Microsoft has now brought a host of updates to Copilot – its generative AI companion. “Copilot will be there for you, in your corner, by your side and always strongly aligned with your interests. It understands the context of your life, while safeguarding your privacy, data and security, remembering the details that are most helpful in any situation. It gives you access to a universe of knowledge, simplifying and decluttering the daily barrage of information, and offering support and encouragement when you want it.,” the company announced in a blog post.
With the latest updates, Microsoft’s Copilot gets a redesign – a new interface across mobile, web, and the web alike. The Copilot homepage will now be tailored to specifically appeal to your tastes, based on your conversation history. Furthermore, with Copilot Vision, Microsoft is giving its AI companion a set of ‘eyes.’ In this case, Copilot can leverage the feature to view the content displayed on users’ screens, analyze the text and images (as applicable), and answer user questions.
In addition to this, Copliot can now answer more complex questions. Courtesy of the new “Think Deeper” feature, the AI companion will now take more time to process questions and provide more comprehensive answers, breaking it down step-by-step. Users can use this to make side-by-side comparisons and get a detailed and comprehensive answer, for example. For now, the feature is still in its early stages, and it will be made available only to a limited group of Copilot Pro users through Copilot Labs in specific regions, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US.
In addition to this, Microsoft is also giving its Copilot a ‘voice.’ As the name suggests, Copilot Voice enables it to present answers in an audio format, users to engage with Copilot in a more conversational manner. This takes a page out of OpenAI’s book by bringing voice capabilities to the AI companion. According to Microsoft, this feature will allow users to brainstorm with Copilot, and they will will have the option to choose from four distinct voice settings. For now, Copilot Voice is available only on English and in a handful of countries, and support for more areas and languages will be added in the future.
“We’re making a huge bet on voice,” Mehdi, Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president at Microsoft, commented on the matter. “When you use it with the way we’ve designed it, you really start to let yourself go and have conversations. Then you see the glimmers of where we’re going to go long term, with vision where the AI can actually help you and see what you see if you want it to.” Furthermore, access to Copliot is now being streamlines – users can simply type @copilot into the Microsoft Edge address bar to access the AI assistant.
Furthermore, the tech titan is bringing “Copilot Daily” to Copilot, keeping users updated with the latest happenings across the globe. It sounds similar to Yahoo’s new operations (which were shut down in India three years ago) and is set to summarize the news and weather updates for the day. Copilot Daily is set to team up with Copilot Voice to deliver these summaries which will be sourced from “authorized content partners” like Reuters and the Financial Times, for example.
