Welcome to the October 2024 edition of What's new in Microsoft 365 Copilot! Every month, we highlight new features and enhancements to keep Microsoft 365 admins up to date with Copilot features that help your users be more productive and efficient in the apps they use every day.
Let’s take a closer look at what’s new this month:
Admin and management capabilities:
- See web search queries in the citation section of your Copilot response
- Expanded controls for managing web searches in Copilot
- More languages supported in Microsoft 365 Copilot
End-user capabilities:
- New industry prompt collections in Copilot Lab
- Expanded file summarization with Copilot in Loop
- Prepare for meetings with Copilot in Outlook
- Improved rewrites and tables with Copilot in Word
- Unlocking Complex Problems - solving and code reviewing in BizChat
See web search queries in the citation section of your Copilot response
To help users understand what search queries were used to enhance Copilot responses, the exact web search queries derived from users’ prompts are shown in the linked citation section of Copilot responses.
Bing web search query citations provide users with valuable feedback as to exactly how their prompts are used to generate the web queries sent to Bing search. This transparency helps users with the information they need to improve prompts and use Copilot more effectively. This feature is rolling out in November.
A screenshot of a Copilot prompt and response with a note about references used to generate the response.
Expanded controls for managing web searches in Copilot
Allowing Copilot to reference web content via web search improves the quality of Copilot responses by grounding them in the latest information from the web via the Bing search service. To offer more ways for IT admins to manage web search in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot, we’re introducing the feature Allow web search in Copilot policy.
This new control provides the ability to manage web search separately from other optional connected experiences for Microsoft 365. It will also support web grounding turned off in the Work tab, while allowing web grounding to stay on in the Web tab.
Both the Allow web search in Copilot policy feature and the optional connected experiences policy can be managed at the user and group levels from the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center. This feature is rolling out in November.
More languages supported in Microsoft 365 Copilot
We’ve added twelve more languages to the list of currently supported Copilot prompts and responses: Bulgarian, Croatian, Estonia, Greek, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, and Vietnamese. Microsoft 365 Copilot now supports a total of 42 languages. These additional languages rolled out in October.
In early October, we also introduced support for Welsh and Catalan. Additionally, the rollout of Indonesian and Serbian, which began in mid-October, will reach all customers by early November. Finally, users working in Serbian language will see Teams meeting transcripts in Cyrillic rather than in Latin script until the issue is resolved. Support documentation will be updated with progress towards providing Teams meeting transcripts for Serbian language in Latin script. Learn more about supported languages for Microsoft Copilot.
We are always improving and refining Copilot’s language capabilities. We are also continuing to expand the list of supported languages in the coming months.
New industry prompt collections in Copilot Lab
New industry-specific prompt collections are coming to Copilot Lab! These collections offer users customized prompts that cater to specific tasks in sustainability, consumer goods, nonprofit, mobility, and retail sectors. These prompts are designed to assist users in addressing industry-specific challenges and enhancing their workflows. These will roll out in November.
Here are some example prompts users can find in these new collections:
- Sustainability: "What's the best way for a company to analyze its emissions data and identify potential strategies to reduce its overall carbon footprint?"
- Consumer Goods: "Draft an email informing channel partners about a new planogram for Food and Beverages and its validity period"
- Nonprofit: "Create a major donor profile template"
- Mobility: "Create a table that highlights important differences in rules and regulations for a trip between California and Washington State with a class 7 vehicle. Include all intermediate states."
- Retail: "Create a training template for employee training on [upselling items during customer conversations]"
Prompt cards in Copilot Lab highlight new industry prompts.
Expanded file summarization with Copilot in Loop
With Copilot in Loop, users can now attach a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file, or a Loop page to a prompt. Users can then issue commands about the file, such as summarizing or extracting key points. Copilot will review the file to provide context, and the response will be displayed directly on the Loop page. This feature rolled out in October.
Adding a Word document to a Copilot prompt in Loop.
Prepare for meetings with Copilot in Outlook
With Copilot, users can now get ready for their next meeting in minutes. When a user has an upcoming meeting, Copilot proactively shows a "Prepare" button at the top of the inbox, which helps the user quickly get context for the meeting by creating a meeting agenda summary and showing and summarizing relevant files. This feature is rolling out in December on web and new Outlook.
A video showing the Prepare button and the creation of a summary of notes and documents
Improved rewrites and tables with Copilot in Word
When users select text in a Word document and then select Copilot, they now have more options to fine tune the text, including to auto rewrite, get coaching, visualize as a table, or add in their own prompts. This feature is available now for web, Desktop, and Mac.
gif -Select a part section of your document then prompt Copilot what you’d like.
A popular Copilot in Word feature is the ability to select text and generate a table. Now users can take that a step further with additional support for formatting including font styling and cell styling. This feature rolled out in October on web.
Unlocking Complex Problems - solving and code reviewing in BizChat
Copilot can now tackle complex tasks when a user writes a prompt in natural language, making it easier for users to solve math problems, analyze data, and create visualizations. Additionally, users can now review Python code generated by Copilot to deepen their understanding of the output. They can also copy the code by clicking on the </> Code button and pasting in their preferred location. This feature started rolling out in October.
image of a conversation between a user and Copilot calculating the cost for a group of 15 at a restaurant where adult meals cost $15 and kids eat free. With 8 kids, the total cost is $105.
Did you know? The Microsoft 365 Roadmap is where you can get the latest updates on productivity apps and intelligent cloud services. Please note that the dates mentioned in this article are tentative and subject to change. Check back regularly to see what features are in development or coming soon.
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