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What’s new for Copilot – April 2024
April was a landmark month for Microsoft Copilot, with a series of updates and announcements that have significantly enhanced the user experience across various Office applications. Notably, Word has emerged as the frontrunner, with Outlook and Excel trailing closely behind, all benefiting from graph-grounded chats that streamline and enrich interactions. Additionally, Copilot has made its debut in the Employee Experience suite, marking its presence felt. This month, we’ve also seen a surge in Copilot’s integration within Viva Engage, Viva Amplify, and Viva Insights, indicating a growing adoption of the tool. With all these updates, April has undoubtedly been the most eventful month since Copilot’s inception, reflecting a robust momentum in its evolution.
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Microsoft Copilot with Graph-grounded chat (i.e. the “work” scope of Copilot) to be upgraded to GPT-4 Turbo model
Microsoft Copilot’s “work” scope is being upgraded to GPT-4 Turbo model, resulting in faster and more comprehensive responses for users. The upgrade is rolling out to end-users and is expected to be completed in the coming weeks. There will be no impact at the tenant/admin level, and users can continue to use Copilot in the same way. Admins and Adoption leaders are encouraged to connect with users to encourage them to engage with Graph-grounded Copilot.
Retirement of Policy Management for Draft with Copilot in Outlook
The message announces the retirement of the Policy Management feature for Draft with Copilot in Outlook on April 15, 2024. Administrators will no longer be able to disable Draft with Copilot in Outlook, and instead, eDiscovery for Copilot in Outlook is recommended.
Copilot in Excel – Graph Grounded Chat
Ask Copilot for answers grounded in your work content from the Microsoft Graph—your chats, documents, meetings, and emails—beyond your active Excel workbook. If you’re analyzing a workbook and want to enhance your understanding using information from another source in your tenant, just ask Copilot in Excel.
Interact with Copilot in the new Outlook for Windows and web
Interact with Copilot in Outlook, ask questions, or provide instructions directly inside Outlook. Users can type and receive responses from Copilot in a right-hand side panel that can be opened by the user by clicking on the Copilot icon in the top nav bar.
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Microsoft Purview | Communication Compliance: Contextual Summaries with Copilot for Security
Microsoft Purview’s Communication Compliance will introduce contextual summaries of policy matches in Copilot for Security. This feature will help investigators identify potentially risky content and understand the meaning of the content with just one click. Public preview will begin in early April 2024 and general availability worldwide will begin in early June 2024. Users must have a Copilot for Security license and proper permissions to use this feature. Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance provides tools to detect business conduct and regulatory compliance violations.
Prepare for Meetings with Copilot in the new Outlook for Windows and web
With so many of us in back-to-back meetings, it can be a real struggle to stay on top of pre-reads, action items, and even what each meeting is about. Copilot can identify and summarize the key points so you can show up prepared in just a few minutes. When you have an upcoming meeting, Copilot proactively shows you a “Prepare” button in your inbox which helps you quickly get context for the meeting providing a summary of the meeting and showing and summarizing relevant files leveraging the power of the Microsoft Graph. Now you have all the most important details you need and can arrive prepared and ready to engage in a productive conversation. This feature will be available in the new Outlook for Windows and web.
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Gain comprehensive summary of Insider Risk Management alerts with Copilot for Security
Copilot for Security is embedded in Insider Risk Management to summarize alerts to help accelerate data security investigations. Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management correlates various signals to identify potential malicious or inadvertent insider risks, such as IP theft, data leakage, and security violations. Insider Risk Management enables customers to create policies to manage security and compliance. Built with privacy by design, users are pseudonymized by default, and role-based access controls and audit logs are in place to help ensure user-level privacy.
Copilot in Stream to become available for customers using Microsoft 365 Copilot
Copilot in Stream, a new feature for Microsoft 365 Copilot products, will be available in late-April 2024. It allows users to extract information from videos, summarize content, ask questions, locate discussions, and identify calls to action. Preparation may include updating training and documentation.
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Insider Risk Management: Microsoft Copilot for Security Alert summary
Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management will soon include Microsoft Copilot for Security to summarize alerts and expedite data security investigations. Public preview begins in April 2024, with general availability in May. Users need Copilot for Security licenses and specific permissions to use this feature.
Insider Risk Management: Copilot for Security capabilities
Microsoft Purview’s integration with Copilot for Security will improve security incident investigations starting early April 2024, offering enhanced visibility and user risk context, with no admin action required before rollout.
Microsoft Copilot in Intune is available in Public Preview
Microsoft Copilot in Intune is now in public preview, offering AI insights for quicker issue resolution and optimized policy settings. It assists with policy management and device troubleshooting. Preparation involves learning about Microsoft Copilot for Security and starting with Copilot for Security and Copilot in Intune. Early Access customers must transition after six months.
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Word: Summary in Chat support for document text selection
Summary requests in chat can be limited to operate only on the user-selected text in the document rather than operating on the entire document.
Word: File reference – PDF and Excel file type support
This introduces the ability for users to reference PDF and Excel files when generating content.
Microsoft 365 admin center: Usage reports – Microsoft Copilot with commercial data protection
A new product usage report will be added in the Microsoft 365 admin center providing insights into active usage of Microsoft Copilot with commercial data protection. The report will include total active users, average daily active users, and active users per platform (i.e. Bing, Edge, Windows, copilot.microsoft.com, and Copilot mobile app). Usage insights can be viewed as totals and trends for the past 7, 30, 90 or 180-day periods. The report will also show the last activity date per user, anonymized by default.
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Use Draft with Copilot in Word based on text, list, or table selection
Use Draft with Copilot in Word with the on-canvas Copilot menu when a user selects text, a list, or a table. This generates new content from Copilot and provides a richer, more interactive experience.
Ground prompts on local files when using Copilot with Graph-grounded chat
Ground prompts on local files when using Copilot with Graph-grounded chat by clicking “Upload” in the ContextIQ interface.
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Updated Copilot for Teams meetings controls
Microsoft Teams is updating Copilot meeting controls, with enforceable policies for using Copilot with transcription post-meeting. Changes include new wording and descriptions for settings in the Teams admin center and meeting options. Rollout begins mid-April 2024, with completion by early May 2024. Admins should update policies and inform users.
Use a weblink to reference files in Copilot in Word
Users can copy and paste a link of a supported file into the Draft with Copilot UI as a reference instead of searching for it in the file reference menu.
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Microsoft Copilot in Outlook: Logging and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery support
Outlook is adding logging and Microsoft Purview eDiscovery support for current and future Copilot features, available across various platforms. Rollout starts mid-April 2024 and ends late April 2024, with no admin action needed. Learn more about eDiscovery at the provided link.
Copilot in Excel support for complex formula columns from multiple tables
Utilize complex formulas such as XLOOKUP and SUMIF to create formula columns bringing together data from multiple tables.
Viva Engage – Copilot Adoption Community
Microsoft is introducing new capabilities in Engage that will help organizations with their M365 Copilot rollout and adoption journey by bringing together employees in a community of practice. This community will provide a place for employees to ask questions, seek support from both their peers and IT admins, share best practices, and learn more from articles and quick tips on how best to use Copilot. This templatized Copilot adoption community will take away much of the work from the community manager with a set-up checklist, suggested content, suggested members (based on Copilot license assignment), and other features like conversation starters and top Q&As to help with community member engagement.
Browse OneDrive and SharePoint folders to find files to ground prompts in Copilot with Graph-grounded chat
Browse OneDrive and SharePoint folders to find files for grounding prompts in Copilot.
Word: Start a new document using up to three files
No need to start from scratch. Copilot can create your new document based on three different Word or PowerPoint files. In “Draft with Copilot,” select Reference a file and choose up to three files that Copilot should use when creating the new document. Or, in “Compose,” type “/” and the name of the file you’d like to use. You can only use files you have permission to access in your organization’s SharePoint or OneDrive.
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Copilot deployment kits in Viva Amplify
Prepare for and launch Copilot in your organization using our new deployment kit in Viva Amplify. This is a set of pre-written and formatted publications that will educate users on how to use Copilot, all of the M365 endpoints, and develop their AI skills. This is a tested set of communications that the Microsoft team used internally to ensure the right messages are reaching your end users and preparing them for Copilot.
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Find the perfect visual with Copilot and Designer in Word
Copilot in Word now integrates with Designer to help you find the perfect image or create a banner to bring your document to life.
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Improve prompt responses in Copilot with Graph-grounding chat with nudges to insert data sources
Use nudges to ground prompts in data sources to improve prompt responses in Copilot with Graph-grounding chat.
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Find the perfect visual with Copilot + Designer in Word
Copilot in Word now integrates with Designer to help you find the perfect image or create a banner to bring your document to life.
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Bring the latest from your organization into your Word chats with Microsoft Copilot Graph-grounded search
Ask Copilot a question in Word chat, and Copilot generates an answer using the rich, people-centric data and insights in the Microsoft cloud. That’s the power of Copilot and Microsoft Graph.
Bing search integration brings the power of the web to your chats in Word
Ask Copilot a question in Word chat and Copilot generates an answer using the power of integrated Bing search. And you never have to leave the app.
Excel: Formula Conditional Formatting
Additional support for complex conditional formats beyond the basic top and bottom or conditional operators. For example, Copilot analyzes two factors when highlighting all rows where the product is bikes and sales is greater than 100.
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Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Plugins in copilot.microsoft.com
Users can now use plugins via copilot.microsoft.com to expand Copilot skills.
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Microsoft Viva Engage: New adoption community for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365
Microsoft Viva Engage will soon introduce a new community to support the adoption of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, offering features like one-click community creation and a setup checklist. Rollout begins late May 2024, with completion expected by early June 2024. No action is required from admins before the rollout.
Word: Summary in Chat support for document text selection
Summary requests in chat can be limited to operate only on the user-selected text in the document, rather than operating in large part against the entire document.
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Upcoming changes to tenant settings for Power BI Copilot features
The Power BI setting for Copilot features will be enabled by default for all tenants starting late May 2024. Tenants can access Copilot more efficiently and manage settings through capacity admins. The Abuse monitoring feature has been updated for privacy. Visit the provided link for more details. To opt-out, follow the steps in the Power BI admin portal before May 20th, 2024.
Copilot in Forms can generate quizzes from provided materials
Generating quizzes from provided materials is one of the most commonly requested features in the education industry, and it is now available in Forms. To save time, users can create quizzes from documents, textbooks, or notes using Copilot. Copilot can create draft quizzes based on the provided materials and users’ prompts.
Word: Chat support to generate a SWOT analysis
Users can ask for a SWOT analysis or pro/con list of a document or topic that will analyze their document and bring in relevant enterprise and web context to inform the derived analysis.
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New content updates in Viva Learning and Copilot Academy
Viva Learning is adding new content and Copilot Academy will be available in seven new languages. Admins can enable/disable these features in the Manage Academies and Manage providers sections. Rollout starts mid-May 2024, with completion by late May 2024. Users can access new resources and language options in Copilot Academy and discover new courses in Viva Learning.
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Microsoft Teams Mobile: Copilot for Teams will soon be available after eligible meetings end
Copilot for Teams will be accessible in Microsoft Teams Mobile after meetings end, starting early May 2024. This feature requires meetings to have transcriptions enabled and will be available worldwide by late May 2024. No admin action is needed for this rollout.
New Policies for Browser Context in Copilot in Edge
The DiscoverPageContextEnabled policy for controlling page context in Microsoft Copilot in Edge will be retired in July 2024. It will be replaced by two new policies, CopilotPageContext and CopilotCDPPageContext, which allow administrators to manage browser context access for Copilot. Existing settings will not be migrated and the new policies are unconfigured by default. Administrators should set new configurations before July 25, 2024, to avoid interruptions.
Copilot assisted Loop Page Creation
Collaborate with copilot to go from a blank page to a structured document ready for collaboration as quickly as possible. Start from scratch, or select an existing page or template as the starting point and Copilot can modify it for the task at hand.
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Minimum group size update for Copilot Dashboard
Microsoft Viva’s Copilot Dashboard now shows tenant-level metrics without a minimum group size requirement and user-level metrics with a reduced minimum group size threshold, which can be configured by the Viva Insights administrator. These changes are available now and affect data visualization and privacy settings.
Graph-grounded chat with Microsoft Copilot in Outlook
Microsoft Copilot for Outlook, featuring graph-grounded chat, will begin rolling out to tenants with the necessary licenses in late April 2024, with completion expected by mid-May 2024. This update will enable enterprise graph grounding by default, adhering to existing search policies and access permissions. Users can interact with Copilot via an icon in Outlook, with no admin action required for the rollout.
Access Copilot directly in new Outlook for Windows and web
The same Microsoft Copilot experience you can get from the Microsoft Teams app, at copilot.microsoft.com (“Work mode”), and in many other places is now available from within Microsoft Outlook for Windows and web. You can find the Copilot app in the left app bar.
Copilot in Forms can help you create draft quizzes
To help teachers, staff, and information workers save time, Copilot in Forms can now generate ice breakers, fun trivia, quizzes, and assessments with correct answers, which helps users focus more on engagement and interaction with their audience.
Copilot in Forms Smart Reminder to gain higher engagement from audience
Copilot smart reminder will monitor and proactively share engagement and submission status to a form’s owner in order to suggest follow-up actions. For example, when there is low engagement from audience, with the owner’s consent, it will auto-notify unresponded or all participants to pay attention and fill in the forms or quizzes. Also, Copilot smart reminder can remind owners to check the form’s insights when there are sufficient responses to make decisions.
Access Copilot directly in classic Outlook for Windows
The same Microsoft Copilot experience you can get from the Microsoft Teams app, at copilot.microsoft.com (“Work mode”), and in many other places is now available from within classic Microsoft Outlook for Windows. You can find the Copilot app in the left app bar.
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