Business Management Insights — Pioneer Management Consulting

Copilot Wave 2: What’s Promised, What’s Real, and What’s Useful?

Written by Nick Hall | October, 07 2024

It’s officially a full-time job to stay up to date on all the AI news and happenings. Unfortunately, analysis paralysis, information overload, and constant change are factors that lead to low adoption of AI tools in the workplace. Luckily, we have resources dedicated to combing through the news and trying new AI tools to present the best and most easily implemented to the rest of us. 

Here are our thoughts on Copilot Wave 2: What’s promised? What’s real? and What’s useful? An anecdotal testimonial.

What’s Promised? 

  1. Copilot Pages has been announced for collaborative AI work, offering a new workflow for the AI age through a persistent canvas.

 

  1. Microsoft is making rapid improvements to Copilot in its 365 apps. Enhancements are anticipated for data analysis in Excel, presentations in PowerPoint, email management in Outlook, and other applications.
  2. Copilot agents have been announced, customizable AI chatbots based on specific company data.

 

What’s Real? 

Promises are nice, but what is happening now? Changes are being introduced frequently and in various release formats, making this section rapidly outdated. It's crucial to view AI tools and updates with a realistic perspective. 

  1. Copilot Pages have been announced and begun launching according to Microsoft. However, it is not available to all accounts yet as it’s being slowly rolled out to users.
  2. Copilot app improvements received varied updates:

Application 

New Functionality 

 

All Copilot chats are now saved for reference. It’s also worth reiterating that Copilot has commercial data protection that ensures your chats remain private. 

 

Excel has now gained functionality to interact with considerably more types of data, most notably non-tabled data and text data. 

 

PowerPoint has been announced to have brand-consistent design capabilities and the ability to use successive prompts to iterate on a deck. However, it is slowly being rolled out and not all accounts have this functionality yet. 

 

Outlook can now prioritize and sort through your inbox based on prompts and suggestions. 

 

Teams is now able to refer to both the chat and transcript in tandem to pull more accurate recaps. 

 

Word’s Copilot can reference meetings and emails and use them to generate content. 

 

  1. Copilot Agents have been announced, but the rollout will be gradual, and access is still not available for most users. This is not the first time that Microsoft has made confident announcements for functionality that has yet to be seen by most of their customers.

What’s Useful? 

The bottom-line value of this update as of today is: 

Application 

New Functionality 

 

All Copilot chats are now saved for reference and are still commercially protected 

 

Copilot is significantly more functional and considerably more useful on more types of data 

 

More collaborative and smarter at helping you prioritize your inbox 

 

Can now be used to reference emails and meetings very effectively 

 

Recaps are better and more holistic 

 

Ultimately, much of what was promised is not generally available, yet. However, the functionality that’s been announced would go a long way to making Copilot a significantly more viable all-in-one AI solution for your average Microsoft suite-using firm. 

Copilot continues to be a rapidly adapting platform that can be hard to stay on top of. If you want help getting the most out of your Copilot licenses, we would be happy to have a conversation and work towards evaluating your specific needs and training your employees. 

 
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