ARLINGTON, Va. (7News) — Artificial Intelligence (AI) can do many tasks humans don’t want to do, especially when it comes to the workplace. Many people don’t know where to start, and some may not realize their companies are already subscribing to an AI tool that can make their jobs a little easier.
Many companies may already be subscribed to Microsoft Copilot Pro, a premium version that works with Microsoft apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
7News On Your Side’s Lindsey Mastis covers artificial intelligence and visited Microsoft’s Federal Offices in Rosslyn to show how Co-Pilot works.
“We’re seeing people use these tools to break the career ceiling,” said Wole Moses, Microsoft’s Chief AI Officer for Federal Civilian.
He showed off built-in prompts designed to help users get started and admitted he didn’t know what to ask when he first started.
“We have built-in prompts because generative AI being new for people, sometimes they’ll need clues or hints,” Moses said.
It also works best when users are detailed and specific.
There are also features to help people stay ahead in meetings; even the boring ones.
“The best thing that I use it for is just catching up on meetings that I was either late to, I was overbooked, and couldn’t attend, or meetings that I was in and maybe my mind wandered,” Moses said.
Copilot, can also help sort through emails, summarize long threads, draft emails, and suggest replies.
“One of the things that people struggle with is email overload,” Moses said.
It can also help people improve the tone of their emails. Moses showed an example of a draft email written with an accusatory tone.
“It’s telling me to maybe use a calmer approach,” Moses said. “I’ll say make this a little bit more casual, because I think my original email may have been a little bit too intense.”
The software provided suggestions that made the email sound warmer, which is more likely to get a positive actionable response.
There are many privacy concerns, and Moses said Copilot was built with that in mind.
Copilot Pro does not use inputted information to train its systems. Moses also said the original email Copilot suggested be changed will not be seen by the boss because it was never sent; but he said there are still things to avoid.
“You would want to steer away from the same things that you would steer away from in your email. So certain maybe certain personal emails that are not work-related,” he said.
Although Copilot has no human feelings, Moses himself treats it with respect.
“Sometimes I do say ‘please,’ when I’m communicating with it,” he said.
There will also be a version available for federal agencies. Moses said it is very important to follow your own company guidelines.
If a company is not subscribed to the pro version, there is a free version of Copilot included through Microsoft Bing.