Microsoft Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2 Adds Online Canvas Feature

Microsoft will expand its AI offerings in 365 Copilot Wave 2 throughout the fall, the company announced during demonstrations held on Sept. 16.

Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of AI at Work, declared that “Copilot is the new UI for AI.” The presentation emphasized the ability to use the natural language to command an application from anywhere on the page rather than simply focusing on any single new capability.

Copilot now uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o large language model. Microsoft plans to add the new OpenAI o1 model in the future, said Spataro.

Microsoft said 400 million people use Copilot today and that the daily number of users is doubling quarter-over-quarter — the fastest adoption rate in the Microsoft 365 suite.

Copilot takes center stage in Word, expands to Excel, PowerPoint, and more

The new features and capabilities coming in Copilot Wave 2 are:

• Copilot Pages, a bridge between the browser version of Copilot search and an online canvas.
• Copilot in Excel, including XLOOKUP and PivotTables.
• Copilot in Excel with Python coding.
• Narrative builder in PowerPoint, which creates first drafts of presentations from prompts.
• Brand manager in PowerPoint, allowing Copilot work within brand templates.
• Copilot in Teams, with access to meeting chats in addition to audio.
• “Prioritize my inbox” with Copilot in Outlook.
• Enhancements to Copilot in Word, enabling the AI to pull information from external files and place a floating prompt box in the Word document.
• Copilot in OneDrive to field queries about documents and compare files.
• Copilot agents — created in either Microsoft Business Chat or SharePoint — which can be connected to various business processes and automatically perform tasks.

Copilot Pages will be available later in September, including for users of the free Microsoft Copilot who sign in with a Microsoft Entra account. Copilot in Excel with Python is in public preview, while Copilot in Teams is available now. Both the “Prioritize my inbox” feature with Copilot in Outlook and Copilot in OneDrive will launch by the end of the month.

An agent builder will roll out in Business Chat “over the coming weeks,” with agents and the agent builder set to debut in SharePoint in preview by early October.

SEE: Copilot has become deeply intertwined with Microsoft’s search engine Bing.

During the presentation, Microsoft Office AI Product Manager Hadley Griffin emphasized that business users should treat AI-generated PowerPoint presentations as first drafts or launching points. Copilot can assist with tasks such as adding speaker notes and animations, but Griffin emphasized the generative features as a tool to complement, rather than replace, human work.

“Now, you’re ready to iterate with Copilot as your partner,” she said.

‘UI for AI’ could change the way users interact with applications

Spataro’s comments are vividly illustrated in the demonstration of new ways to prompt Copilot in Microsoft Word.

Microsoft demonstrated how charts can be added to a document through an AI prompt, with a prompt dialogue box now hovering within the document. This enhances flexibility, allowing users to seamlessly insert images, charts, and text. The AI agent automates the process of reading file information and navigating menus.

However, generative AI adoption isn’t always as smooth as Microsoft suggests, with some companies struggling to identify clear goals or achieve ROI from their AI initiatives.