Microsoft's Copilots Explained as the naming kills me

Start with Microsoft's Copilots

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

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

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

2. Microsoft 365 Copilot (+£20/month if bought as an add-on)  I believe it is also referred to as Microsoft 365 Copilot Pro

M365 Copilot Pro is grounded in the business data you have access to in your enterprise.

Inline copilots, including grounded business data inside the office applications.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI-powered Agent that has multiple child copilots for the 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 users accessing or creating the new agent, which is pricy, retail marked at $30 per user per month. 

Tip: Optimise results by preparing content!  Like docx, pptx and pdf files.  PDF, DOCX, XLSX (kindof), PPTX. Also works on csv, text, html, md files 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, summarizing, 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 organizing 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 also can redraw (using DALLe)

Extending using M365 Copilot Pro liencing

1. M365 Copilot - no code approach to building agents with our company data.  Each user needs a M365 Copilot pro licence to access the new bot/agent/copilot.
2. Copilot Studio

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

3. Microsoft D365 Copilot/ Microsoft Copilot for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform/ Dynamics 365 AI

Source: Microsoft (I lost the reference)

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 

Code Copilots

GitHub Copilot

Code Copilots: GitHub Copilot extensions in VS and VS Code.  Amazon Q Developer is an AWS code generator best for building code/ and solutions.  GitHub comes in 3 flavors: 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 modularization 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.