#microsoft-copilot

#microsoft-copilot

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in AI, OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman became the face of AI, and billion-dollar AI companies seem to be minted at will. As an early investor in OpenAI, Microsoft has been changed as much as any company by the genAI revolution. The tech giant's value has skyrocketed to between $3 trillion and $4 trillion depending on the day, and it's become the premiere AI firm in the world.

It's not hard to understand the AI future Microsoft is betting billions on - a world where computers understand what you're saying and do things for you. It's right there in the ads for the latest Copilot PCs, where people cheerfully talk to their laptops and they talk back, answering questions in natural language and even doing things for them. The tagline is straightforward: "The computer you can talk to."

When Stephen Colbert asked the Oscar-winning performer and writer how she felt about "the coming AI revolution," Thompson didn't hold back: "Intense irritation." Her target? Microsoft Word's Copilot feature, which constantly offers to rewrite her work. "When I've written something and put it into a Word document, it's constantly saying, 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'" Thompson said.

Mico (short for Microsoft) is the new face of Copilot. Redmond promises it will appear when you use voice commands to invoke the assistant. It's rolling out to users on Thursday and you can get it by clicking the microphone icon on the web version of Copilot ( copilot.microsoft.com). However, at the time of publication, it was not appearing in the Copilot for Windows app for this writer.

Will there be laptop deals on Black Friday and all throughout Cyber Week? Of course, and probably more than you could shake a stick at. But we can't swear there will be one with specs like this HP Flagship: huge anti-glare HD+ display, processor hitting speeds up to 3.80GHz, UHD graphics, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD for built-in storage.

"We are exploring the possibility of introducing Copilot for Exchange Server (on-premises)," Microsoft says, linking to a ten-question form that asks: "Would your organization be comfortable enabling Copilot for Exchange Server if it requires sending some Exchange Server data to the cloud?" Er, probably not. After all, many administrators run an on-premises version of Exchange precisely because they don't want any Exchange Server data being sent to Microsoft's cloud.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a major disruptive force, transforming businesses and reshaping our daily lives worldwide. Alphabet and Amazon are widely seen as key beneficiaries of this revolution. Alphabet (through Google Cloud and Workspace) and Amazon (through AWS) serve enterprise markets. Still, they are also heavily exposed to consumer-driven segments, such as digital advertising and e-commerce. On the other hand, Microsoft is more enterprise-centric, with a business model primarily based on seat-based subscriptions and long-term contracts.

Redmond has done so unilaterally, effectively endorsing "shadow IT" - the practice of bringing unapproved software and devices into the workplace. Earlier this year, Microsoft said it had adopted a new approach to shadow IT. "While earlier eras of our IT history focused on trying to prevent shadow IT, we are now concentrating on managing it," the biz said in a blog post. By "managing," Microsoft also means "enabling."

We told you that inside the app's settings you can opt to use Google's AI Mode for all general inquiries. And if you flip that switch, anything you type into the app that isn't a search for some manner of local or Drive-connected data will end up in an interactive chatbot-style question-and-answer session instead of in a more traditional web-style search result listing.

With the integration, you can call upon Copilot and ask for movie suggestions, spoiler-free episode recaps, and other general questions. On TV, Copilot takes on a "friendly, animated presence" that resembles the opalescent Copilot Appearance Microsoft showed off last month, though in a color that makes it look more like a personified chickpea. The beige blob will float and bounce around your screen, while its mouth moves in line with its responses.

Jordi Ribas stated, "They're both excellent AI search products but we're taking a different approach for some query segments." He provided an example where Microsoft Copilot yielded richer answer cards for follow-up queries compared to Google AI Mode.

The flexibility of a vendor-agnostic approach allows for scalable AI solutions across platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, prioritizing what works best in real-world workflows.