If you’re using Microsoft 365 Copilot or are going to implement this AI-powered suite to your workplace, here’s the short guide you will need. 

Key takeaways:

1. Learn Prompting to Use Microsoft 365 Copilot Properly:
   • Copilot’s effectiveness depends on the quality of prompts and questions fed into it.
   • Training end users is crucial for successful adoption.
2. Know the Difference Between Copilot vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot:
   • Copilot extends beyond Microsoft 365 Copilot.
   • M365 Copilot works with a bunch of Microsoft 365 applications.
3. Decide Which Version of Microsoft 365 Copilot to Use:
   • To facilitate adoption, start using the Copilot experience right away.
   • Note that ChatGpt 4.0 requires a $20 monthly subscription.

Learn prompting to use Microsoft 365 Copilot properly

Remember, Copilot is only going to be as good as the prompts and questions that we feed it. And who’s going to be doing this feeding? Our end users. That’s why one of the most crucial tasks in preparing our organization for its use is training our end users. I’ve heard, and I completely agree, that for end users, we should start using Copilot within Bing first. It will be much easier to encourage people to try it out than to convince them to use it within, for instance, Microsoft Word.

Know the difference between Copilot vs Microsoft 365 Copilot 

Copilot offers much more than just Microsoft 365 Copilot. Even if your organization hasn’t yet obtained licenses for M365 Copilot, all of your users, including yourself, already have access to much of its power through what was previously known as Bing Chat, now rebranded as Copilot. 

Yeah, that can be super confusing. But for now, let’s imagine that Copilot is what exists outside your applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. M365 Copilot, on the other hand, is what operates within these applications. 

Decide which version of Microsoft 365 Copilot to use

To facilitate the adoption process of Microsoft 365 Copilot, we can start using the Copilot experience right away. The Copilot experience actually utilizes ChatGPT 4.0, not the freely available Chat GPT 3.5 found on Chat GPT’s homepage. 

In fact, to use ChatGpt 4.0, you’ll need to pay $20 a month. Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat & Bing Chat Enterprise) is included in the following Microsoft 365 plans at no additional cost: Microsoft 365 E3 & Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 Business Standard & Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Know what Copilot is capable of

There are many great examples on what you can do with Copilot. One example is that you can use it to summarize a PDF document that you have open in your browser. 

Or you can just go to the official website and start playing around with different phrases. 

You can also choose the type of conversation you’d like to have with Copilot. 

Whether it should be creative, balanced, or more precise depends on the content you want to write. So, select the appropriate conversation type accordingly. 

One key element here is, once again, the phrases. You need to know what you want to ask Copilot to do, whether it’s creating a table based on information, summarizing something, or simply drafting an email for you. 

This brings us to an image that Microsoft has provided on their learning pages. 

This is a great place to start when you begin writing your own phrases, to understand how to construct them. 

Also, inside the different Copilot experiences you will get a set of examples from Microsoft to help you get started.  

So don’t wait for the Microsoft 365 Coplot license, start to write prompts today within Copilot (previously known as Bing Chat Enterprise). 

Summing up: no Microsoft 365 Copilot without prompting

If you want to introduce the M365 Copilot to your workplace, make sure your team knows the different versions of the tool and the needs these can fulfill.

The better your Copilot prompts, the better the responses that you’ll receive. That means that the best investment you can make right now is to train your employees on how to use the “free” version of Copilot which is already available today. 

This will lay the groundwork for their future use of the licensed M365 Copilot. 

Learn more about how to prompt Copilot here: Learn about Copilot prompts – Microsoft Support 

Artykuł Microsoft 365 Copilot is here, prepare your end users now.  pochodzi z serwisu IT-Dev.

Key takeaways 

• Microsoft has rolled out Copilot Pro, a subscription-based update to Microsoft Copilot that offers integration with Microsoft 365 and access to more advanced GPT models. Although it’s not yet available in every country, the list of territories in which it’s available continues to grow.  
• Copilot Pro costs $20 per month per user, which aligns with the pricing of other AI models like ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro. 
• While Copilot Pro offers more features and faster updates, the free version of Copilot still remains a valuable tool for those seeking GPT-4 access without a subscription fee. 

What does the free Copilot include? 

The popular Copilot is a gateway to GPT-4 capabilities. With functions such as code completion, text generation and some Microsoft integrations available, Copilot allows users to generate different kinds of creative content.

It has been a great choice for those who want to use OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus without having to pay $20 dollars a month for the subscription. Also, for some time it was not possible to even sign up for the ChatGPT Plus subscription as there were no places left, so Copilot served as a perfect solution for users who wanted to utilize GPT-4. Truth be told, who doesn’t want to save $20 dollars a month? 

What Is Copilot Pro? 

Enter Copilot Pro (not to be confused with Microsoft 365 Copilot). It’s the new subscription-based update to Microsoft Copilot bringing much more to the table.

The Copilor Pro subscription contains everything already available in the standard Copilot, plus:

• ability to build your own Copilot GPT tools tailored to your needs
• priority access to GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo during peak times 
• the use of Copilot Pro in some of the MS productivity apps
• generating images faster and with additional options

The major distinction, in my opinion, lies in the integration capability of Copilot Pro with Microsoft applications. It significantly enhances their usability, however, this of course necessitates having a Microsoft 365 Personal or Microsoft 365 Family License. With a Microsoft 365 Family subscription, each user intending to utilize Copilot Pro within Microsoft Applications must have a Copilot Pro license. 

If you’re into the subject, read articles Top 3 features for Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word and Top 3 features for Microsoft 365 Copilot in PowerPoint.

Still, non-Microsoft users will find their benefits too, especially if they don’t have other AI paid subscriptions already.

Who is Copilot Pro for?

If you can’t go without GPT-4 in peak times, produce high-quality AI images frequently and need customization tools that go beyond the standard usage of AI, Copilot Pro is worth the buck.

In my opinion, Copilot Pro caters to power consumers, while Microsoft 365 Copilot is tailored for enterprise usage or Microsoft fans. 

Even if you do not use Microsoft Applications like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, there might be compelling reasons to upgrade your free license to Copilot Pro. Nevertheless, I recommend comparing ChatGPT Plus with Copilot Pro or exploring Claude Pro to determine which tool you find more comfortable to use. 

Notably, Copilot Pro does not include Copilot in Teams: for that, you need Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft Copilot Pro availability

It’s also important to note that Copilot Pro’s availability is not universal and varies depending on your location. For instance, in my country, Norway, Copilot Pro is still unavailable, along with support for the Norwegian language. Nevertheless, many users, including myself, are eager to start using Copilot Pro immediately, even if it only supports the English language. 

Copilot is supported in the following languages:  

• English (US, GB, AU, CA, IN)  
• Spanish (Spain, Mexico)  
• Japanese  
• French (France, Canada)  
• German  
• Portuguese (Brazil)  
• Italian  
• Chinese Simplified  

 Copilot in Excel is currently only supported in English.  

Microsoft plans to support the following languages (in alphabetical order) over the first half of 2024:  

So be sure to check if Copilot Pro is available in your country. 

Summary: Should you buy Copilot Pro?

If you’re a Microsoft 365 user looking to integrate a highly capable GPT model in your work, then go for it. You can start with Copilot Pro or go along with Microsoft 365 Copilot version for enhanced integrations.

Because of this integration alone, I’d argue that Copilot Pro is a significantly better investment than, for instance, ChatGPT Plus.

Other than that, clearly define your needs first. If you don’t use any paid AI subscription, you can give it a try. And if you generate a lot of AI images and are looking for alternatives to Midjourney, Copilot Pro may prove helpful as well.

Everyone needs to make their own assessment and base their decision on the factors most important to them. 

For me, I’d say it’s definitely worth $20 a month – I just can’t access it yet.

Artykuł Copilot Pro – Is it worth $20 a month?   pochodzi z serwisu IT-Dev.

I have used it for some time now and I want to share 3 features that I think will make Microsoft 365 Copilot in PowerPoint worth the license cost.

1. Generate a Sales Presentation in PowerPoint from a Proposal file in Word.

I have a lot of experience with different RFP responses, or Sales offers, and usually after you pass the first screening you are always asked to make a presentation from your proposal, wouldn’t it be nice if you could produce a Presentation from your existing word proposal?

Now we can do just that with M365 Copilot inside PowerPoint.

Let me show you how:

In PowerPoint the experience is slightly different from Word where you get a Copilot prompt when you start. So after you have started a new Presentation you need to click the Copilot button from the ribbon.

From the window you can either create a presentation based on how you describe it to create a presentation, or you can create a presentation based on a file.

Unfortunately, you can’t select the file in the dialog box that appears: 

Because PowerPoint has some problems with the url from the address bar, you need to go to Word and click the Share Button 

And then just Copy link and paste it into the Prompt Copilot window inside of PowerPoint.

Afterwards just click the generate button and wait for Copilot to do its work. 

So, in this example, it created slides with all the key points from my Word document, but of course this is only a suggestion, and you can always change it as you like. The good thing about this is that if you have trouble starting with making slide decks, this is a great way to give you some ideas to work with based on a proposal that you already have written. 

2. Summarize your presentation

To make a summary, just simply open the presentation you want to summarize. And Select Copilot from the Ribbon. 

Either select Summarize this presentation from the available options or just type it in the chat window and click send. 

When the summary is done, you will get this option:

In PowerPoint we don’t have options yet to make the summary more formal or professional like we can do in Microsoft Word. 

So, we can only Copy the summary to the clipboard. Also, this is just a suggested summary from Copilot and it might be wrong so you always have to check and confirm the result. 

3. “Add a slide”

My last feature for PowerPoint is Add a slide or Create a new Presentation. They are pretty similar. Where Create a new Presentation will make a presentation based on your input, Add a slide will make a slide based on your input. 

To add a new slide with the help of Copilot, just type Add slide about as the text in the prompt/chat window. So, let’s try to add a slide about Bing Chat or Copilot as it’s now called. 

After the slide has been added, you can either edit it yourself, or you can also use the Designer to improve the Layout. 

Let’s also look at the Prompt window closely 

If you are not sure what prompts you can write, you can find some help here under the book icon 

If you click Create, you will see an option about suggested prompts for creating content 

If you click “View more prompts”, you will get a window that shows you all prompts including your saved prompts. 

As you can see, we also have the option to Add an Agenda slide. 

And just like that we have created an agenda slide.

Summary

With M365 Copilot for PowerPoint, I can easily start creating a presentation from a Word Sales document, that will help me to get started faster, or I can also use Copilot to add slides based on my input, or create an Agenda slide. This will help me to start writing content in PowerPoint. The last but not least, we can also create an executive summary of our presentation. I have more than once had a need to create an executive summary and with this feature, I will save a lot of time. 

Artykuł Top 3 features for Microsoft 365 Copilot in PowerPoint pochodzi z serwisu IT-Dev.

I’ve tested it out across several different apps, and when it comes to Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word, I want to highlight 3 features that in my opinion will justify the license cost.

First of all, let’s not forget that Microsoft 365 Copilot uses ChatGPT 4.0, and not 3.5 which is the free version that you get if you go to www.openai.com. If you want to use the ChatGPT 4.0 engine you must pay $20 a month for it, while with Microsoft 365 Copilot you pay $30 per month in total. So the difference in monthly cost is negligible. Microsoft has also now made Microsoft 365 Copilot available also for small businesses and you don’t need to buy 300 licenses anymore, and you can also sign up for a personal Copilot license with the new Copilot Pro license. We will get back to comparing this in another article.

But let’s get back to my top 3 features of Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word.

1. Rewrite text

To use Rewrite text, simply mark the text you want to modify with Copilot and click the Copilot Icon that will appear on left side of your text.

Then you can either click ‘Rewrite’ to get Microsoft 365 Copilot to rewrite your text, or you can also get Copilot to visualize the text as a table.

Let’s first look at the different options that you have from the “rewrite window.”

Copilot offers 3 different text versions that you can insert into your document, to replace the text that you marked. Click the next/prev arrows to navigate the different alternatives and select the one you want.

On the right side of the window you will always have the feedback buttons. Use these buttons actively to provide feedback to Microsoft about the AI generated content.

The filter button allows you to modify the tone in which Copilot generates the text.

The default tone is Neutral, but you can also choose between Professional, Casual, Concise and Imaginative.

To generate 3 new suggestions, click the Regenerate button.

‘Rewrite text’ can be particularly useful for non-native English speakers like me, helping them to learn better phrasing and grammar on the go. 

2. Create a summary

To create a summary, just open up a Word document and select Copilot from the navigation. 

You can either just click the suggested option “Summarize this doc” or you can write the same text in the Chat box to get a summary of the document.

When the summary is finished, you will get this option:

You can either refresh the summary to get another suggestion, or generate a more casual or formal summary.

3. Draft a new document

It’s possible to use Copilot to draft a new document, either by asking it to write a document based on a single text you provide or starting from up to 3 documents.When you click the new Document button you will be prompted with the “Draft with Copilot” 

Here you should describe what you want to write – the more detail you give, the better the output you’ll get from Copilot.

When Copilot is finished generating the content you can either keep it, or you can ask it to generate a more professional or concise version, or if you don’t like the proposed content you can always regenerate it. But don’t forget that you have to verify and modify the details to make sure it’s accurate and fits your tone and style. ​​

Summary

With M365 Copilot for Word I’m able to quickly rewrite my text and make it more professional. I can easily create a executive summary of my proposal, or I can draft a new document. 

I think a lot of people can relate that sometimes it’s just difficult to get started with writing copy, and M365 Copilot offers you exactly the support you need to get going. 

So if you feel that you’ll benefit from even just one of the three features mention above, then I would recommend you consider investing in M365 Copilot.

Artykuł Top 3 features for Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word pochodzi z serwisu IT-Dev.