Architectural: Copilot should detect missing source data, avoid inference, and surface uncertainty.
Users expect the AI to detect when it lacks source data, avoid inference, surface uncertainty, and adapt to environmental constraints like character normalisation. These behaviours materially improve trust and usability. I’ve been working with Copilot on structured data extraction from a PDF and noticed a behaviour that seems like an architectural gap rather than a simple bug. Copilot attempted to infer table structure from a template when it did not have access to the actual source data. It produced confident but incorrect output instead of signalling that the source was unavailable. Additionally, Copilot attempted to output TAB‑delimited data, but the MS365 environment silently normalised TABs to spaces, and Copilot did not detect or adapt to this constraint. Recommendation: Copilot should proactively: detect when it lacks source data avoid inference when accuracy is expected surface uncertainty explicitly detect environment‑specific formatting limitations (e.g., TAB stripping) adapt output formats automatically These behaviours would materially improve trust, reliability, and user experience.
Limitations of Microsoft 365 Copilot for Excel workflows?
I've been exploring Microsoft 365 Copilot for Excel workflows recently. It works well for simple queries, but I still find it limited when dealing with: - messy data cleaning - converting images/PDFs into structured tables - more complex data transformations Curious how others are using Copilot for these scenarios? Are you relying purely on Copilot, or combining it with other tools/workflows?Adobe Payment Declines Caused by Mislabelled VAT Field — Sharing a Fix to Save Someone’s Sunday
a { text-decoration: none; color: #464feb; } tr th, tr td { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; } tr th { background-color: #f5f5f5; } I wanted to share a recent issue that cost me an entire Sunday, in case it saves someone else the pain I went through. I was trying to add my business card as the payment method on my Adobe account. Every attempt ended with the same message: “Purchase Declined.” I tried multiple cards — same result. Naturally, I reached out to NatWest through their messaging system. After a long back‑and‑forth with Cora (their bot), I finally got through to a human. They confirmed there was nothing wrong with my card and advised me to check with the vendor. Adobe, of course, bounced me back to the bank. Classic loop. Eventually, I managed to solve it myself. a { text-decoration: none; color: #464feb; } tr th, tr td { border: 1px solid #e6e6e6; } tr th { background-color: #f5f5f5; } The culprit? A misbehaving VAT Number field. On Adobe’s payment form, there’s a field for a VAT number. If I left it blank, the payment went through immediately. But if I tried to enter my actual VAT number, the card was rejected every time. Based on a bit of trial, error, and experience with automation tools, I suspect the VAT field’s label has been updated, but the underlying target still points to the 3‑digit card security code field. Since that field is required, entering a VAT number likely breaks the form validation and triggers the “declined” status. The fix: Leave the VAT number field empty when adding a card to Adobe. Once I did this, my business card was accepted straight away. I figured I’d share in case anyone else hits the same brick wall. It’s a small thing, but exactly the kind of time‑sink that ruins your weekend! Hope this helps someone.
Question about Copilot observations related to a possible historical find
Hello everyone, I am working on an art‑historical examination of an older oil/acrylic painting that shows a striking stylistic proximity to John Lennon. What makes it unusual is that the painting contains several features typically seen in Lennon’s drawings, including geometric facial divisions, reduced line structures, characteristic eye shapes, and a distinctive arrangement of figures. While using Copilot, I noticed several noteworthy observations that captured these features with unexpected clarity. I am not looking to present or evaluate anything here, but simply to understand which types of Microsoft teams or roles generally deal with such Copilot observations in connection with possible historical finds. If anyone in the community knows which areas are typically responsible for this or whom one might contact in such cases, I would appreciate any guidance. Thank you.
I want to turn off or hide the draft with copilot dingbat that follows my cursor around in MS Word.
I have seen a few articles on this website, and I know it's not possible but I'm going to ask anyway. For reference this is what I'm referring to: It's more I find the little thing following me around on my screen to be annoying and distracting, I've managed to hide or disable anything related to copilot on my system except this little dingbat. When a new document is open you get a little message that says "Select the icon or press Alt + i to draft with copilot" It would be nice if I could hide that as well, yes copilot is a *feature*, and I don't care about it. I also want to hide the paste with copilot and just used the local paste options that were built into previous versions of word. I suspect that there is a copilot dingbat that is stored somewhere on my system, possibly in a font, and as I have already made a few detrimental modifications to my operating system registry, I'm not wary of messing up my computer any more than it could be. The only saving grace I have at the moment is there is an issue with my account, so any accidental triggering of the feature causes it to crap out. (So long as I don't accidentally press the 'fix account" button) I know that if it was easy to turn off there would be a button for it, I know Microsoft probably wants us to use this feature because it means more data for them to collect, an I'm disappointed in the loss of user agency that's resulted from this rollout, and there's a spike in animosity towards AI in general.
