Insight announcements 5 Things You Didn't Know Copilot Could Do (and 5 You Wish It Could)
By Paul Cina / 18 Dec 2024
Image created by generative AI in Shutterstock.
Microsoft 365 Copilot has quickly become a prominent name in the digital workplace, with promises to transform the way we work and interact with technology. Despite its growing popularity, many are only aware of a small fraction of its capabilities.
And more are on the way …
At its recent Ignite 2024 conference, Microsoft released a wave of updates to further expand Copilot’s horizons — and the long list of things it can do. Here’s a small sampling of some impressive yet overlooked capabilities:
5 Copilot Surprises
- Translate in real time: Soon, Microsoft Teams meeting participants will speak and listen in their language of choice with Copilot. It will transcribe what’s going on and translate captions in real time. The new Interpreter agent will even offer teammates the option to simulate their voices as it translates, for more of an immersive meeting experience.
- Master Excel formulas: Excel users of all levels will be able to benefit from a new start experience to easily create spreadsheets. They just need to tell Copilot if they’re looking to create a budget, inventory tracker, sales report, etc. and Copilot will generate it, including the necessary headers, formulas, and visuals. It can help master complex formulas, too. In fact, with a simple description of the task at hand, it will outright create the formula to make spreadsheet creation and analysis easier once this feature is released by the end of 2024.
- Design stunning PowerPoint presentations: By simply providing Copilot content, users can create a dynamic PowerPoint presentation with images and transitions. On top of that, Copilot's new Narrative Builder adds insights from your documents to craft a compelling story, complete with speaker notes. Now able to access your organization’s asset libraries, Copilot also keeps everything on brand via branded templates, too.
- Take collaboration to another level with Pages: With Copilot Pages, users can edit, add to, and share AI-generated Copilot responses with teammates in a separate page/chat. Coworkers can then prompt Copilot together, optimizing their level of collaboration.
- Automate repetitive tasks: Simple, fill-in-the-blank prompts will assign Copilot with completing mundane tasks most employees would prefer to avoid. For example, it will schedule recurring emails or summarize action items at the end of each day to keep you well-prepared for tomorrow.
The Rise of Copilot Agents
The Interpreter agent is just one of many agents available, their emergence representing one of the most significant developments in the Copilot ecosystem.
New Microsoft 365 agents were announced at Ignite, including Interpreter to provide real-time translation in meetings. Another agent helps automate employee self-service. Now, by using Copilot Studio, Microsoft’s platform to create and manage agents, you can create your own. For example:
- Book travel by providing your destination and dates.
- Automatically schedule meetings and resolve calendar conflicts.
- Provide custom recommendations about articles, products, or learning resources.
That's Microsoft’s vision for Copilot, as they aim to make it the universal user interface of AI; just like every employee has a smartphone, every business process should have agents to streamline rote tasks across operations. This means having a personal assistant at their fingertips. Employees can leverage different agents, just like apps on their phones. They can quickly get what they need/get inspired creatively — and easily stay organized.
5 Things We Can’t Wait for Microsoft to Advance in Copilot
Agents aside, while Copilot continues to evolve and impress, there's always room for improvement. For example, we’d love to eventually see more:
- Contextual understanding: Copilot has made strides in natural-language understanding, but it sometimes struggles with complex or nuanced requests. Improved contextual awareness and multimodal (voice/video) input would enable more accurate and helpful responses.
- Proactive assistance: Imagine a Copilot that anticipates your needs and offers proactive suggestions instead of waiting for instructions. Ideally, it would remind you of an upcoming deadline or suggest relevant documents for your current task.
- Seamless app integration: Copilot already integrates well with Microsoft 365. However, expanding its compatibility to other popular apps, like project management tools, would unlock even greater potential.
- Learning experiences aimed at individual users: Copilot could further leverage its AI capabilities to build out custom learning experiences based on documents users create and the questions they ask — either in meetings or Copilot itself. That could realistically mean recommending courses, articles, and resources tailored to their individual learning needs and goals, which is especially relevant in the fast-changing IT sector.
- AI collaboration: Ultimately, Copilot ideally evolves from a helpful assistant to become a true AI collaborator. It could hypothetically brainstorm ideas, provide critical feedback, and contribute meaningfully to complex projects — just like an actual teammate.
As Copilot continues to learn, each of the above wish-list items inch closer within reach. Once they are, and Microsoft adapts Copilot to meet more everyday needs, it will become an even more indispensable tool for individuals and organizations.
Based on how far it’s come from a capability standpoint in such a short timeframe since becoming generally available to enterprise customers in late 2023, it’s a matter of “when” instead of “if.” Some may see Copilot as an auto-complete easy fix. However, it’s more accurately a powerful AI assistant with a growing repertoire of features, able to help in ways most workers have yet to explore. Even if only for small parts of an organization, adoption now is worth considering, before even more advanced features are released and companies find themselves trying to ramp up from zero.
Taking advantage of more of what it has to offer, like the features above announced at Ignite, is a surefire way to see its potential firsthand. Exploring how much further it can go is the inevitable next step for all of us.
Paul Cina
Sr. Partner Manager - Modern Work and Copilots, Insight
Paul is a senior partner manager for Modern Work and Copilots at Insight. He is also certified as a 2024 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, recognizing outstanding members of technical communities for their community participation and willingness to help others.
