Weiss Geoff
Some initial users expressed dissatisfaction with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s direction of the tech company towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) products.
The Wall Street Journal has highlighted that certain early adopters of Microsoft’s AI assistant, Copilot, did not find it particularly impressive initially. They raised concerns about the high costs associated with the AI tool and reported instances of inaccurate results.
Microsoft is heavily investing in Artificial Intelligence solutions, with Copilot being a significant focus of their AI endeavors. The AI assistant, developed in collaboration with OpenAI, is designed to assist in generating documents, presentations, and summarizing meetings and emails using Microsoft’s suite of applications such as Word, Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint, and Excel. Despite being available for approximately six weeks, Copilot has received mixed reviews.
While some test companies commended Copilot for its time-saving capabilities, others, like the chemicals company Dow, which plans to implement Copilot for a large portion of its employees, praised the tool for its efficiency gains. However, there are reservations among certain users regarding Copilot’s pricing, set at $30 per person along with a Microsoft 365 subscription, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Critics mentioned by the WSJ pointed out inconsistencies in Copilot’s integrations with PowerPoint and Excel, citing instances of inaccuracies and incorrect outputs. Social media posts from AI researchers also highlighted instances where Copilot made errors in creating PowerPoint slides and provided unconventional suggestions for meeting agendas.
Juniper, a hardware manufacturer testing Copilot since November, stated to The Journal that they were not prepared to adopt the product for their entire workforce yet. Despite the challenges, Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of modern work and business applications, noted that customers are already experiencing benefits from using Copilot, enhancing productivity and work quality.
In response to user feedback, Microsoft aims to refine Copilot further over time. The tech giant introduced Navigator and Copilot, requiring a minimum commitment of 300 subscriptions from businesses, with a phased rollout starting in November and expanding to smaller groups in January. Microsoft’s substantial $13 billion investment in OpenAI underscores its commitment to advancing AI technologies.
During the recent Super Bowl, Microsoft unveiled Copilot in its first commercial in four years, drawing parallels between Copilot and the revolutionary impact of the personal computer, a sentiment echoed by CEO Satya Nadella.
