Microsoft announced a raft of changes to its Microsoft Copilot AI at Microsoft Ignite today that make the chatbot more interactive and engaging, especially in Teams web meetings. The updates expand Copilot's role as a business assistant in Office applications such as Teams, PowerPoint and Outlook.

Microsoft has added some flexibility to the chatbot's output, allowing users to tweak it with commands to make its format and tone more consistent with their personal preferences. Word and PowerPoint will get the new personalization features first, but the company says other Microsoft 365 applications will receive support in time.

A grid of six people, with a chat window to the right filled with aggregated information from Copilot. Copilot is now a more active participant in Teams meetings.

Microsoft also announced changes to how Copilot works in Teams meetings next year. Copilot will start taking notes during the meeting and share them with attendees after the meeting. If users want a transcription of a specific person, they can prompt the chatbot to "quote" them, and the chatbot will take down what they said for them.

Microsoft has separated Copilot from meeting transcription, so meeting participants can now use the bot while a Teams meeting is in progress, but those interactions will not be recorded. In addition to answering questions, the bot will create real-time notes and can record quotes from specific people when prompted.

Animated GIF showing the process of using Copilot to open a whiteboard in a Teams meeting.

As shown in the animation above, Copilot sometimes provides visualization features in the whiteboard, such as meeting discussion points. To facilitate collaboration, the whiteboard is shared with everyone in the meeting.

In PowerPoint, employees will soon be able to point the chatbot to the company's photo library and even adjust it using Microsoft Designer. The company said that next spring, Copilot will be able to collect relevant information from Outlook emails, calendar invitations and related documents to schedule meetings for users. Finally, Copilot in Word quickly lets users keep up with document revisions.

Screenshot of a Teams meeting. Copilot records notes in the right sidebar, which can be recorded in real time during the meeting.

Microsoft also announced some new Copilot packages: Copilot for Dynamics 365, Copilot for Service, and Copilot for Sales. In Dynamics 365, Copilot will provide quick answers to field technicians, while the service version (coming in early 2024) will be used for "agent assisted support" to provide customers with answers and personalized resources. The sales version of Copilot (to be launched in the first quarter of 2024), like the other two versions, will serve as a medium to obtain information, with a particular focus on AI-generated meeting briefings that call up information such as customer details, names and titles of people attending meetings.