Copilot Pro, priced at $20 per month, offers a subscription package encompassing AI functionalities within Office applications and enhanced tools for image creation.
Authored by Tom Warren, a seasoned editor specializing in Microsoft, PC gaming, consoles, and technology. He established WinRumors, a platform dedicated to Microsoft updates, before transitioning to The Verge in 2012.
Recently introduced by Microsoft, Copilot Pro is available for a monthly fee of $20, granting users access to AI-driven features integrated into select Office applications. Subscribers also benefit from priority access to the latest OpenAI models and upgraded image generation capabilities.
After a month of testing Copilot Pro, I delved into its efficacy for my daily tasks, exploring the quality of AI-generated images and text across Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. While some features of Copilot Pro currently fall short of expectations, others present genuinely valuable enhancements that may become indispensable.
Let’s delve into the comprehensive offerings of Copilot Pro at present.
A notable highlight of the Copilot Pro subscription is an enhanced iteration of Designer, Microsoft’s image creation tool. Leveraging OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 model, Designer produces widescreen images with significantly enhanced detail compared to the free version.
In my experimentation with Designer, I observed remarkable outcomes when providing detailed prompts. By furnishing specific descriptors such as “hyper-real painting” with “natural lighting, medium shot, and shallow depth of field,” the image results were notably improved.
Despite Designer’s proficiency, occasional inconsistencies persist. For instance, generating an image of a dog fixated on bacon occasionally resulted in the insertion of oversized bacon slices. While Designer excels in visual content creation, textual elements such as labels or signs remain a challenge for DALL-E 3.
Moving beyond image generation, Copilot Pro unlocks AI capabilities within Office applications. In Word, users can leverage Copilot to generate text, aiding in document outlining or paragraph refinement. Additionally, numerical data can be visualized as graphs or tables, enhancing the readability of data-intensive documents.
Similar to image generation, the paragraph rewriting feature may yield mixed results, occasionally altering sentence meaning through word substitutions. While not significantly enhancing my writing, this tool could prove beneficial for occasional writers.
In Outlook, Copilot proves immensely beneficial, offering email summaries that streamline project planning and communication. This feature’s efficiency in condensing lengthy email threads into concise summaries is particularly commendable.
Furthermore, Copilot in PowerPoint simplifies presentation creation by swiftly generating slides in desired styles. This feature, inclusive of Designer, allows for easy customization of images and text within individual slides.
Although Copilot’s integration with Excel is currently more limited, requiring neatly arranged data tables for optimal functionality, it shows promise with data visualization, pivot table creation, and formula suggestions. As Copilot for Excel is still in its preview phase, additional functionalities are anticipated in the future.
Lastly, within OneNote, Copilot facilitates note drafting and rewriting, along with providing summaries of notes. Additionally, Microsoft is introducing specialized GPTs for fitness, travel, and cooking within Copilot, enabling users to access personalized assistance for various activities. Subscribers to Copilot Pro will soon have the option to create custom GPTs tailored to specific topics.
In conclusion, while Copilot Pro marks a promising venture into consumer-oriented AI by Microsoft, the current $20 monthly subscription may not be justified for all users. While the image generation enhancements are noteworthy, the text generation features within Office apps may not offer substantial differentiation from the free version of Copilot or alternative tools like ChatGPT. However, with ongoing developments expected, including the unveiling of more AI initiatives at Build in May, Copilot Pro’s evolution and potential for broader utility remain compelling.
