Microsoft Unveils Faster AI Copilot for Excel & Word with New Features

Microsoft has launched the next wave of its AI assistant, Copilot, as part of Microsoft 365. This update brings new features and faster performance across key apps like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, and OneDrive. With improved functionality, Copilot is transforming how people work and collaborate, enhancing productivity through automation and AI-driven insights.

New Capabilities for Microsoft 365

Business Chat (BizChat):

At the core of this update is BizChat, a central hub where users can access data from across their organization. BizChat integrates web data, work data, and line-of-business information, allowing users to collaborate with Copilot and transform all content into a rich database of reusable assets.

Copilot Pages:

Microsoft is introducing Copilot Pages, a collaborative canvas designed for real-time teamwork. Pages allow users to edit, share, and build on AI-generated content alongside their colleagues in real-time. This new feature promotes human-to-AI-to-human collaboration and will be available to all Microsoft 365 users by the end of September 2024.

Expanded Features Across Microsoft 365 Apps:

Excel: Copilot in Excel can now handle unformatted data, it supports advanced formulas like XLOOKUP and SUMIF, the capability to collaborate with Copilot on visualizations, such as charts and PivotTables, and to customize them to your needs. Copilot in Excel can now also handle text-based data, not just numerical data. Additionally, users can perform advanced data analysis using Python, all without coding. Now, anyone can use Copilot to perform advanced tasks such as forecasting, risk analysis, machine learning, and visualizing complex data—all through natural language, without the need for coding. It's like having a skilled data analyst on your team. This feature is available in public preview.

PowerPoint: The Narrative Builder in PowerPoint helps users quickly create outlines for presentations from their prompts, which can be refined and customized. Coming soon, you'll be able to add files to the outline to support and enhance your topics. Copilot also integrates with branded templates, keeping presentations consistent with company branding, and soon you will be able to pull in company-approved images directly from your SharePoint Organization Asset Library.

Teams: Copilot in Teams can now analyze both the meeting transcript and chat to provide a comprehensive view of everything discussed. It ensures no question or idea is overlooked by providing a comprehensive overview of what was discussed and ensures all contributions are addressed. It will be available later in September 2024.

Outlook: The new Prioritize My Inbox feature in Outlook helps users focus on the most important emails, providing concise summaries and insights based on email content and context, and includes why it prioritized the message. Soon, you’ll be able to train Copilot to recognize specific topics, keywords, or contacts that are important to you, ensuring those emails are flagged as high priority. This feature will enter public preview later in 2024.

Word: Copilot in Word helps users quickly reference content from various documents and apps, making it easier to create first drafts. The AI can pull information from emails, PowerPoint, PDFs, and more, and integrate it in the flow of your work, streamlining the writing process. Recent updates introduce a new on-canvas start experience with suggested prompts to kickstart your creative process, along with the ability to collaborate with Copilot directly as you work on specific sections of your document. Both features are currently generally available.

OneDrive: Copilot in OneDrive enables users to quickly find and compare information across multiple files, offering summaries without needing to open each document, helping users to quickly find the information they need to gain insights. This feature will be available by the end of September 2024.

Copilot Agents and Agent Builder

To automate business processes, Microsoft is introducing Copilot Agents, which can handle tasks from simple responses to more advanced, fully autonomous workflows. Easy and secure to manage, all Copilot agents adhere to the same Responsible AI and EDP commitments—ensuring your data stays within the Microsoft 365 trust boundary and remains within your tenant.

You can also utilize pre-built agents, like the new Visual Creator agent, which helps generate AI-powered images, designs, and soon, videos. Additionally, Agent Builder allows users to create custom agents without coding, enabling them to automate tasks directly within apps like BizChat and SharePoint. For example, you can quickly launch Agent Builder to create an agent directly within BizChat, seamlessly connecting it to SharePoint to access relevant business process data. In just moments, you’ll have a powerful knowledge resource to share with colleagues in Teams or Outlook. You can mention the agent just like a teammate, sharing new information and asking questions that it answers in real time. If you need a more advanced agent, you can further customize it in Copilot Studio, enabling it to connect to data sources or perform tasks on your behalf.

Copilot agents and Agent Builder in BizChat will be available to all customers over the coming weeks, with Copilot agents and Agent Builder in SharePoint entering preview in early October.

The Value of Copilot for Businesses

Since its launch, Copilot has become a vital tool for organizations around the world. Companies like Vodafone, Amgen, Teladoc, and Honeywell have embraced Copilot to save time, improve productivity, and streamline operations. Copilot users report significant time savings—up to 92 minutes per week on average—helping them work smarter, not harder.

Microsoft has made over 700 product updates and introduced 150 new features this year alone, ensuring that Copilot continues to evolve based on customer feedback. Performance has dramatically improved with GPT-4o, making Copilot responses twice as fast and tripling user satisfaction.

Looking Ahead

This is just the beginning of Microsoft’s Wave 2 Copilot updates. In the coming months, the company will continue to roll out new features and innovations to further enhance productivity and add value for its customers.

Start using Microsoft Copilot today, or download the Microsoft 365 app on your mobile device.

For more insights on the future of work and generative AI, visit WorkLab.