Introduction to Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft has unveiled a slew of exciting new AI-powered features and products at their recent Microsoft Build event, showcasing their commitment to driving the Microsoft AI revolution.
Microsoft Copilot is at the forefront of innovation, offering the ability to tap into the world’s knowledge and the knowledge within your organisation. This revolutionary tool is democratising expertise across organisations, creating a cascading effect that is reminiscent of the early PC era. The impact is broad, affecting enterprise business processes significantly.
Copilot lowers the floor and raises the ceiling simultaneously, enabling us to achieve more. No two business processes are the same, and with Copilot Studio, you can customise Copilot for your specific workflows. At the May 2024 Microsoft Build event, Microsoft introduced new Copilot features such as Copilot connectors in Copilot Studio, allowing you to ground Copilot with data from across various platforms like Graph, Power Platform, Fabric, and Dataverse. Additionally, third-party connectors for SaaS applications from Adobe, Atlassian, ServiceNow, Snowflake, and many more are available.
Customisation with Copilot Studio
With Copilot Studio, customising Copilot for your business processes is a seamless experience. This wizard-like process enables you to incorporate your organisational knowledge and data quickly. The introduction of Copilot connectors simplifies grounding Copilot in both first and third-party line of business data.
Copilot is not just a personal assistant; it has evolved into a team assistant. Team Copilot can be invoked wherever collaboration happens, whether in Teams, Loop, Planner, or other platforms. It can serve as a meeting facilitator, creating agendas, tracking time, and taking notes. It can also be a collaborator, writing chats, surfacing important information, and tracking action items.
Team Copilot: Your Meeting Facilitator
Team Copilot is designed to facilitate meetings efficiently. In Teams, it can create agendas, track time, and take notes. This feature ensures that your meetings are productive and that all critical points are documented.
As a collaborator, Team Copilot can write chats, surface the most important information, and track action items. It can address unresolved issues, ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks. This capability is invaluable for maintaining smooth project management.
Project Management with Team Copilot
Team Copilot can also act as your project manager, ensuring that every project runs smoothly. It can track progress, manage tasks, and ensure that deadlines are met. This feature is particularly useful for teams working on complex projects that require meticulous coordination.
These capabilities will be available in preview later this year, and we are excited about the possibilities they bring to enhancing team collaboration and productivity for companies.
Building Custom Copilots
With Copilot Studio, anyone can build copilots with agent capabilities. These copilots can work independently and proactively orchestrate tasks. By providing your Copilot with a job description or choosing from pre-made templates, you can equip it with the necessary knowledge and actions.
Copilot will work in the background, acting asynchronously on your behalf. This feature is set to change the landscape of automation, allowing you to delegate authority to Copilot for long-running business processes. Copilot can even ask for help when encountering situations it cannot handle, ensuring that tasks are completed efficiently.
Security and Microsoft Copilot
Security is a cornerstone of Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft have cited their approach as being wrapped with robust security measures, underpinning everything they build. Satya stated: "We are committed to our Secure Future Initiative, which encompasses six pillars and core design principles: secure by design, secure by default, and secure operations."
Throughout the conference, security was a constant theme. This focus ensures that Microsoft Copilot operates in a secure environment, protecting your data and processes.
Empowering Developers and Organisations
Satya went on to say that "At the heart of our mission is the empowerment of every person and organisation. Innovation is not just for a select few; it is about enabling everyone to achieve more. As developers, we are driven by the desire to create magical experiences that make a real difference in our communities."
This new generation of AI is already having an incredible impact, thanks to the passion and hard work of developers. One inspiring example is the development of tools to make the world more accessible for the blind and low vision community.
Accessibility through AI
Audio description is a crucial tool that enables visually impaired individuals to enjoy media content fully. However, the challenge lies in the limited availability of audio descriptions across media and entertainment.
Technology and AI have the potential to bridge this gap, making content more accessible. At WPP, they aim to open access to content in ways that people want to consume it. They have developed an application that uses GPT-4 with Vision and Azure AI services to add spoken narrations to videos quickly and efficiently.
This tool makes audio descriptions cheaper and faster to produce, offering this service for all advertisement campaigns. The impact of this technology is profound, enabling the ability to describe artworks and media content in a fraction of the time it would take manually.
Strengthening Culture through Accessibility
WPP have stated "By enhancing access to culture, we strengthen the culture itself. AI enables us to connect our shared humanity by making art and media accessible to everyone. The power of AI allows us to do things that were only dreamt about until recently.
Through these innovations, we are building a more inclusive world. The first time I heard audio descriptions, it brought me delight. It was an opportunity to be seen and to experience content in a new way."
Conclusion
Microsoft Copilot is transforming the future of work by democratising expertise, enhancing collaboration, and improving accessibility. With robust security measures and a commitment to empowering every person and organisation, we are excited about the possibilities that Microsoft Copilot brings.
As developers, we have the power to create magical experiences that make a real difference. With Microsoft Copilot, we are building a future where technology enables us to achieve more, connect more deeply, and create a more inclusive world.
