What can Microsoft Copilot do?

  • 5 minutes

Asking Microsoft Copilot what it can do produces a response like this:

Microsoft Copilot is like having a versatile assistant ready to help with a wide range of tasks. Here are some of the things I can do:

  • Answer Questions: Whether you have a query about a specific topic or need detailed information, I'm here to help.
  • Brainstorm Ideas: Need fresh ideas for a project, a story, or a presentation? Let's brainstorm together.
  • Write Content: I can assist in drafting emails, creating documents, writing code, or generating creative content like stories or poems.
  • Organize Tasks: From setting up to-do lists to managing your calendar, I can help keep your tasks in order.
  • Research: I can find information on the web, summarizing complex topics or providing the latest news and updates.
  • Generate Images: Describe an image you need, and I can create one for you (within certain guidelines).
  • Engage in Conversation: Whether you want to chat about something specific or just have a friendly conversation, I'm here for that too.

To see how Copilot can assist you at work, let's consider a hypothetical example.

Photograph of a business user.

Marie is a project manager at a business consultancy company. She's spent the last few days on vacation, and is now back in the office and ready to get back to work.

  1. She starts her day in Microsoft 365 Copilot BizChat, and uses Copilot to summarize the email and Teams threads she missed while out of the office and highlight any explicit follow-up actions that have been assigned to her.
  2. One action she needs to follow up on is to support Alex, a sales executive who needs to prepare for a customer meeting where they'll present a proposal for a consultancy engagement. Alex has sent a lengthy email describing the customer requirements in detail, so Marie uses Copilot in Outlook to summarize the email as a bulleted list of key points.
  3. After reviewing the key customer requirements, Marie uses Copilot in Microsoft Word to generate a draft for a statement of work that describes the proposed solution based on the customer's requirements and examples of proposals from previous projects.
  4. Next, Marie uses Excel to create a budget for the project, including payment milestones; and uses Copilot in Excel to generate visualizations of the cost data.
  5. With the work planned and costed, Marie uses Copilot in Microsoft PowerPoint to create a presentation based on the statement of work.
  6. Now Marie can use Copilot in Outlook to find Alex's availability and schedule a meeting to sync on the proposal.
  7. That afternoon, Marie meets with Alex using Microsoft Teams, and uses Copilot to generate a summary of the call with specific actions for each of them.

In this example, you can see some of the many ways in which Copilot can act as an AI-powered assistant, helping you prioritize work and achieve greater productivity.