Your burning Microsoft 365 Copilot Questions Answered
AI is one of the most important technologies in the world right now but knowing how to start your AI journey and which AI tool to integrate into your business can be overwhelming.
We recommend Microsoft 365 Copilot to all businesses as it’s a game changing AI assistant for work that integrates with all your Microsoft 365 apps, think Word, Outlook, Teams, Excel, PowerPoint and more.
If you are thinking about starting your AI journey or just want to learn more about Microsoft Copilot, this article will answer the most common questions we get asked about Copilot and AI in general, so keep reading to find out all the answers to your burning questions!
How Does Copilot Work?
Copilot is an artificial intelligence, but more importantly a living language model. It learns from the data that it’s fed, meaning that its intelligence comes from its training data and its ability to use that data to solve problems.
In simple terms, you type in a prompt and Copilot generates an answer to that prompt based on the data it has been fed. When you send Copilot a prompt, it uses its training and learned data to be able to generate output that seems like a human, using natural language.
Where Microsoft 365 Copilot differs is it combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with business data and the Microsoft 365 apps. This means as well as internet data, Microsoft 365 Copilot learns from your business data and files that it has permission to access. Therefore, users get content relevant to their work tasks, and in the context of the Microsoft 365 app they're using.
Does Copilot learn and improve over time?
Copilot is constantly evolving and learning, and gains access to new training data all the time. The knowledge cut-off for the free version of Copilot is April 2023, meaning that it won’t know anything that has happened since this date.
However, this is constantly changing with new updates and innovations. Microsoft 365 Copilot also learns from files and data within your business environment that you allow it to see, so it is constantly updating and learning from the files and emails you give it access to.
What data does Copilot have access to?
The knowledge cut-off for Copilot is April 2023, meaning that its training data is all from before that date. However, Microsoft Copilot can also search using Bing and extrapolate data from the internet through that.
Microsoft 365 Copilot accesses data that your Microsoft Entra account has access to, like your emails and files. If using Microsoft 365 Copilot, it’s important that your IT company or in house IT Support get your organisation and data ready for Copilot, so that each users Copilot only has access to the files that that user should have access to.
As your Managed Service Provider (MSP), this is where we would come in, doing thorough onboarding and training before you get started with Copilot.
What are the limitations of Copilot?
All AI has limitations, it’s not a magical device and you have to know how to use it correctly, for example how to ask Copilot the right prompts and ensuring permissions access and your organisations data is set up and secured correctly. This is where we, as your Managed Service Provider (MSP) would come in, training you in how to properly use Copilot. We also make sure all of the best security measures are in place to safeguard your data and ensure your technical environment is ready for user adoption.
Here are the main ones:
· Copilot can only generate text based on the data it has access to: You can’t ask Copilot to generate based on things it doesn’t know about.
· Copilot can sometimes generate factually incorrect text: This is known as hallucination.
· Copilot can be biased: Because of the large dataset, Copilot can generate text that can be seen as biased or unfair.
These are the main major limitations of Microsoft Copilot and are vital to consider when using it. After all, like all AI, the model is only as good as the data it’s trained on, and — while Microsoft has generally trained it to be neutral — it can pick up biases or false information that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Can Copilot be customised for specific business needs?
Copilot can be customised for your business’ needs through features like Copilot Studio, which allows you to design, develop and deploy custom AI Copilots tailored to your business needs in just a few clicks.
Custom agents are another example of how you can tailor Copilot to your needs. You can make agents that can automate tasks, provide support, generate content, and much more.
How We Can Help
Microsoft Copilot for 365 can often feel like magic, but these answers have hopefully provided clarity and helped you understand the ins and outs of Copilot for Microsoft 365.
If you’re looking to get started with Copilot for Microsoft 365 and need help implementing it into your business, reach out to our expert team today. We’re here to help and will ensure you have everything you need to be able to use Copilot for Microsoft 365 successfully in your business.