Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot, from Microsoft. AI inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams.

What it does well

• Drafting in Word from an outline
• Formulas and summaries in Excel
• Recapping a Teams meeting

What it does poorly

• Precise analysis you can't check by hand
• Slides that need a strong visual point of view

What makes it different

It works where your Office files already are, so there's no copying between apps.

Quick start

1. Sign in to copilot.microsoft.com with your USC Microsoft account if available.
2. In Excel, ask Copilot to explain a formula you didn't write.
3. In Word, give it an outline and ask for a draft in your tone.
4. Ask it to list the assumptions it made.

Strengths and limits

• Strength: Lives inside Office
• Strength: Good for routine documents
• Strength: Enterprise data protections on work accounts
• Limit: Feature set differs a lot by license
• Limit: Less capable for open-ended reasoning

Privacy

Signed in with a work or school account, chats get enterprise protections. A personal account doesn't.

Academic integrity

Same rules as any writing assistant: disclose and verify.