Writing reports, answering emails, preparing presentations and keeping on top of everything going on in your team can feel like a daily marathon with no finish line. What if there was a tool that could help you do all that in less time and with less effort?
Microsoft has taken another step in that direction by continuing to improve one of its most comprehensive and promising applications for professional environments - Microsoft 365 Copilot. In a recent interview with The Verge, Jon Friedman, corporate vice president of design and research at Microsoft, shared the details of a redesign that not only transforms the visual aspect of Copilot (now more aligned with the version for individual users), but also incorporates new features that make it smarter, more useful and adapted to the real pace of work.
Below, we tell you in detail what these changes are and how they can help you work more efficiently and with less effort.
Microsoft 365 Copilot gets a facelift with more intelligence and a fresh design
The new version of Microsoft 365 Copilot comes loaded with new features: more intelligent functions, a complete redesign and improvements that make it much more useful on a daily basis.
Microsoft has been fine-tuning this business-oriented tool for quite some time, and each update makes it more capable and more intuitive. Copilot has become a kind of all-in-one assistant that not only organizes your Office files, but also leverages artificial intelligence to help you work better and faster.
And now, all signs point to the fact that Microsoft 365 Copilot will look a lot more like the personal version of Copilot that many already use. Some pretty interesting things have been added, like a new AI-powered intelligent search feature, and even the ability to generate images using OpenAI's GPT-4o model.
In an interview with The Verge, Jon Friedman, one of the design leaders at Microsoft, said they've been rebuilding Copilot from the ground up. The idea? To get it ready for a new stage in which computers not only respond, but actually understand you and give you just what you need, without you having to ask them for everything in detail.
Among the improvements Jon announced, one of the most notable is the new AI-based enterprise search, which not only scans your Microsoft 365 documents, but also connects with external tools like Slack, Google Drive or ServiceNow. This means you'll be able to find what you're looking for no matter where it is, something that is certainly going to make life a lot easier for teams working with multiple platforms.
In addition to the slew of new features, Microsoft 365 Copilot also got a makeover. Although its home screen is not the same as Copilot for users, it now starts directly with the chat as the main view, which makes it much more similar to that version that many already know. And that's not all: it now has memory and is able to adapt to you, so if you ask it questions related to what you have already talked about before, it will answer you with that in mind. Super useful.
Another interesting new feature that was announced back in September 2024 was a feature called Pages, designed to let you collaborate with your team using AI agents, very much in the vein of what Microsoft Loop does. Basically, it allows you to work on ideas and projects together with others, but with Copilot as your co-pilot (literally).
And we can't forget the “Notebooks”, which work as a digital notebook where you can group links, files, notes or whatever you need, and have it all there to share directly with Copilot. A more orderly (and powerful) way of working with AI at your side.
One of the most striking additions, without a doubt, is Copilot Create, a feature that will allow you to create images, videos, polls and more content directly for your Office documents. It's as if Microsoft Designer had evolved, but now powered by OpenAI's GPT-4o. And really, this opens up a lot of possibilities for those of us who work with content every day.
Another new feature worth noting is the new agent store, where you will be able to find AI agents created by Microsoft... and also by third parties! This means that Copilot will not only be more versatile, but also much more intelligent, with tailor-made solutions for different business needs.
The truth is that Microsoft is getting serious about integrating AI naturally into the business environment, and it shows in every new feature they release. They are building step by step a more fluid, practical and connected experience with what users really need.
Now we'll just have to see what else they surprise us with. But if one thing is clear, it is that Microsoft's future with artificial intelligence looks very good, and they are betting big on leading this new stage of intelligent computers.
