Microsoft Copilot. Image DALL-E3 (Bing).
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to sparkle millions of pixels and whet the appetites of very voracious investors. In this context, sometimes punctuated by painful hallucinations, we dared to try Microsoft Coplilot Pro, a kind of assistant integrated into Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint and OneNote.
You have to want it. In fact, you have to go to the Microsoft page where you can manage your Office subscription. We see that in addition to the almost 110 francs per year for the Microsoft 365 family, another 21 francs per month per user must be added. Yes, you read that right, that's 84 francs for a family of 4.
This amount may be added to other software costs to benefit from AI for other tasks. Remember that ChatGPT or Perplexity charge around twenty francs per month for relatively equivalent services, since these two AIs allow the creation of images.
And what do we get for this price? An “integration” into the above software with different notable functionalities in each of these applications. Copilot Pro thus makes it possible to summarize texts, theoretically to facilitate their creation, to correct them, etc. Sometimes you have to update the license manually so that the Copilot icon appears.
Microsoft Copilot: an insane price!
Generation by copilot
At this point, I asked Microsoft Copilot Pro the following question using a small icon that appears on the left side of the Word document: “What features does Copilot offer in Microsoft 365?” Here is his answer below in italics:
Copilot presents itself as an intelligent assistant that can help you write, edit and improve your documents in Microsoft 365. It is available for Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Excel applications and works with artificial intelligence based on OpenAI's GPT-3 language model.
With Copilot you can access different functions depending on the app you use:
— In Word, you can ask Copilot to summarize a text, create a text based on a keyword, proofread a text, rephrase a sentence, generate titles or introductions, or even find relevant sources for your document.
— In PowerPoint, you can ask Copilot to create slides from text, generate graphics tailored to your presentation, suggest transitions or animations, or even revise your speech.
— In Outlook, you can ask Copilot to compose an email based on a subject, personalize your message based on the recipient, check the politeness and tone of your email, or even schedule an appointment or meeting.
— In Excel, you can ask Copilot to create a table or chart from data, calculate formulas or statistics, sort or filter your data, or find external data relevant to your table.
Copilot is designed to save you time and make your life easier, but you also need to be careful and check its suggestions before validating them. Copilot is not foolproof and may sometimes produce errors or inappropriate content. You must therefore maintain a critical spirit and not blindly trust your assistant.
First attempt with Copilot Pro
For now, I would like to point out that I haven't managed to test Copilot on macOS in OneNote yet. Previously, Copilot had generated this text for me, also in italics, obviously inspired by various keywords entered under the paragraph in question:
But does Copilot keep its promises? We tested some of its features in Word and the results weren't very convincing. For example, when asked to summarize a text, Copilot simply copies and pastes the first few sentences without extracting the main ideas.
When asked to create text based on a keyword, Copilot generates sentences that are often incoherent or off-topic. When asked to correct text, Copilot does not detect all spelling or grammatical errors and sometimes suggests incorrect or inappropriate corrections.
In short, Copilot is not a reliable or effective assistant, but rather an expensive and disappointing device. We expected something better from Microsoft, which, however, has considerable resources when it comes to artificial intelligence. Maybe in 30 years Word will be more stable and smarter…
Microsoft Copilot: botched integration in Word.
sloppiness; Microsoft trademark
My comment? I won't go that far. Microsoft Copilot Pro exceeded my expectations. Still, I see that Microsoft has actually done a poor job, which is almost a hallmark considering it took almost twenty years to stabilize a program like Word… Not to mention the Windows bugs.. .
At this point I will continue my experiments. But when you consider what generative AIs like ChatGPT (available as a plugin for Word) or Perplexity.ai do, the asking price seems excessive to me. Finally, integration with Microsoft 365 programs can really be improved. Copilot Pro, for example, doesn't necessarily integrate its suggestions directly into the text… I canceled that subscription immediately.
Xavier Studer
P.S
The 4:3 image above was generated directly in Microsoft's Bing image generator. The request was as follows: “Can you create an extended 4:3 format image for me to illustrate a test of Microsoft Copilot?”
Copilot Pro in Word.
I like this :
I would like to load…