Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbots and assistants, is receiving a series of enhancements coinciding with an extravagant Superbowl LVIII ad campaign. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer, shared the details of these updates in a recent post on the official Microsoft blog.
Key Takeaway
Microsoft introduces new design-focused features to enhance the Copilot experience, including an improved AI model, enhanced editing capabilities within the Designer tool, and upcoming immersive visualization features. However, challenges persist in addressing inappropriate content creation, and performance issues with Copilot Pro have been a point of concern for some users.
Improved AI Model and Streamlined User Interface
The Copilot experience on the web, Android, and iOS now boasts an enhanced AI model named Deucalion. This update also introduces a more streamlined look and feel, featuring a cleaner style for answers and a carousel of suggested prompts to guide users.
Enhanced Designer Tool
The Designer tool within Copilot, which leverages GenAI models like OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 to transform prompts into images, has been equipped with new editing capabilities. Users can now edit images in-line during a chat, enabling actions such as colorizing objects, blurring image backgrounds, and altering image styles, including pixel art. Additionally, subscribers to Copilot Pro, Microsoft’s premium plan priced at $20 per month, gain the ability to resize and regenerate images between portrait and landscape orientations.
Upcoming Features
In the pipeline for Copilot is Designer GPT, a feature that will provide users with a more immersive and dedicated canvas within Copilot to visualize their ideas.
Addressing Challenges
Microsoft has faced challenges with the Designer tool, particularly in preventing the creation of inappropriate content. Despite efforts to implement guardrails, malicious users found ways to circumvent these measures, leading to the generation of unauthorized content. Microsoft has taken steps to address these issues, including making it impossible to generate celebrity images using the tool.
Performance Concerns
While Microsoft continues to make strides in AI, some users have reported performance issues with Copilot Pro, particularly in terms of long generation times and potential bugs. The root of these problems remains unclear, with speculation suggesting insufficient server capacity as a possible cause.
