What is Copilot and what is it used for?

Read the summary post What is <this tech> and what is it used for?

Because I’m using Copilot in all these posts to explain what things are, I thought it would be a good idea to explain what Copilot is and how it’s being used.

Copilot answer

Copilot is Microsoft’s AI-powered assistant that uses large language and multimodal models to understand and generate text, images, and voice.

It’s integrated across Windows, Microsoft 365 apps, Edge, mobile apps, and developer tools to provide contextual help using your files and data.

People use Copilot to draft and edit content, summarize documents and meetings, analyze spreadsheets, automate routine workflows, generate images, and speed up research and decision-making.

Explain it to me like I’m 10 years old

Copilot is like a super-smart helper inside your computer and phone that understands what you type and what you show it.

It can help you write stories and emails, answer questions, make pictures, and explain hard things in simple words.

You use it when you want to get work done faster, learn something new, or need ideas and clear answers.

Specialist answer

Zoe Wilson, Global digital workplace services consult leader at Kyndryl.

Copilot is AI embedded directly into the productivity tools we know and use every day, allowing us to create, collaborate, analyse data and interact with content in new and different ways.

It is rewiring productivity, changing the way we think and operate, and when extended and connected to other apps, has the potential to completely transform complex processes.

It is the gateway to broad AI adoption, helping people build the Copilot habits and behaviours that will be crucial for success in the era of AI.

Kevin McDonnell, director at Modern workplace at Avanade.

Copilot is the common name that Microsoft is using for surfacing their Generative AI capabilities across the vast majority of Microsoft services, giving a common understanding of where to get the power of Generative AI in each system

Microsoft is using their broad connections with many workers to bring Copilot capabilities to where you are using them and enabling more effective ways to create content, summarise content, analyse content and, in many cases, all of these together.

With Satya Nadella’s famous quote of Copilot being the UI for AI, it shows that Copilot (primarily M365 Copilot in this case but I won’t correct Satya too loudly…) is seen as the way to bring a multitude of different capabilities to one place, without people having to know about all the different places to go to find things, without having to understand different interfaces  and without having to learn different ways of prompting.

Explain it like it’s my first day on the job

Copilot is Microsoft’s AI helper. There are a lot of different Copilots out there. Microsoft 365, the Power Platform and Dynamics 365 all have multiple Copilots. It’s embedded in most of the technology you will see from Microsoft. I’ve used it to create the first part of this and the start of all the other posts in this series.

It’s in Microsoft Teams, in Word, Excel, bing, it’s even got its own button on newer laptops! Which data Copilot has access to, depends on the type of Copilot, there are hundreds of different Copilots from Microsoft, all giving information and helping their users. Maybe you’ll be using Copilot to help you write things (like the start of this blog is an example of), create Power Points based on information in your organisation, get help research information about a potential customer, or get help researching a new topic.

Most of the different parts of the Power Platform and the different Dynamics 365 apps have their own Copilots.

Dynamics have some Copilots IN the apps, which most of the time is included in the license, like in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys where you can get help select the best pictures for your email or even creating the content for your email.

Other times it’s Copilot FOR the app, like Copilot for Sales which amongst other connect Dynamics 365 Sales to Outlook and Teams meetings. The different Copilots are all created to best help you guide your journey in an AI powered way.

Use cases with large customers

Microsoft is it’s own customer, especially with Copilot. They have a massive library and content selection with a lot of presentations and documentation about customer and products they’re selling. The sellers at Microsoft can create Power Points tailored to each customer because they have so much information about the customers and about the way Microsoft is selling to customers. People who work at Microsoft are asked to use Copilot as the first option for every task they have.

I talked to Kai Stenberg about an implementation he did for a big norwegian customer, and he said the story that made the biggest impact on him came from one person. After the implementation and training, one person said that because of Copilot he now felt included in the company. You see, this person was struggling with dyslexia and had trouble writing documents and forming his great thoughts in emails. Thanks to Microsoft 365 Copilot he got help in writing or rewriting his documents, on fixing typos or just creating drafts based on his own few words or thoughts. Copilot actually made him feel more valuable to the company, and more like a resource than he ever had before. That is the biggest value of implementing any system we can ever hope for.

Use cases with small customers

This blog is one case with only one person. There are a lot of cases out there where one person uses it to learn and gather information. I’ve had students who has used it to study for exams. People are using it to create their own bio, session descriptions they want to use. If it’s a one person company it might be hard to get a second opinion on something you’ve written and potentially want to send to a customer. You can get help from Copilot to rewrite what you’ve written, or just make sure that it all makes sense.

Training material

This entire list of training materials is created using Copilot, showing another good use case of Copilot.

Summary

In Summary, Copilot is a powerful tool you can see all across the Microsoft technology. It has a lot of use cases and can really be a great tool in work, study and just learning more about different topics.

But, always remember that AI could be wrong, so make sure you always go through everything you get from it and never use something unread.

Original Post https://malinmartnes.no/2025/10/29/what-is-copilot-and-what-is-it-used-for/