Microsoft launches Copilot - the AI powered addition to Office

Microsoft's latest AI product Copilot is part of what Microsoft calls the "next generation" of AI.

These AI updates will be available across Microsoft business apps such as Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and Office. Microsoft 365 Copilot is powered by what Microsoft calls the "Copilot system", which combines Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint with Microsoft Graph and OpenAI's GPT-4.

The technology that powers this innovation is from OpenAI and has been built using the Azure OpenAI service, which is targeted towards helping enterprises access and get value from OpenAI's API and most importantly helping Microsoft commercialize OpenAI technology within its existing product lines. Some recent examples of collaboration between Microsoft and Open AI are the recent debut of Viva Sales, a Microsoft seller experience app which has generative AI features.

When looking at the CRM category Salesforce has been leading with implementing AI-powered capabilities however with Microsoft now making strong efforts to make up progress it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the CRM landscape. Speaking of competition, Google also announced its own AI updates to their Office-rival, Google Workspace. This includes Google Docs, Gmail and Sheets.

Office 365 revenue is currently $370mn and if users upgrade to an AI-powered offer it is likely to be highly lucrative for Microsoft.