Article Summary
- Microsoft plans to integrate its AI tool, Copilot, into Windows, offering content summarization, rewriting, and explanations.
- The integration, called “Windows Copilot,” will be available for preview in June and serve as a personal assistant for users across apps and programs.
- Despite Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, the company continues to develop its own AI tools, including Copilot, alongside incorporating ChatGPT into its products.
Microsoft has announced plans to integrate a ChatGPT-like system, called “Windows Copilot,’’ in all PC apps.
According to Microsoft, the Copilot would be available for Windows 11 as a preview in June. Windows Copilot would be the user’s assistant, the company announced during the Microsoft Build conference that runs until Thursday.
This move is coming despite Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI and its multi-billion-dollar investment in the ChatGPT company. Earlier, Microsoft has been incorporating the ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence in its products, beginning with the search engine Bing and browser Edge in February.
Announcing the plan during the opening of Build, said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, said:
- “We are bringing the Copilot to the biggest canvas of all `Windows. This is going to make every user a power user of Windows.’’
Microsoft said the Copilot would be available in a taskbar for users. Once opened, the Copilot would stay consistent across your apps, programmes, and windows. It would be available for users in apps such as Word and Teams.
What the Copilot can do
The Windows Copilot can summarize content you are viewing in apps, rewrite it, or even explain it. It looks very similar to the dialog box that’s found in Bing Chat, so you can ask it general questions and things you might usually ask a search engine.
Microsoft said the Copilot would not directly replace the search bar on the Windows 11 taskbar, adding that it is a separate button alongside it instead.
Since Copilot is integrated into Windows, users can also do things like ask this assistant to “adjust my settings so I can focus” or take other actions on a PC. It is a lot more than the basic Bing Chat link that Microsoft added to the taskbar earlier this year.
Microsoft and ChatGPT
Speaking on Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, Microsoft’s chief technology officer and executive vice president of AI, said ChatGPT would offer Bing as the default search engine but did not say when it will be available.
- “ChatGPT is the fastest growing consumer app we have ever seen. The OpenAI and Microsoft partnership is setting the pace of innovation in AI. Even for us, it’s been surprising to see how much of the zeitgeist is being captured by things like ChatGPT,’’ Scott said during the conference.
The development of the new AI tool by Microsoft comes amid calls for the regulation of AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was the latest to make the call in a Senate testimony earlier this month when he urged U.S. lawmakers to create regulations to curb AI’s potential harms such as disinformation.
