Microsoft Copilot (or simply Copilot) is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Microsoft. Based on the GPT-4 series of large language models, it was launched in 2023 as Microsoft’s main replacement for the discontinued Cortana.
The service was introduced in February 2023 under the name Bing Chat, as a built-in feature for Microsoft Bing and Microsoft Edge. Over the course of 2023, Microsoft began to unify the Copilot branding across its various chatbot products, cementing the “copilot” analogy. At its Build 2023 conference, Microsoft announced its plans to integrate Copilot into Windows 11, allowing users to access it directly through the taskbar. In January 2024, a dedicated Copilot key was announced for Windows keyboards.
Copilot utilizes the Microsoft Prometheus model, built upon OpenAI‘s GPT-4 foundational large language model, which in turn has been fine-tuned using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. Copilot’s conversational interface style resembles that of ChatGPT. The chatbot is able to cite sources, create poems, generate songs, and use numerous languages and dialects.
Microsoft operates Copilot on a freemium model. Users on its free tier can access most features, while priority access to newer features, including custom chatbot creation, is provided to paid subscribers under the “Microsoft Copilot Pro” paid subscription service. Several default chatbots are available in the free version of Microsoft Copilot, including the standard Copilot chatbot as well as Microsoft Designer, which is oriented towards using its Image Creator to generate images based on text prompts.
Background
In 2019, Microsoft partnered with OpenAI and began investing billions of dollars into the organization.[10] Since then, OpenAI systems have run on an Azure-based supercomputing platform from Microsoft.[11][12][13] In September 2020, Microsoft announced that it had licensed OpenAI’s GPT-3 exclusively. Others can still receive output from its public API, but Microsoft has exclusive access to the underlying model.[14]
In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a chatbot which was based on GPT-3.5.[15][16] ChatGPT gained worldwide attention following its release, becoming a viral Internet sensation.[17] On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a multi-year US$10 billion investment in OpenAI.[18][19][20] On February 6, Google announced Bard (later rebranded as Gemini), a ChatGPT-like chatbot service, fearing that ChatGPT could threaten Google’s place as a go-to source for information.[21][22] Multiple media outlets and financial analysts described Google as “rushing” Bard’s announcement to preempt rival Microsoft’s planned February 7 event unveiling Copilot,[23][24] as well as to avoid playing “catch-up” to Microsoft.[25][26][27]