Microsoft's Copilots Explained as the naming kills me

Microsoft's Copilots products... starting with M365 Copilot options

Source: Screenshot from a presentation, 6 May 2025 - must come from MS.

1. Microsoft 365 Copilot versions

1.1. Copilot (Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat) (Is Free)

It allows access to ChatGPT-4 with web content.  AI like ChatGPT, Perplexity, ...

1.2. Microsoft 365 Copilot Pro

(+$20/month full retail if bought as an add-on).  More features but not everything the M365 Copilot for Business offers.  All users get Copilot Builder (maker capability), and consumers need the M365 Pro licence to use M365 Copilot agents.

1.3. Microsoft 365 Copilot for Business

I believe a lot of documentation and people are grouping "M365 Copilot Pro" and "M365 Copilot for Business" together, and only see a free and pro/paid versions of M365 Copilot. 

M365 Copilot Pro for Business (I know :) ) is grounded in the business data you can access in your enterprise.  Inline copilots, including grounded business data inside the office applications.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI-powered Agent with multiple child Copilots for Microsoft 365 apps like Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, and Teams. It leverages large language models (GPT-4 and GPT-4Pro) and your enterprise data through the Microsoft Graph. To work with M365 Copilot Pro, you need the M365 Copilot license for each user accessing or creating the new agent, which is pricy, per user per month. 

Tip: Optimise results by preparing content!  Like docx, pptx and pdf files. PDF, DOCX, XLSX (kind of), PPTX. Also works on CSV, text, HTML, MD, and WAV audio files.  Supported file type.

Microsoft-specific app copilots included in M365 Copilot Pro:

• 2.1. Word Copilot: Helps with drafting, rewriting, editing, summarising, and generating new ideas.
• 2.2. Excel Copilot: Assists with data analysis, generating insights, creating complex formulas, and automating tasks.
• 2.3. PowerPoint Copilot: Aids in creating presentations, suggesting layouts, creating slides, and enhancing visual content.
• 2.4. Outlook Copilot: Supports email management, drafting responses, scheduling, and organising tasks.
• 2.5. OneNote Copilot.

Note: Microsoft Copilot does not allow uploading images/pictures like ChatGPT does as of March 2025, but I don't doubt it is coming.  ChatGPT can also redraw (using DALLe)

Extending the use of M365 Copilot Pro licensing

1. M365 Copilot takes a no-code approach to building agents with our company data. Each user needs an M365 Copilot Pro licence to access the new bot/agent/copilot.
2. Copilot Studio is a more advanced way to build copilots and requires a separate license.

Options Building you own Agents/Copilots with business aware data.

Agent Builder - all users need the M365 Copilot Pro licence.

Copilot Studio - makes need a Studio Builder licence for each maker, build agents using low code AI.  Each query is charges using messages as it's currency.  There is complex pricing for instance a query can cost 13 message credits.

AI Foundry - the individual paid services on Azure relating to AI uses tokens for billing.  A simple query is 4 tokens depending how the question is broken down.  Once again it is difficult to estimate the costs.  

2. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilots

Overview of Dynamics 365 Copilots:

Source: Microsoft (I lost the reference)

2.1. Customer Engagement (CRM) Apps

1. Dynamics 365 Sales – Manage leads, opportunities, and customer relationships.
2. Dynamics 365 Customer Service – Case management, knowledge base, and omnichannel support.
3. Dynamics 365 Field Service – Manage field operations, work orders, and technician scheduling.
4. Dynamics 365 Marketing (now part of Customer Insights - Journeys) – Campaign automation and customer journeys.
5. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights:
   • Data – Unify and analyze customer data.
   • Journeys – Design and automate personalized customer experiences.
6. Dynamics 365 Customer Voice – Collect and analyze customer feedback.

2.2. Finance & Operations (ERP) Apps

1. Dynamics 365 Finance – Core financials, budgeting, and global accounting.
2. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management – Inventory, manufacturing, and logistics.
3. Dynamics 365 Project Operations – Project planning, resource management, and billing.
4. Dynamics 365 Commerce – Unified retail, e-commerce, and POS.
5. Dynamics 365 Human Resources (being merged into Finance) – HR management and employee self-service.

2.3. SMB-Focused App

• Dynamics 365 Business Central – All-in-one ERP for small and medium-sized businesses (finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, and more).

2.4. Industry-Specific Solutions

• Microsoft Cloud for Industry (e.g., Healthcare, Financial Services, Manufacturing) – Built on Dynamics 365 and Power Platform with tailored capabilities.

Note: Microsoft D365 Copilot/ Microsoft Copilot for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform/ Dynamics 365 AI are in this area.

3. Copilot Studio

Build copilots and distribute them to the business. This is awesome, but from a naming perspective, it actually makes sense. 

4. Azure AI Foundry

Organisations and developers can use the AI Foundry platform to build AI-driven solutions.  Can use 1,800 models and 200 Azure Services.  There are so many AI services on Azure.  I'm not even starting that conversation.

5. Security & Governance of Microsoft 365 Copilot 

The M365 copilot will respect the Access Controls you have permission to, so Jim in operations won't see Tim's sales figures in a Word document in SharePoint. Jim does not have access to the document from the sales site collection. Therefore, they can't query Copilot for the data they don't have permission to (done using MS Graph).

Purview: DLP improves what your users can do, and better governance.  Ensure M365 copilots are used ethically.

Understand how users are using your M365 Copilot.

6. Code Copilots

GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered tool that helps developers write code by suggesting snippets and completing lines in real time. Developed by GitHub and OpenAI, it learns from public code repositories and supports various programming languages and frameworks. Its goal is to boost productivity and reduce repetitive coding tasks.  It's amazing!! and getting better all the time.

Code Copilots: GitHub Copilot extensions in VS and VS Code. Amazon Q Developer is an AWS code generator that is best for building code and solutions. GitHub comes in three flavours: Individual, Business, and Enterprise.

GitHub explains code, optimises your code's performance, improves readability, generates unit tests, improves error handling, adds new code with requested functionality, ensures coding consistency, and improves modularisation to help with the DRY principle.  GitHub is the diggity bomb.

Note: ChatGPR is owned by OpenAI.  Microsoft is a significant investor but does not own the service.

7. Summary

Naming and complexity with Microsoft are tough. The AI parts are massive. The M365 copilots break down into Dynamics or O365 worlds, each with many options.  I wish Microsoft had a hierarchical, sensible naming system, which no doubt the Marketing department would hate.

Prompt Engineering with Microsoft Copilot

Prompting Microsoft Copilot: Prompting is asking the copilot to give you information.

Four parts to cover in your prompt> 1. goal 2. context 3. source 4. expectation

1. Goal - what do I want, e.g., tell copilot what we want

I want tactics for pricing my SaaS products

2. Context - Why do I need it

e.g., this is a new product in the B2C space

3. Sources - optional - ask from specific resources

e.g. provide my company stats and ask to compare to my market (from the LLM)

4. Expectations - Table of info, summary, or even an image(maybe not)

M365 Copilot app.

Apps that M365 Copilot embedded with if you have the M365 licence include: 

1. Word, 2. Excel, 3. PowerPoint, 4. Outlook, and 5. Teams

1. Word

Word Copilot is part of the M365 copilot branding.  Generates scaffolding/first draft.

2. Excel

Use in Excel with your own data - allows easy query using English/natural language.

3. PowerPoint

Draft a presentation using org themes based on prompts. You can also use Copilot to add images you create using Copilot (DALL-e).