Microsoft 365 Copilot Expands AI Capabilities with Python Integration, Word, Outlook, and Excel

Microsoft is introducing new features for its Microsoft 365 Copilot monthly subscriptions, which cost $30 per user and are intended to enhance AI integration within Office applications. Word is becoming more adept at AI-assisted drafts, PowerPoint gets an enhanced AI-powered narrative builder, Excel will receive Python integration inside of Copilot, and Copilot will also be able to aid you with organizing your Outlook mailbox.

Microsoft recently added Python support to Excel, and now it’s merging that feature with Copilot to make it simple for Excel users to do sophisticated analysis on spreadsheet data.

Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft, said, “Anyone can work with Copilot to conduct advanced analysis like forecasting, risk analysis, machine learning, and visualizing complex data—all using natural language, no coding required. It’s akin to incorporating an adept data analyst into the group.”

Also Read: Microsoft Launches AutoGen Studio: Low-Code Tool for Easy AI Agent Prototyping

Today marks the public preview of the Copilot and Python integration within Excel, coinciding with Microsoft’s broad release of Copilot within Excel for Microsoft 365 Copilot users. Microsoft has also added conditional formatting, support for XLOOKUP and SUMIF in Copilot, and increased AI assistant’s chart and pivot table production capabilities.

Copilot now has an automated email prioritization function called “Prioritize my inbox.” As per Spataro, you can instruct Copilot on particular subjects, keywords, or individuals who have significance for you, at a later time this year. Your mailbox will thereafter likewise have these emails designated as high priority.

Also Read: Microsoft Unveils Phi-3.5 AI Model Family: Advanced MoE, Vision, and Mini Models Now Available

Microsoft is also enhancing Copilot in Word later this month to enable you to refer to data from papers as well as emails and meetings. Bringing in email attachments or whole meeting talking points will be simpler as a result. Later this month, Microsoft will also launch Copilot in OneDrive, which makes it simple to compare and summarize up to five files to identify differences.

Together with a new Copilot Pages feature and AI agents that will automate some operations, Microsoft has improved Copilot in Office intending to make the AI assistant more appealing to companies. Recent reports indicate that glitches and a reluctance to pay the $30 per user pricing have contributed to the lackluster reception of Microsoft’s premium Copilot version for enterprises.

According to Microsoft, Copilot is currently used by 60% of the Fortune 500, and the number of employees using it every day at work has “nearly doubled quarter-over-quarter.” It looks like the free version of Copilot is included in both of these data points. Vodafone, a large customer of Microsoft 365 Copilot, has decided to purchase 68,000 licenses for the AI assistant after testing it out and witnessing immediate benefits. Vodafone employs 100,000 people.

Also Read: Microsoft AI Tour 2024: Who and Why Should Attend? Find your city for Speakers and Sessions