Image: Maria Diaz/ZDNET.
As an author, AI is useful to me for one purpose…to do research to write fiction. Research is a key part of the writing process. In this regard, AI has helped me a lot, especially to quickly understand a concept that I did not know before, or even the etymology of a word.
For a long time, I used Aria on Opera a lot for this purpose. But a few weeks ago, I tested Microsoft’s AI chatbot, Copilot. I noticed how practical it was, especially compared to Aria.
Microsoft Copilot is a revolutionary chatbot that provides advanced image generation and multimodal image and text processing.
- Downloads: 68
- Release date : 02/15/2024
- Author : Microsoft
- Licence : Free license
- Categories:
Internet - Operating system : Android – Online service – iOS iPhone / iPad
So here are four highlights of the AI chatbot, which make it such a practical and useful writing companion.
1. The browser
Most of the time spent on a computer is spent using a web browser. Whether working, playing, communicating or creating, digital life has become more browser-based over the past decade.
So, to save time while working as efficiently as possible, you can use Copilot with Edge. It’s like having two tools in one.
Copilot works very similarly to Aria on Opera: it opens in a sidebar within the browser itself, so there are no pop-ups to deal with and it’s always there, ready for action.
2. Tabs
When you open Copilot in Edge, three tabs appear: Conversation, Write And Information.
- The tab Conversation allows you to ask the AI questions and view its answers.
- In the tab Writeyou can ask Copilot to write you a text, for example a paragraph, an email or even a few ideas.
- The last tab, Information, allows you to view search trends. While this tab doesn’t really use artificial intelligence, it can help you at the beginning of your searches, to give you a starting point based on Bing’s most common queries.
Please note: if you use Copilot through its web version, you will not have access to these three tabs.
3. Profiles
Profiles are a very practical feature of the Edge browser, especially for using Copilot. You can therefore decide to use AI on one of your profiles, but not on another. For example, if you have a work profile and a personal profile, you can use Copilot in your private life without your usage appearing on your work profile.
This aspect is not negligible, because some employers have banned the use of AI from their work practices. And if you work with Copilot always accessible in front of your eyes, you might have the reflex to use it, even when you’re not supposed to. You can also decide to create a profile for your children, if you don’t want them to use the chatbot, for example.
There are many reasons to want to activate or deactivate the AI-powered chatbot. The good thing about Edge is that you can do this easily thanks to profiles.
4. Plugins
With Copilot on Edge, you have easy access to plugins, which you can install for different conversations. For now, the plugins are quite limited, since you only find Search, Instacart, Kayak, Klarna, OpenTable and Shop. But this list is expected to grow in the future, especially if Copilot continues to gain popularity. If you have a free account, you can only add three plugins. However, it is possible that for the moment, you are only using the Search plugin, which allows you to activate web search. Remember, however, that your search data is shared with the companies that publish the plugins you activate – so choose wisely.
For further :
Tested for you: a week of work with Copilot Pro and a very contrasting first assessment
Source: ZDNet.com