Microsoft announce an invitation-only paid preview to Microsoft Copilot.
Microsoft announced Copilot for Microsoft 365 in March 2023, with a limited testing group of 20 enterprise-level customers.
Unsurprisingly the feedback from this initial test group, which includes General Motors, Dow, Goodyear, and Chevron has clearly been positive.
“The potential of Microsoft 365 Copilot is undeniable, and it’s energizing to explore the possibilities as we couple the ingenuity of our people with the functionality of the tool. "
Guy Moore, Workforce Enablement Lead, Chevron
Today Microsoft has announced that they are extending their Copilot test group to 600 customers on an invitation-only paid preview basis.
What is Microsoft 365 Copilot?
Copilot is much more than simply OpenAI’s ChatGPT embedded into Microsoft 365.
It uses Microsoft's Copilot system, a sophisticated processing and orchestration engine, to combine the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) with Microsoft 365 apps (Excel, Word, Outlook, etc) and your business data.
Find out more about Microsoft Copilot and how it will work within Excel.
When will Microsoft Copilot be released?
The testing of Microsoft Copilot is clearly moving forward at a good pace with enterprise-level customers.
Microsoft says they will be releasing Copilot to the masses in “the months ahead”.
They also say they will share more on pricing and licensing soon. They recommend getting a Microsoft 365 license in preparation for its release but it’s not clear yet whether it will be included within 365 or whether it would be at extra cost.
The fact that the invited test customers will have to pay to be involved in the testing points to the fact that Copilot may not be included in the standard 365 subscriptions. But we'll see.
Our Future of Excel series
This series of articles focuses on new features soon to be released on Excel. This is based on announcements by the Microsoft Office Insider team.
See other articles in our Future of Excel series here.
