You can’t have missed Microsoft’s attempts to include generative ai in almost everything it makes, from Bing search to the Windows operating system. And it continues: The latest update for Windows 11 has rolled out Copilot to all users.
If you’re new to Copilot, it’s a lot like the ai you can chat with through Bing search, with some Windows-specific features: the ability to launch apps, for example, or manage screenshots stuck to the clipboard .
It’s worth keeping in mind that the tool is still in its early days.
In his feature announcement, Microsoft says that Copilot “will uniquely incorporate context and intelligence from the web, your work data, and what you are currently doing on your PC to provide better support.” However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the tool is still in its early stages, so you can’t hand all (or even many) of your computing tasks to it yet. With that in mind, here’s how to get started.
Launch co-pilot
Before you get started, you’ll probably want to make sure you’re running the latest version of Windows 11 – Copilot is part of the Windows September 2023 Update.
- Open Settings and then select windows update.
- Depending on where you are geographically and how far down your PC is on Microsoft’s update list, you may need to enable the Get the latest updates as soon as they are available toggle switch.
To start Copilot, which appears in a panel to the right of the screen, click the Copilot button on the taskbar or press Win + C on the keyboard.
By the way, if you prefer Copilot No appears on the taskbar, go to Personalization > Taskbar in Settings, then turn Co-pilot off.
Using Copilot to control Windows
Don’t expect too much from Copilot’s Windows integration just yet: as of this writing, it’s still labeled as a “preview” feature. Here are some cool little tricks I was able to do with it:
- Type “turn on dark mode” to switch to Windows dark mode.
- Type “open Windows settings” to open the main settings panel.
- Type “start File Explorer” to start searching for files on your PC.
However, even these integrations aren’t particularly clever. In each case, you will have to click Yeah to confirm the action you want to perform, and even then, Copilot will continue to babbling about what it’s about to do before asking you again if you want to perform the action (even when you’ve already performed it). And a note: at least one of my colleagues reports that even this didn’t work for her; when she asked Copilot to start File Explorer, she told her that she couldn’t do it. Your results may vary.
Something that works more fluidly is to type “take a screenshot”; this starts the Snipping tool (just like pressing the button PrtSc The key does it), without asking questions. Asking Copilot to “change wallpaper” also works well, because it takes you directly to the Personalization page in Settings without any additional prompts.
As for integration with other Windows applications, there is a long way to go. Ask Copilot to “duplicate a slide” in PowerPoint, for example, and it will tell you how to do it (with instructions pulled from Bing) instead of actually doing it. Telling the bot to “create a presentation on the benefits of Copilot” only produces generic ai babbling like “start with a slide that presents the topic and main points you want to cover.” Yes, thanks for that, Copilot.
Of course, Microsoft apps, including PowerPoint, are getting their own Copilot integrations. in the near futurealthough these features are not yet available to individuals and smaller organizations, and will come with an additional fee attached.
copilot and everything else
If you’ve used ChatGPT, Bing Chat (which is based on similar technology to ChatGPT), Google Bard, or any of the other generative ai text tools that have emerged in recent months, then you’ll have a good idea of what else you can do. with Copilot on Windows.
You can ask him to write poetry, predict fashion trends, compare smartphones with each other, come up with ideas for a children’s party, explain difficult concepts in simple language, find a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and much more.
To start a new chat with Copilot, click the three dots at the top of the panel and then choose Update. In addition to removing what was already there, this will give you some suggestions about what you might want to ask: maybe you want me to generate some C code or you need gift ideas for a particular type of friend.
When you start a new conversation with Copilot, you can choose between More creative, More balancedand More precise — the same options already available in Bing Chat on the web. In other words, you can sacrifice a little precision if you want more imaginative answers. There’s also a microphone icon in the bottom right corner, which you can click if you prefer to say your directions out loud instead of typing them.
There is only one setting in Copilot at the moment, but it’s pretty important and you can find it by clicking the three dots at the top of the panel and choosing Settings. Is Allow Copilot on Windows to use Microsoft Edge contentand essentially allows Copilot to “see” what you’re seeing in Edge.
So, for example, you might ask you to summarize a news article or explain some of the terms on a page. You can even ask about the images on a website (what they show, for example). However, this feature seemed a little hit and miss in our testing, with Copilot occasionally getting answers wrong or unable to see content at all.
Finally, you can also give Copilot images to work with. Click the square icon in the lower left corner of the input box and you will be asked to select an image from your system or provide a link to an image on the web. Once this is done, you can ask Copilot to identify what’s in the image or search for other similar images on the web.
