Last week’s big AI announcement from Microsoft sees impressive new features rolled out in Copilot. Some immediately. It’s important to note this is the personal version of Copilot, not the business or enterprise version. The top line is it’s all about making Copilot more personal so the focus is people, not technology.
In usual tech company fashion, the new features are all US only, except for those that aren’t. It says everything is available in the US and some of the rest will be rolled out quickly starting with the UK and Candada. The announcement doesn’t make it easy to figure it out by feature, so I’ve tried to simplify it here by including it in the article, instead of hiding it in footnotes like Microsoft.
Cooperative AI
One of the problems of traditional AI chatbots is they inhibit collaboration and sharing. They are inherently selfish and focused on the person using it. Sharing is hidden in features like ‘pages’ or ‘canvases’. Copilot now makes friendly cooperation easy with a new Invite icon for its Copilot Groups feature.
Groups – It says US only, but in the UK I already sort of have (might be because I’m an Insider on Windows and beta tester on Android). It lets you share and collaborate on chats with up to 32 people.
Imagination – appears to be part of Groups and enables you to “explore and remix AI-generated ideas in a collaborative space. Browse creations and adapt them to fit your needs. Every post can be liked and remixed.”
This is something I do in with Cove.ai which we’ve used to plan a family holiday. I’ve just tried the same in Copilot and then tried to share the conversation. Copilot’s initial recommendations were far better than Cove. With the same prompt it gave me far more relevant ideas. Both knew we were taking our Labrador, but only Copilot included dog-friendly beaches in its initial ideas. Cove did when asked and made the same suggestions.
Cove’s user interface is much better. It uses a card/sticky note whiteboard which works better for collaboration than chat.
I couldn’t actually test the Copilot Imagination feature because although I’ve got the Invite icon it gives an error when I try to create a link to share the chat.
Goodbye Clippy and Cortana, meet Mico
Not sure how I feel about this one, do we really want Clippy back? The new Mico (Microsoft Copilot) character is an “optional visual presence” that is “expressive, customizable, and warm”. Mico “listens, reacts, and even changes colors to reflect your interactions, making voice conversations feel more natural. Mico shows support through animation and expressions, creating a friendly and engaging experience.”
I can’t tell you how I feel as bizarrely it’s US only. I’m assuming the US only groups is because of different privacy and data laws, but it isn’t immediately obvious why Mico should be US only. If you really want to you can watch a video to see what Mico looks like – reminds me of Casper the friendly ghost.
As soon as I can I want to try it and then I’ll give you my verdict.
Real talk
There’s also a feature called real talk. I can’t tell you much about this as it’s US only and the Microsoft description is baffling marketing speak.
Separately, explore conversation styles like real talk, which offers a collaborative model that challenges assumptions with care, adapts to your vibe, and helps conversations spark growth and connection.
Anyone know what that nonsense means?
Better memory
Copilot now has a long-term memory. This is an incredibly important personalisation feature. For example I shouldn’t need to keep telling it we have a dog when I’m asking for ideas of things to do as it will remember and use it in future conversations. Obviously, this is something where you can edit, update and delete memories so you are in control. And Yippee it appears this feature isn’t just for the USA.
Copilot connectors
Connectors have already been announced and are a much needed addition. You can now link Copilot to to more of your content. This means you can use natural language to track down that thing you can half remember regardless of if it’s in your email, diary or files. Hopefully the initial list of connector apps will expand to include WhatsApp, SMS and messages in apps like LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger, Bluesky etc.
One of my biggest challenges is the multitude of channels used. Personally, I find email by far and away the easiest as I can flag it as a task, search it and file it all in one place. Potentially Copilot might eventually be able to do this for every channel.
And the good news is that connectors are rolling out to different regions and markets. I already have it.
Proactive Actions
This sounds amazing. It’s an improvement to Deep Research which means Copilot can find new insights and and suggest next steps based on your recent activity or research. This feature appears to be available globally, but only with a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, or Premium subscription. I expect to see this one in the business verison of Copilot fairly soon.
Copilot for health
Not much to say about this one as it’s US only, for understandable reasons. It grounds its answers in credibe sources such as Harvard Health to provide more reliable information. It can also help find doctors. For Microsoft to roll this out globally will (or should) take a lot of localisation. For the UK answers would need to be grounded in sources such as the NHS and NICE. The way we access doctors is also entirely different. In fact every country will vary a lot, so this might only ever be in the US or a small number of big markets.
Copilot Learn Live
Learn Live is US only and is all about improving Copilot’s abilities as for education.
“With Learn Live1, Copilot becomes a voice-enabled, Socratic tutor that guides you through concepts instead of just giving answers. It uses questions, visual cues, and interactive whiteboards to make learning stick, whether you’re preparing for finals, practicing a new language, or exploring a new subject.”
This is another one that it will be hard to roll out globally. It’s a fantastic concept, but for it to work in the UK it would needed to be grounded in our curriculums. The way UK schools work is unfortunately it’s not about how much you know about a subject or what you can do, but about how well you remember and understand what is on the curriculum. Extra knowledge and ability can actually be penalised.
Copliot Mode in Edge
I’m already running the new experimental version of Edge with fully integrated Copilot. It can look at several tabs at once to help you summarise and compare information. Actions enable it to help by doing things like booking a hotel or filling out forms. The new feature that sounds really exciting is Journeys which “which organises past browsing into meaningful storylines so you can revisit ideas and resume tasks without retracing steps.” Unfortunately Actions and Journeys are US only at the moment.
Copilot on Windows
The rest of the announcement was mainly about improvements to exiting features such as the “Hey Copilot” voice interface (which is surprisingly good), Pages for collaboration and Copilot Search which “combines AI-generated answers with traditional results in one view, providing clear, cited responses for faster and more trustworthy discovery.”
People-centric AI
The indication that Microsoft was going to take a ‘you’ person-centred approach to AI was apparent when it chose Mustafa Suleyman to lead AI. His start-up Inflection AI’s mission was to build human‑centered AI systems that combined emotional intelligence (EQ) with raw intelligence (IQ). Its flagship product, Pi, was designed to work like a relationship with a personal coach or assistant rather than a transactional app.
Copilot, which Copilot?
Microsoft’s challenge is the confusion and overlap over its competing Copilot products. We (Purposeful Relations) are deep into using Copilot ourselves and for clients. But it is still hard to keep track of what each multiple version does.
At the moment for business use Microsoft 365 Copilot is usually the hands down winner if a company or organisation already uses Microsoft. Its grounding in Sharepoint data and ability to use emails, Teams messages and files give it an unassailable lead on AI tools that can’t do that. This covers most uses of AI for most people who aren’t heavy AI users.
But there are lots of AI uses where that access to knowledge isn’t needed and that’s where ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude are often better for somethings.
The AI geeks often claim to dislike Copilot and prefer those other tools, but that’s because they aren’t looking at the most effective use case for Copilot and are treating it like a personal tool rather than a company wide tool for the team.
It will be interesting to see if they latest improvements narrow the gap between Copilot and ChatGPT for the normal personal user who doesn’t need the latest power features beloved by geeks.
Try this idea
Ensuring AI adoption in a team is hard. It isn’t enough just to provide the tool. Here’s an idea to aid adoption. You can provide a low-cost staff benefit of a paid subscription to an AI tool. The latest improvements to Copilot mean it could now be a worthy contender. It means they improve their AI literacy and capability and bring these new skills back to the workplace.
