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Home Innovation Artificial Intelligence

What is Microsoft Copilot? Here’s everything you need to know

Microsoft just released its AI companion, and it has the potential to transform your workflow.

Written by Sabrina Ortiz, Editor on

What is Microsoft Copliot?

Microsoft Copilot refers to Microsoft’s AI companion that will span across all of Microsoft’s applications and experiences, including Microsoft 365, Windows 11, Edge, and Bing. With Copilot, users will be able to get AI assistance in virtually every aspect of their workflows on the different Microsoft applications.

Also: The 5 most useful new Microsoft AI features

For example, the suite of Microsoft 365 applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, will be infused with Copilot to optimize your workflow across them, such as generating text and tables in Word, summarizing and drafting emails in Outlook, and generating Python visualizations in Excel.

Is Microsoft Copilot out yet?

Since Microsoft Copilot will be integrated among different Microsoft products, the release dates differ.

Copilot will start rolling out on Windows 11 starting September 26 through a free Windows 11 update.
Copilot will begin rolling out to Bing and Edge this fall.

Microsoft 35 Copilot will begin to roll out for enterprise customers on November 1 and for other users this fall.

Is Microsoft Copilot available now?

No, as of September 22, Microsoft Copilot is not available now. However, it will be available soon in Windows 11 on September 26.

Is Microsoft Copilot free?

The cost of Microsoft Copilot depends on the application it is being integrated into.

Starting November 1, Microsoft 365 Copilot will be available for enterprise customers at a whopping $30 per user per month.

Also: I demoed Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio 2 and was left all kinds of jealous

For context, the price of the add-on is more than lower-end plans of Microsoft 365 business subscriptions, which range from $12 to $23 per user per month, and almost the same as Microsoft’s Office 365 E5 highest-end enterprise subscription, which costs $38 per month.

However, regarding the rest of the applications, Microsoft said, “Copilot will begin to roll out in its early form as part of our free update to Windows 11, starting Sept. 26 — and across Bing, Edge, and Microsoft 365 Copilot this fall.”

What is Microsoft 365 Copliot?

Microsoft 365 Copliot simply refers to the integration of the Copilot AI assistant into Microsoft’s 365 productivity software family, including Teams, Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint.

What is Microsoft 365 Chat?

Microsoft 365 Chat is part of the Microsoft 365 Copliot experience. It is a chat interface that has access to your data across your different Microsoft work applications, which enables it to answer questions and assist with tasks.

Also: GitHub’s AI-powered coding assistant moves to public beta. How to access it

For example, you can ask Microsoft 365 Chat to “summarize unread messages,” and it will look through all of your 365 Applications to give you a concise summary of everything you missed.

It can also catch you up on meetings, find documents for you, and answer questions based on the content you have in your documents, meetings, chats, and more.

What is Google’s version of Microsoft Copilot?

Google unveiled its version of Microsoft Copilot, Duet AI, in late August. Duet AI is an assistant that will be integrated across the Google Workspace, including applications such as Google Docs, Slides, Meet, Gmail, Chat, and more.

Duet AI has not been released to the public yet. Users can request a trial by completing this form which asks for the number of employees at the interested user’s organization, whether they are a Google Workspace customer, and contact details.