What does the future of AI look like under Microsoft?
AI (artificial intelligence) has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary. But beyond the hype, it is a powerful tool that can help you be more productive in your daily tasks. Microsoft is currently integrating into AI into its existing products, with a focus on helping you to work more smartly and securely. Here we discuss two upcoming tools that can change the way you work.
Bing Chat Enterprise: Your AI-Powered Chat for Work
By now most people have heard of ChatGPT. Bing Chat is the integration of its most recent version (GPT-4) into the Microsoft Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. This allows users to ask questions of the AI while accessing the most recent information available on the internet, resulting in more meaningful answers. And if the answers aren’t helpful? Users can simply tell it to try again and describe how it can do better. For example, you can tell Bing Chat to simplify the answer, make it more formal, or to include and discuss certain topics.
Bing Chat Enterprise is a new feature that lets you chat with an intelligent assistant that can help you with various tasks. It uses AI to understand your natural language and provide helpful responses. It also protects your data and privacy with commercial data protection.
With Bing Chat Enterprise, you can search for information on the web and – generate content such as jokes, poems, stories, images, tweets, code, and so forth. It does not have access to your Microsoft 365 tenant, as this is the realm of Microsoft 365 Copilot, which we will talk about shortly.
Bing Chat Enterprise protects your data by:
- Not saving or storing your chat data
- Not allowing anyone at Microsoft to view your data
- Not using your data to train the underlying models
- Encrypting your data with strong technology.
Bing Chat Enterprise is currently available as a free public preview for Microsoft 365 users with Business Standard, Business Premium, Enterprise E3 and Enterprise E5 licences. We will discuss Bing Chat Enterprise more deeply in our next blog post.
Windows Copilot
Windows Copilot is coming shortly and will assist in managing your Windows settings such as adjusting your PC’s settings to turn on dark mode or organising your windows with Snap Assist. Like Bing Chat Enterprise, it will be a side bar which can be minimised as needed. AI features are also being introduced to many apps, including Paint, Photos and Clipchamp.
Paint will include the ability to use layers and easily remove backgrounds. There is also preview of Cocreator that brings the power of generative AI to the Paint app. Similarly, Photos now includes Background Blur so you can remove unwanted backgrounds from your subject. Clipchamp video editor includes auto compose to helps you with scene suggestions.
We have seen reports that when you highlight or copy text or take a screenshot, you will be offered to insert this into Copilot for processing. We expect over time future improvements will allow greater productivity from both Windows and the included apps.
Microsoft 365 Copilot: Your Copilot for Work
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a new tool that works with your Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook, Word and Excel to help you write faster and better. It uses GPT-4 and your data to understand your context and provide smart suggestions and corrections. It has the same security focus as Bing Chat Enterprise.
With Microsoft 365 Copilot, you will be able to:
- Write with confidence and clarity with grammar, spelling, and style checks
- Generate high-quality content such as summaries, headlines, captions, bullet points, and more
- Find relevant information and insights from your data and documents
- Learn new skills and get feedback on your work
- Collaborate more effectively with your colleagues and customers.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is currently available to Enterprise users only (300+ users) and early reviews have been extremely positive. A general release date to small and medium businesses is yet to be announced, although we expect this to be sometime in mid-2024. We will discuss Microsoft 365 Copilot in more detail closer to its release date.
Preparing for Microsoft 365 Copilot
Although we are excited about the impact Microsoft 365 Copilot can have on small and medium businesses, there is the need to ensure good data governance is in place before it is rolled out. Organisations need to ensure their employees only have just enough access to the data necessary to perform their role. We have heard of instances where employees with too much access have used Copilot to search for information such as how much their manager earns, how much particular contracts are worth, and if there is any sensitive information contained within Microsoft 365.
Copyright Concerns
One of the major concerns with using AI is that the algorithm may have been trained on data owned by someone without their permission, leading to the potential for lawsuits over copyright, trademark and patent infringements.
To this end, Microsoft recently announced their Copilot Copyright Commitment to customers. Microsoft have moved to alleviate concerns that using Copilot will lead to copyright challenges by stating that if you are challenged on copyright grounds, they will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved. More information on this commitment can be found here.
How Microsoft AI can benefit you
Microsoft 365 Copilot and Bing Chat Enterprise are designed to help you work better and smarter. They can help you:
- Save time by automating tedious tasks and finding answers quickly
- Reduce errors by checking your work and providing corrections
- Enhance quality by generating high-quality content and finding insights
- Boost creativity by sparking new ideas and generating content
- Learn new skills by getting feedback and guidance
- Collaborate better by sharing your work and communicating effectively.
At CyberGuru we are very excited about the future of AI and how it can help you be more productive and cybersecure. Stay tuned over the coming weeks as we unpack more of what’s coming with Microsoft AI.