one year on
Microsoft launches Microsoft 365 Copilot, combining GPT-4 with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams
Microsoft integrates GPT-4 into its productivity suite with a natural language interface.
Microsoft today announced Microsoft 365 Copilot, combining GPT-4 with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and Business Chat. The tool, described by CEO Satya Nadella as the next major step in computing interaction, can generate first drafts from blank pages in Word, turn documents into slide decks in PowerPoint, analyze trends and create charts in Excel, and summarize email threads and suggest replies in Outlook. In Teams, it can recap meetings in real time, noting where participants align or disagree, and propose action items.
Copilot builds on the February launch of a new Bing search experience and the March release of GPT-4. Microsoft frames the offering as an enterprise-ready system that grounds answers in each organization’s Microsoft Graph data — emails, chats, files, meetings, calendars — while inheriting existing security, compliance and privacy policies. The company emphasises that no tenant data or prompts are used to retrain the underlying models.
Pricing and licensing details are not yet disclosed. A small group of customers begins testing today, with broader rollout promised in the coming months.
One year later — open only if you can handle spoilers
By mid-2025, Microsoft 365 Copilot had become a standard upsell for enterprise customers, though adoption varied widely by industry. The tool's reliance on the Microsoft Graph and strict permissioning model proved effective at preventing cross-tenant leaks, but concerns about cost and actual productivity gains persisted in many organizations. Microsoft continued to expand Copilot to more product lines, including Windows and Azure.