Our thoughts on the future of digital innovation and the cloud.

Copilot and ChatGPT are both artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that were developed with the intent of helping you accomplish tasks and activities faster and more efficiently. While they may seem similar, there are significant differences between the two.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a natural language processing technology that uses machine learning, deep learning, natural language understanding, and natural language generation to answer questions or respond to conversations. It is designed to mimic human conversation by understanding your question or comment and responding in an engaging and conversational way.

Developed by OpenAI, an AI and research company, ChatGPT was launched in November 2022. The GPT in ChatGPT stands for “generative pre-trained transformer”, which means it’s been trained on a vast amount of human language by way of data from the internet, including books, articles, websites, and social media.

ChatGPT can help with tasks such as composing essays, emails, and cover letters; creating lists; describing art in detail; writing code; summarizing content; creating poems and song lyrics; building your resume.

In less than a year from launching, ChatGPT has skyrocketed in use globally and new use cases are continuing to be discovered as the tool has been opened up to the public for experimentation.  When OpenAI released its flagship product ChatGPT, it reached 1 million users in only four days and 100 million users in two months, achieving this milestone more than 75% faster than any other tech giant before it.

What is Microsoft Copilot?

Microsoft has used the Copilot moniker as almost a marketing brand name for all things AI that are being added to their software products.  Through its partnership and investments into OpenAI, Microsoft is leading the pack in terms of integrating their technology into products such as Visual Studio to aid in software development (automatically generating code for developers), a suite of security tools for detection and response to security threats and Microsoft 365.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a widely anticipated AI-powered digital assistant that aims to provide personalized assistance to users for a range of tasks and activities. Copilot doesn’t just connect ChatGPT with Microsoft 365; it combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph (including your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and more) and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet.

One of the ways you can use Copilot is through Business Chat, a new experience that works with your data and context to generate content based on your prompts. Copilot uses both an LLM (like GPT) and your organization’s business data to produce more accurate, relevant, and personalized results.

The key here is that Copilot uses your data in conjunction with the large language models, Microsoft Graph and other in house data sources.  This is where the real power of Copilot is going to help businesses to transform and really revolutionize how they operate.  Imagine sitting down to write a report for your board of directors describing the performance of the company for the last quarter and you want to pull in data from sources such as your ERP, CRM, SharePoint and leverage the language and format of similar reports done in the past.  With Copilot, you may be able to ask it to generate such a report and it will spit out the start of what you can build on, in the language that your company is already accustomed to using without you having to pull in the data from the various data sources yourself.  The possibilities are literally endless and quite impressive!

ChatGPT in Business

ChatGPT has the potential to create value for companies by transforming vast parts of business and society. Harnessing the power of this technology requires a new approach, known as emergent thinking, which involves generating ideas for innovation without fully understanding the problem that needs to be solved.

Many companies have already started integrating ChatGPT into their products, processes, and services. By analyzing this burgeoning landscape of innovation, leaders can increase the chances of implementing ChatGPT successfully while also avoiding potential pitfalls.

ChatGPT has continued to evolve quickly, beginning as an AI chatbot that only responded to user prompts. Now it includes features such as analyzing data and interpreting images, leaving everyone from high school students to C-suite executives scrambling to learn ChatGPT so they can use it in new and productive ways.

Using ChatGPT requires a different skill called emergent thinking, which involves generating ideas for innovation without fully understanding the problem that needs to be solved. Two researchers recently conducted research showing that the main thought process for this style of innovation is to start by understanding the core functions of a technology, then explore how it can be used to solve problems across different domains

Microsoft Copilot in Business

Copilot is integrated into Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams and offers help with features like editing, summarizing, and analyzing information. It is like having a personal digital assistant that can help you accomplish tasks faster and more efficiently.

Copilot uses both an LLM (like GPT) and your organization’s business data to produce more accurate, relevant, and personalized results. Your business data is used to improve context only for your scenario, and the LLM itself doesn’t learn from your usage.

In addition, for those companies concerned about security and confidentiality, Copilot does not merge your data back in with the LLM that is behind the AI, thereby keeping your data in your environment and secure.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both Copilot and ChatGPT technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way businesses operate by providing faster and more efficient ways to accomplish tasks and activities. By harnessing the power of these emerging technologies, businesses can increase their productivity and competitiveness in today’s fast-paced market.