The Five Most Key Takeaways of This Blog
- Microsoft Copilot has been steadily integrating newer A.I. features for some time now.
- Copilot is Microsoft’s generative A.I. chatbot that the company seeks to make present in a wide variety of its software suites, such as the Office suite.
- Many of these A.I. integrations are the fruits of an investment that Microsoft made in OpenAI, one of the most prominent A.I. companies in the world.
- Among the A.I. features is the option to create your own “Copilot GPT”. This feature is available to users of Copilot Pro and requires no coding experience to use.
- These custom Copilot GPTs can be used for a variety of different purposes, which is attractive to business owners.
Copilot and GPT A.I.
Microsoft Copilot is something that you may have heard of, maybe even seen some demos of here and there.
This generative A.I. chatbot is Microsoft’s version of the increasingly ubiquitous Brand Chatbot, which everyone from Google (with Gemini, the A.I. artist formerly known as Bard) to OpenAI (with ChatGPT; this is the company that earned several large investments from Microsoft) to Anthropic (with Claude; Amazon and Google have both made sizable investments in this company) have on offer.
So, with these chatbot things so widely available, what has Microsoft done to make its very own Copilot seem to stand out from the rest?
Well for starters it offers easy integrations with the ever-popular Microsoft Office software suite that includes Word and Powerpoint and Excel and others.
But another thing that Microsoft has been focusing on is offering the option to create a custom Copilot, much like how ChatGPT Plus users have been able to create their own Custom GPTs.
Some may say that we should probably have expected all along that this would be a feature in Microsoft’s A.I. offerings.
Why that is, is because Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI founded on heavy investments of course has benefits for the big tech company.
The benefits are such that Microsoft has built much of its A.I. using OpenAI’s A.I. models as the foundation. So, Copilot has a lot of GPT in its DNA. And so much of Microsoft’s A.I. offerings will derive much power from the latest innovative releases by OpenAI.
Training Copilot to Be a Better, um, Copilot
So the ability to create custom Copilot GPTs are one benefit that users get from this quid-pro-quo investment of Microsoft’s.
What users can get is the ability to easily fine-tune Copilot into a chatbot that is fit for a specific purpose. Say, one that can easily generate detailed pages for new products that you need to post on your web site.
A definite advantage that the Copilot GPTs currently have over ChatGPT’s Custom GPTs is that users on the free Copilot Plan can access your Copilot GPTs. Whereas free ChatGPT subscribers have only limited access to other users’ Custom GPTs.
In other words, you have a better chance of getting wider use for a Copilot GPT when you go with Microsoft’s chatbot.
But of course if you simply want to keep your Copilot GPT and its custom instructions private, you can certainly do so.
Creating Your Own Copilot GPT
As mentioned in the Key Takeaways section kicking off this blog, you need to be a Copilot Pro subscriber to create your own custom Copilot GPT.
But if you have the subscription, doing so is quite easy.
You go into the Copilot Pro and click the “See all Copilot GPTs” link.
Next to a giant + symbol is the option to create your very own Copilot GPT.
Really, the process is really quite straightforward and user-friendly. We should expect so from a commercialized A.I. platform marketed to a wide-ranging customer base.
You can have the Copilot GPT add knowledge from public websites, or keep things more restricted. Up to you.
Feel free to keep testing the Copilot GPTs until you get them just right.
Tips for Creating an Effective Copilot GPT
You can browse the notes and tips offered by Microsoft if you please, but the main thing is to be clear and specific in your instructions as far as what you want out of the process.
Though it is tempting to get ambitious, the most success will likely be seen from chatbots that have more narrow target goals.
So, if you want chatbots that are more swiss-army-knife in nature, this writer’s recommendation is to create several Copilot GPTs, each fit to a specific purpose.
It may be less convenient than having a know-it-all, do-it-all Copilot GPT, but you are likely to get the most effective results from switching between multiple specialized GPTs made for narrow ends in mind.
And remember, the goals may be narrow, but that does not mean the results may be narrow.
For instance, the example of a Copilot GPT that creates product pages could create a wide range of product pages, and adapt pretty easily to that.
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