Forum Discussion
Microsoft's Copilot: A Frustrating Flop in AI-Powered Productivity
Microsoft's Copilot was supposed to be the game-changer in productivity, but it's quickly proving to be a massive disappointment. The idea was simple: integrate AI directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office tools to make our lives easier. But when it comes to actually performing specific functions, Copilot falls flat.
Here’s the problem: when you ask Copilot to alter a document, modify an Excel file, or adjust a PowerPoint presentation, it’s practically useless. Instead of performing the tasks as requested, it often leaves you hanging with vague suggestions or instructions. Users don't want to be told how to perform a task—they want it done. This is what an AI assistant should do: execute commands efficiently, not just offer advice.
What makes this even more frustrating is that other AI tools, like ChatGPT, can handle these tasks effortlessly. When you ask ChatGPT to perform a specific function, it does so without hesitation. It’s able to understand the request and deliver exactly what’s needed. But Copilot? It struggles with the basics, and that’s unacceptable, especially from a company like Microsoft.
It’s frankly embarrassing that Microsoft can’t get this right. The whole point of integrating AI into these tools was to streamline workflows and boost productivity. But if Copilot can’t even manage simple tasks like formatting a document or adjusting a spreadsheet, then what’s the point? Users don’t need another tool that tells them how to do something—they need one that does it for them.
Microsoft, you’ve missed the mark with Copilot. It's not just a minor inconvenience; it's a serious flaw that undermines the value of your Office suite. When other AI tools can easily accomplish what Copilot can't, it's time to reevaluate. Users expect more, and frankly, they deserve more for their investment.
What’s been your experience with Copilot? Is anyone else finding it as frustrating as I am? Let’s talk about it.
- IgnacioDavila
Microsoft
Stephanie Hoback thank you for the detailed feedback. I have a couple of questions before I go to my colleges in the product team to start working on your feedback. How long had you been using M365 Copilot? To make sure I understand what you are saying, would you like to have a Copilot that functions like a full assistant "get this done, regardless of what tool you use".
Everyone in this forum, please like this message if you are in a similar situation as Stephanie.IgnacioDavila so I gotta tell you a few things...
#1. I absolutely loved the first iteration of Copilot. I just started using about a month and a 1/2 ago. i was very against a I technology, as I thought that it was going to ruin our lives. I was so very wrong, and so very impressed! So much so, that after a couple of weeks of use I signed up for the Pro. Version for use with my personal MS account. Yeah, I was really happy with it.
#2. Then I woke up one day this week, and much to my chagrin, what I had known and had become very happy with, had all of a sudden disappeared, and what was left is a shell of its former self,. Literally. I have given it a week or thereabouts, and I have tried diligently to work with it but when I ask it a simple question and it tells me that it can't get the information for me when it's predecessor could do it with ease? Fortunately, the non-ruined version of Copilot I still have in Microsoft Edge, and immediately after I asked the new Copilot the question that it should have been able to get the information for and couldn't, I opened up the better version by far and within three seconds, I had exactly what I needed. In other words, this new version of copilot it's something that Microsoft should not be proud of because you've taken something that was really, really amazing and turned it into a giant pile of crap so much so that I have canceled my subscription. Because if this is the future of co-pilot, I want nothing to do with it. i am a MS brand loyal person. Hardware/software user. IT Support tech. I like having integrations with all of my Microsoft tools, apps and browsers. Copilot#1 was the perfect integration for me. Until now. Now I'm going to have to go look at another option, because I've gotten to the point where I really like it thanks to the old version of copilot. You bring it back, I come back. Otherwise you've lost somebody that you shouldn't have lost. It takes a lot to lose me from Microsoft, and you did on this one for sure, which is a shame because this was a big one, and you had me, You had me! So dumb, MS. i will never understand what in the hell you guys could have possibly been thinking? After going from brilliance to this, I mean, i'm not even willing to call it Copilot, because it isn't. Should be called "Backseat Driver" or better "Drunken Passenger". That's how bad it is.
- Hey Nacho, my sentiment too. I can't believe they went backwards. I asked copilot what this was and it said it was an improvement. I asked it how could you call this an improvement when it was not and it had the same answer to me that it was to bad that I was frustrated with the change. That change often brings some adjustments. It was like they knew that they needed to tell the user something so they came up with these silly replies. They knew it was not going to go well with the user that had gotten used to having all the previous features. Wow, what a low blow from MS. I concure everything you said. I think this should crush MS..... Give it some time and they will return them features. for now, Venice.ai got a nice thing going over there with even more options that copilot could not answer anything political or medical related.
- I second Stephanie's sentiment. Copilot is basically the pre-school version of chatGPT. We can ask cGPT for anything, and it will figure out what the right tool is to perform WHATEVER is being asked. I've been using both copilot and chatgpt next to each other for months now and Copilot is just painful. I feel like I'm using it just to have real experience when I challenge our IT department on the right tool. Sadly, Copilot is not there yet, most business cases I'm looking at are heavily favored by cGPT.
To the AttorneyGT who commented below, "I think over time we will see it mature.....chatGPT was pretty basic for its first year as well." While this is true, it's more of a justification for people to use Copilot and help it mature to a point of usefulness for businesses. Essentially, we are being asked to use a subpar tool to help make it better for the next year (most likely multiple years)? That's definitely going to happen regardless, but not a very good business strategy for MS. We shouldn't be convinced it's a superior tool when it is obviously not.
In the space of AI, OpenAI has a years long head start, which might as well be 30 in the world of AI. There won't be any tools that catch up with them due to how much they've matured the tools capabilities and interconnections with their tools which allow us to ask for anything, and more than likely get a response back that is more helpful than Copilot. The only benefit for Copilot is that they are positioned to have access to all of a company's business data because they are integrating directly with Azure which most businesses leverage these days. It's a huge advantage, but if you don't have the right tool, having access to the data means nothing.
I'm willing to be proved wrong here, this is just from personal experience from the last few years. IgnacioDavila yes, it needs to behave like the ChatGPT paid version. I believe the team needs to study their largest competition.
- I have the same experience. As a partner of MS, I have tested Copilot thoroughly in a past year, but I personally use paid ChatGPT to get stuff done. I have tried to input the same prompt to both, to perform the same task in a file etc., oftentimes very basic. It astonished me how much worse Copilot is.
I had been using Copilot to test it's responses vs ChatGPT for programming. It worked OK for a few weeks, then earlier this month Copilot stopped working for me. It is stuck in a loop thinking I am signing in with a business email when I am trying to sign in with my personal email. I have reported this issue to Microsoft via support ticket, phone support, and community forum. Turns out there are thousands of customers reporting the same issue. Microsoft did some kind of update on Copilot and broke it for many users.
Hope they eventually get it fixed, but I'm staying with ChatGPT. My guess is not many people are going to pay for Pro if its not guaranteed to work. I talked with tech support on the phone, they even told me that paying for Pro would not solve my issue. Copilot has become a useless joke for thousands of users.
Stephanie Hoback, you've got that right! I subscribed to Pro to help me with my grammar and wording while I write and also to use as a brainstorming partner, but it randomly stops answering questions or sends incomplete answers. You call it out on how it's not working and it is dismissive and for $20 a month, it is SO not worth it. I think I'll move my work over to Dabble when my paid time runs out. This is BS.
Copilot is absolutely useless. I haven’t found any task it can complete. Even simple tasks are non existent.
I just want something that efficiently and correctly sorts photos and eliminates duplicate photos.microsoft is the absolute worst at photography, photo storage, photo editing, photo organization, and duplicate photo production, photo viewing.
onedrive literally creates dozens upon dozens of duplicate photos to fill up the data cap faster to entice people to buy more and more storage.
there are photo duplicates that go into the 100’s and that is done purposefully to increase subscription costs.
I did go in one day and got so frustrated with all the duplicate photos cleaned up all the duplicates only to have them ALL RETURNED THE NEXT DAY.
am done paying for Microsoft scams and ripoffs.
microsoft employees should be ashamed of the scams they build.
office 365 is a scam Onedrive is a massive ripoff and disingenuous at best. A.I is useless, surface pro 9; is as slow as molasses uphill in the winter. My kids can’t get away from xbox fast enough they both want PS. Windows 11 is absolutely awful. Microsoft security is the equivalent of using a one inch piece of scotch tape to secure your home, yes its there but its never going to stop anyone from getting in. Windows updates break everything it comes in contact with or are blue screen of death endless boot loops.
non of those problems are on apple.
Experience has been pretty decent so far....this is the very beginning phases, I think over time we will see it mature.....chatGPT was pretty basic for its first year as well.
- Yes, but I did not have to pay for that Chat GPT experience while they were growing; I do for this useless tool.
Stephanie Hoback I was excited to see that they gave Co-Pilot vision. Then I asked it to tell me which app on my desktop was displaying a PDF and to bring it to the foreground...."I'm sorry.." yadah yadah yadah. Ok, I'm having problems with my Microphone, please open the Device manager and show me all the audio input devices on my computer. NOPE! This thing, for an Operating System AI offering, doesn't do anything for the USER with the Operating system. It's basically useless, if I wanted to upload stuff and find out how to do stuff myself I would just use any of the more robust models out there. I'm not paying for this until it becomes better with system commands.
- I've only just started using CoPilot but already found some frustration with the Visualiser. I gave it several example images from the web and told it to replicate the graphics with specific hex codes (3). Just simple silhouettes, no lines and I kept getting really complex graphics with all the wrong colours. I simply could not understand how CoPilot could get such a simple request wrong. After 30 mins of trying, I gave up.
