 13-23: Configuring the action.
FIGURE 13-24: Viewing inputs and outputs.
FIGURE 13-25: Copilot needs more permission.
FIGURE 13-26: Viewing the result of an action.
FIGURE 13-27: Enabling your copilot to respond to the user.
FIGURE 13-28: Getting the weather forecast.
FIGURE 13-29: The agent's analytics interface.
FIGURE 13-30: The Channels tab.
FIGURE 13-31: How to embed the agent in a website.
FIGURE 13-32: My Wikipedia Reference Bot.
Chapter 14
FIGURE 14-1: Asking Copilot for its cutoff date.
FIGURE 14-2: Select your action type.
FIGURE 14-3: The connector’s description.
FIGURE 14-4: Your first action is saved and almost ready to test.
FIGURE 14-5: Your test plugin is now installed.
FIGURE 14-6: The Plugins sidebar.
FIGURE 14-7: The Integrated Apps settings in Microsoft 365.
FIGURE 14-8: Get Copilot Extensions.
FIGURE 14-9: Filtering the apps.
Chapter 15
FIGURE 15-1: Inside a typical data center.
FIGURE 15-2: The Microsoft 365 Copilot community hub.
FIGURE 15-3: Microsoft’s Contact Us page.
FIGURE 15-4: Choosing between Home and Business support.
Chapter 16
FIGURE 16-1: Using the Instacart plugin.
FIGURE 16-2: Using the Kayak plugin.
FIGURE 16-3: Using Copilot and Klarna to compare prices.
FIGURE 16-4: The OpenTable Copilot plugin.
FIGURE 16-5: Learning to use the Phone plugin.
FIGURE 16-6: Using the Shop plugin.
FIGURE 16-7: The Suno plugin.
FIGURE 16-8: Mural templates in Teams.
FIGURE 16-9: Asking Copilot about a Mural project.
Chapter 17
FIGURE 17-1: The Think Deeper button.
FIGURE 17-2: The Think Deeper suggestions.
FIGURE 17-3: What if the value of pi were different?
FIGURE 17-4: Viewing the Customize Copilot Key option.
FIGURE 17-5: Copilot Daily.
FIGURE 17-6: Accessing Copilot Voice settings.
FIGURE 17-7: Returning to text mode.
FIGURE 17-8: Copilot Labs.
FIGURE 17-9: Viewing upcoming and new feature updates.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Begin Reading
Index
About the Author
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Microsoft® Copilot® For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.
Media and software compilation copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. Microsoft is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Microsoft® Copilot® For Dummies® is an independent publication and is neither affiliated with, nor authorized, sponsored, or approved by, Microsoft Corporation.
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Introduction
Since the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots that can generate convincing natural language and images, the race has been on to find new ways to reliably and responsibly harness this power to enhance personal and business productivity.
Words and ideas such as Generative AI (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) that were once confined to the world of AI researchers have flooded into mainstream news and culture. Other new words, such as hallucination and deepfake have been created or adopted to describe the output of GenAI systems.
AI chatbots are now widely available and widely used, and seemingly every software company is racing to introduce AI components into their products. Perhaps no company has been more aggressive exploring and pushing the limits of what can be done by integrating AI into its products than Microsoft.
Microsoft was instrumental in creating OpenAI’s breakthrough GPT-3 LLM and then in launching the GitHub Copilot software coding assistant. Now that Microsoft Copilot is available and has been integrated into Microsoft’s suite of business and productivity tools, AI is poised to do for everyday office work what GitHub Copilot is doing for coding. It has the potential to make any work involving a computer easier and faster. It could also lead to a lot more bad art and bad writing.
It remains to be seen whether the net effect of having AI assistants will be positive or negative, but now’s the time for everyone to become educated on the capabilities and limitations of GenAI technology.
Unfortunately, no one fully knows what GenAI tools are capable of. For that reason, and because new applications are being rolled out daily, products such as Copilot come with very little written documentation or help in the form that users of traditional software are used to. In fact, if you’re using a tool such as Microsoft Copilot, it’s fully possible that you’ll figure out a new way to use it that not even Microsoft has anticipated.
This book aims to educate (and sometimes entertain) you with my experimentations into what Copilot can do and what it can’t do. You’ll learn how to use Copilot to help you as you do everyday tasks like emailing, having meetings, reading and researching, and creating business reports. Along the way, you learn tips and best practices for getting the highest quality results from AI assistants in general, not just Copilot.
I hope you enjoy reading this book and that you find it useful. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at [email protected].
About This Book
Whether you're a writer, a data geek, a speaker, a manager, or any other type of creative person, this book will teach you what you need to know to benefit from the new tools that are rapidly becoming available.
Topics you'll learn about in this book include:
Understanding what Microsoft Copilot is
Accessing Copilot
Using Copilot responsibly
Interacting with Copilot via speaking
Crafting effective prompts
Translating with Copilot
Using Copilot in Microsoft Edge
Using Copilot on iOS or Android
Exploring Copilot+ PC
Using Copilot in Microsoft Office and in Microsoft 365
Writing with Copilot
Working with data using Copilot
Improving PowerPoint presentations with Copilot
Emailing with Copilot
Getting help with Microsoft Teams meetings
Project management with Copilot
Creating images with Copilot
And much more!
As you read this book, keep the following in mind:
The book can be read from beginning to end, but feel free to skip around if you like.
If a topic interests you, start there. You can always return to the previous chapters, if necessary.
At some point, you will get stuck, and something you try will not work as intended.
Do not fear! There are many resources to help you, including support forums, others on the Internet, and me! You can contact me via email at
. Additionally, you can sign up for my Substack (
https://chrisminnick.substack.com
) to receive occasional updates from me about AI, programming, and learning.
Foolish Assumptions
I do not make many assumptions about you, the reader, but I do make a few.
I assume you have a computer with an Internet connection.
Also, while much of the functionality of Microsoft Copilot is available to anyone for free, some features I discuss in this book require a paid subscription to Microsoft Copilot Pro, Microsoft 365, or Microsoft 365 Copilot.
The only other assumption I make is that you’re curious about Microsoft Copilot and want to learn how to get the most out of it.
You wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t true!
Icons Used in This Book
Here are the icons used in the book to flag text that should be given extra attention or that can be skipped.
This icon flags useful information or explains a shortcut to help you understand a concept.
This icon explains technical details about the concept being explained. The details might be informative or interesting, but are not essential to your understanding of the concept at this stage.
Try not to forget the material marked with this icon. It signals an important concept or process that you should keep in mind.
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Beyond the Book
A lot of extra content that you won’t find in this book is available at www.dummies.com. Go online to find the following:
Online content.
In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes with some online-only content on the web. Check out the free cheat sheet by visiting
www.dummies.com
and searching for
Copilot for Dummies
cheat sheet. You'll see a table showing all the different programs in Microsoft 365 where you can use Copilot.
Updates.
AI is changing rapidly, and I don't expect it to stop doing so after this book is published, so the commands and techniques that work today may not work tomorrow. You can find any updates or corrections by visiting
www.dummies.com/go/CopilotforDummies
.
Where to Go from Here
As you embark on a journey to explore and discover the many ways Microsoft Copilot can be used, remember to keep an open and patient mind. As you’ll learn very quickly, Copilot can do seemingly impossible tasks, but it can also stumble on the most basic tasks. Always remember that you’re the boss and Copilot is your intelligent but inexperienced assistant. You’ll learn plenty of ways to help your AI assistant do better, but you’ll also find out that there are still many tasks that are beyond the abilities of Copilot.
If you want to find out what Copilot is and see what it’s capable of, go directly to Chapter 1. To find out how best to talk to Copilot, go to Chapter 2. If you want to learn about using Copilot at work, head over to Chapters 6 through 12. To learn about some of the more advanced ways to use and customize Copilot, check out Part 3, starting with Chapter 13.
Congratulations on taking your first step toward making full use of Microsoft Copilot, and thank you for trusting me as your guide.
Part 1
Meeting Your AI Assistant
IN THIS PART …
Exploring the fundamentals of using Copilot
Learning to talk to Copilot
Flying through the web with your Copilot assistant
Using Copilot on your smartphone
Discovering the future of computers with a Copilot+ PC
Chapter 1
Getting Started with Microsoft Copilot
IN THIS CHAPTER
Seeing how Copilot works
Learning about Copilot's capabilities
Accessing Copilot
Experimenting with basic commands
Using Copilot responsibly
Microsoft Copilot is an umbrella brand name for all of Microsoft's AI-powered chatbots. Chatbots such as Copilot and similar products from OpenAI, Google, Apple, and many others have the potential to change the way people get work done. At their best, AI chatbots can enhance productivity, learning, and creativity. At their worst, they can produce low-quality text and images, confidently answer questions with fabricated data, and displace human jobs.
In this chapter, you learn some of the ways that you can access Microsoft Copilot, you get an overview of its capabilities and limitations, and you learn about using AI responsibly and ethically.
Defining Copilot
In 2019, Microsoft invested in the then-tiny AI startup called OpenAI. Microsoft provided billions of dollars, and OpenAI ran its systems on Microsoft's computers. In 2021, Microsoft exclusively licensed OpenAI's GPT-3 model, which was used to create OpenAI Codex. OpenAI Codex was subsequently used by GitHub — a subsidiary of Microsoft that provides tools and hosting for computer programmers — to create a computer programming assistant called GitHub Copilot, shown in Figure 1-1.
FIGURE 1-1: GitHub Copilot.
Although GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are similar, in that they both use OpenAI’s technology for understanding and generating language, they’re two different products. GitHub Copilot is optimized for helping with the writing of programming code and Microsoft Copilot is optimized for chatting with people and generating written words in human languages.
Several months after GitHub Copilot was rolled out as a plugin for Microsoft's Visual Studio Code Editor, OpenAI released the first version of ChatGPT for use by the public. ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer Internet app of all time — gaining 100 million monthly users in just two months.
With its unprecedented ability to respond to user queries with human-like text, ChatGPT became a cultural sensation and possibly even a threat to the traditional search engines created by Google and Microsoft.
Microsoft responded to ChatGPT by redesigning its Bing search engine. Bing Chat, as it was called, was rolled out starting in February 2023 and gained its first 100 million active users within months. The early version of Bing Chat had a tendency to produce false data (also known as hallucinations) and troubling responses during chats, including, as reported by Kevin Roose in a The New York Times article, acting like a “moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine.”
Hallucinations, in AI lingo, are defined as incorrect or misleading information generated by AI. They’re caused by a variety of factors, including insufficient training, incorrect assumptions, and biases in the data used to train the AI model.
Microsoft clamped down on much of Bing Chat's tendency to go off the rails and rebranded it as Microsoft Copilot. The current homepage for Microsoft Copilot (https://copilot.microsoft.com) is shown in Figure 1-2.
FIGURE 1-2: Microsoft Copilot on the web.
Overview of Microsoft Copilot
Copilot has been integrated into many of Microsoft's products and can be helpful with a wide variety of tasks. In fact, there are so many possible ways to use Copilot that the possibilities can sometimes seem overwhelming. AI chatbots are a fundamentally different way of interacting with computers than most people are used to, so it can be helpful to look at them as if they were traditional computer software and start by talking about the features and what makes Microsoft Copilot different from its competition.
Core functionalities and benefits
The most basic function of any chatbot, whether it's powered by artificial intelligence or not, is to respond to human speech or writing (which is also known as “natural language”) with easy-to-understand text or speech. The quality of a chatbot can be measured by how human-like its responses are.
The current crop of AI chatbots can all generate highly convincing natural language responses to people's questions and requests.
The voice or text input a user of a chatbot gives to the chatbot, whether it's a question ("How tall is Mount Everest?") or an instruction ("Summarize this email.") is called a prompt. The primary way for people to interact with chatbots is through prompting.
Beyond its core ability to respond to prompts in natural language, Microsoft Copilot has exciting additional capabilities that make it stand out in usefulness, especially when it’s integrated into other Microsoft products.
Some of the features of Copilot include:
Performs web searches using Bing.
Integrates with other AI tools to create original images and music.
Writes original text or rewrites existing text.
Cites the sources of the text it generates.
Personalizes its interactions with you based on previous interactions and documents you work on.
Translates text between different languages.
Supports plugins that expand Copilot's capabilities.
Supports user-created chatbots.
Key differentiators from other AI assistants
The main thing that makes Microsoft Copilot more useful than other AI assistants is that it is integrated into Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft programs. This integration gives Copilot the ability to not only generate text and images, but also to control certain aspects of the software it's integrated into. For example, using a non-integrated chatbot, such as ChatGPT, you can ask for text for a PowerPoint slide that you then need to copy into PowerPoint and format manually. With Microsoft 365 Copilot, you can ask for PowerPoint slides or an entire presentation, and the Copilot assistant will create the new slides, format them for you, and insert them directly into your presentation. Even better, Copilot can access and use other documents you've created while creating the new slides.
Another key factor that distinguishes Copilot from many other chatbots is that Copilot has access to the data in Microsoft Bing. By augmenting the data it was originally trained on with search results from Bing, Copilot can answer questions about the latest news and other developments, whereas other models have a “cutoff date” beyond which they can only speculate (or hallucinate).
Understanding how Copilot works
Chatbots like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT are far superior to their predecessors, such as Office Assistant, also known as “Clippy” (shown in Figure 1-3). Microsoft integrated Clippy into Microsoft Office applications from version 97 to 2003 and it proved to be more annoying than helpful in most cases.
FIGURE 1-3: Original Office Assistant, also known as “Clippy.”
The reasons for Clippy’s failure have been studied exhaustively, but the crux of it is that Clippy was intrusive and would appear whenever it detected that you were doing something (such as writing a letter) that it was supposed to be able to help with. But then, when you agreed to let Clippy help you, all it could do was reference official Microsoft Office documentation, which wasn’t helpful for much of anything.
The two most important factors that contributed to making the latest generation of AI so much better than Clippy (and all subsequent AI assistants) are:
Vastly more data (and computing power) was used to train them.
They take advantage of new AI techniques that allow them to consider context when generating responses.
Learning from all the data
The AI model behind Microsoft Copilot is named Prometheus. Prometheus is OpenAI's technology combined with Bing's search index. The result is that Copilot has learned from and has access to a tremendous amount of data.
Although the relationship between training data size and a model's performance isn't simple, in general, larger models are able to gain a better picture of whatever they're designed to simulate (such as communicating using natural language, in the case of a chatbot).
Context is key
Even more important than simply throwing more data at an AI system is a technique known as attention that was invented by Google in 2017. In short, what attention techniques do is allow AI models to look at different parts of your input and their own output while figuring out what to say. For example, consider the following sentence:
“The bank can guarantee deposits will be safe because it has invested in secure vaults.”
An AI model that uses attention mechanisms will know that “bank” refers to a financial institution rather than the bank of a river because of the other words in the sentence, such as “guarantee,” “deposits,” “safe,” and “vaults.” A model with attention also understands that the word “it” in this sentence refers back to “bank.”
Because large language models can take context into account, providing sufficient context to the model in your prompts has become the single best way to improve the quality of responses you get to your prompts.
You learn how to use Copilot's chat mode in Chapter 2.
Using large language models (LLMs)
When you use Microsoft Copilot, you're using a large language model (LLM). But what is an LLM? Simply put, a large language model is a model of, or simulation of, language. It's described as a “large” language model because of its size.
Imagine that you're a train enthusiast. Perhaps when you were younger, you had a small train model. A small train model is okay for reproducing some things about trains. But, as your interest in accurately reproducing what you love about trains grows, you buy larger and larger trains and model railways — complete with scenery, bridges, and maybe even tiny little passengers in the dining car.
Of course, if you had the time, money, and space, you could have an actual-size train and railroad of your own. But that's impractical. So, you settle for the largest train model you can afford and that your basement can accommodate.
Large language models work the same way. A small language model may be able to engage in rudimentary simulations of conversations. A large language model can more accurately simulate an actual human speaker of a language (or a programmer, or a translator, and so forth) without being a human.
The inner workings of LLMs and machine learning are fascinating, but you don't need to be an artificial intelligence (AI) engineer, or even know anything about AI, to use Copilot. If you're interested in digging into more of the details, check out the book, Artificial Intelligence for Dummies.
Integration with Microsoft 365 apps
Microsoft 365 is the family of products and services that includes the productivity programs formerly known as Microsoft Office, as well as the OneDrive cloud storage service, the Microsoft Teams collaboration and conferencing program, the Outlook email and calendar program, and others. Microsoft 365 Copilot is available as an additional subscription.
Subscribing to Microsoft 365 Copilot activates the Copilot chatbot in each application and enables Copilot's built-in actions, which can perform different tasks depending on the application. Some of the features that Microsoft 365 Copilot enables include:
In Word, Copilot can suggest different writing styles and formats, rewrite sentences or paragraphs, translate text into other languages, and convert text into tables.
In Excel, Copilot can analyze data to discover trends and insights you might have missed, create charts and graphs, and suggest formulas.
In PowerPoint, Copilot can suggest design ideas, create individual slides, convert Word documents into presentations, add animations, and even write speaker notes.
In Teams, Copilot can take meeting notes, transcribe recordings, summarize discussions, and suggest action items.
In Outlook, Copilot can summarize emails, assist you with writing emails, schedule meetings, and create reminders based on the content of your emails.
