I have had a few weeks to get to know the premium subscriber version of Microsoft Copilot or Copilot M365. This version costs an extra NZ$500 + a year and not available to everyone within the institution.
Fellowmind, provides an overview along with pros and cons of the system. Microsoft Insider Track provides 10 tips to improve productivity using Copilot - generally to use it as a personal assistant to plan one's day, review the week's work, brainstorm, etc.
This youtube provides a more generalised introduction along with examples. The video provides a good overview of the key functions in CoPilot - Chat, generate images, use it like google and question the information and change the information into bar chart, Code, upload documents and summarise/ask questions based on the document (extract certain items e.g. financial information). Covers:
- Create - posters, select a created poster as a template.
- Using Copilot in Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
- Use and leverage existing agent examples with researcher and analyst (includes data visualisation).
- Creating custom AI agent to configure your own agent - able to achieve all the above. 13 minutes in.
This youtube summarises the uses of CoPilot for teachers. Covers:
- Using apps - outlook, word, excel etc.
- Search bar, Chat and how to use this for supporting teaching work.
- Copilot prompt gallery / and prompt agent. Use /to refer to files or put up files to refer to.
- Demonstrated how to convert a ppt into a blog post!
- Copilot has memory - which can be updated. Use settings / personalisation to adjust copilot memory.
- Use pages that can be an interactive 'page' - i.e. onenote page with AI overlayed
- Agents - the included ones (researcher/analysts), prompt coach etc. and ability to create your own agents.
- Create connects to usual microsoft apps -word etc. that allow creation of a range of resources. Plus using CoPliot in 'normal' word, excel or other apps. demonstration on how Copilot integrates into these.
Of note for all users, is the ability to create agents - see this youtube for creating agents for education based around CoPilot chat (published April 2025). Versions for educational institutions also include 'Teach' which has 'agents' to support the drafting of lesson plans, and the development of marking rubrics and flash cards to support learning or teaching. This video summarises these tools.
For the paid premium version, the addition of the researcher and analyst agents are game changers. Future Savvy provides an overview and good examples of prompts and user cases. The researcher agent responses can be verbose, so careful prompting is required to attain relevant results. The agent provides a 'chain of thought' which makes the ways in which the AI has come up with the response visible. This is useful to be able to see sources as depending on the context, the AI will draw from what is already in your OneDrive, other work files and also the web (if the option is selected). Asking researcher agent to only refer to peer reviewed sources is still hit and miss and for collation of in-house reports etc. researcher agent does save time as it collates the many sources of information, some of which have been forgotten!
Overall, CoPilot has improved markedly this year and is a viable alternative to other AI platforms. The key as always is to use it circumspectly, not expect miracles, and to be targeted in how it is used. As CoPilot draws from the localised resources, authenticity is tighter. Putting time into learning how to use it well will pay dividends.
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