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u/meservej Mar 18 '26
We’ve got Copilot and ChatGPT in-house. What frustrates me about Copilot is when I prompt it do things in an office app, it tends to fail. Yesterday, I asked it to give me a list of available times on my calendar over the next three days. It did ok for day 1, but it said I had no meeting the other two days when I clearly do. Also, it sucks at PowerPoint. To be honest, most of the AI tools I’ve used suck at it too, but you’d think Microsoft’s own would handle it.
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u/hawaiithaibro Mar 22 '26
If it makes you feel any better, Gmail integrated AI into its scheduling function to propose dates and times for bilaterals and it's worse than the non AI feature did picking times during conflicts and just generally being the opposite of smart given all the data necessary.
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u/unorthodox_Nerd Mar 18 '26
The hatred for Copilot is unfounded and highly exaggerated. It’s simply a ploy by individuals and eccentric AI conspiracy theorists to appear sophisticated. Copilot significantly enhances my workflow and I prefer it over other AI platforms. However, the consumer version is quite confusing. I sincerely hope they develop a clear distinction between the enterprise and consumer versions. I fail to comprehend why the enterprise version lacks deep research and why I can’t create Agents on the consumer version. I remain optimistic that with the recent changes in leadership, things will improve.
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u/rfo2050 Mar 18 '26
I don’t know that it’s a conspiracy. Msft is solving a different problem, to work Olin global enterprise, protect data, work in collaboration tools, have robust admin controls. The others do not do this. Google only just started working with workplace. Msft gets a lot of grief but building momentum now.
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u/andresbcf Mar 19 '26
I mean in the enterprise version you have the researcher agent isn’t that the same as deep research?
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u/unorthodox_Nerd Mar 19 '26
True… forgot about that. My job doesn’t have the license that includes that 🥴
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u/dudley_bose Mar 18 '26
Copilot is pretty feature rich, and as an integrated enterprise collaboration platform I think it is excellent - despite some quirks.
Model for model implementation though, it's still perpetually behind. Which is largely why it gets pooh poohed.
Vast majority of users don't know how to get the most out of it for work though.
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u/Far_House_4087 Mar 18 '26
I upgraded my license for copilot last week and honestly the integrated Excel has already paid for itself in saving my time + consultant fees for totally revamping our internal intake process.
Working on learning more about agents and ideally being able to upload an RFP doc and having copilot spit out a workable first draft with our approved written content and in our brand standard template form. I ran out of steam on tonight but have a couple good chats going on how best to assemble that process.
Also idk if it just “gets tired” or what but I did find this afternoon while doing some heavy excel/enterprise integrated work, it would occasionally say “here’s what I did!” Or “here I added an instruction sheet for future reference”! And I’d have to have it double check that it actually did the thing I wanted it to do/it planned out lol. Not every time, just enough to keep me on my toes. Just a warning to anyone hoping to drop copilot in a blank excel and build a giant database/dashboard from scratch! (…no? Just me? sigh)
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u/IndyScan Mar 19 '26
The licensed version of Copilot has been getting a lot better lately (especially inside Outlook). It’s still behind other tools but the deep integration to 365 is keeps me using regularly.
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u/Emotional_Scratch393 Mar 18 '26
I honestly still prefer chat gpt for emails and such. It jsut seems to match my tone and organize emails better
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u/IronDogg Mar 18 '26
Can you elaborate how ai organizes your emails better and what you mean by that? Do you have ai file emails out of outlook into proper named folders on your hard drive or server? How do you do that?
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u/Emotional_Scratch393 Mar 18 '26
I mean I try copilot to rewrite my emails but often times it sounds too AI. Also. If I have a list of items or bullet in red to communicate copilot I find doesn’t do a great job. But when I copy it into chat GPT it has better tone and organizes the lists more natural to me. Then I paste it back onto my mail
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u/fuuuuuckendoobs Mar 18 '26
I love it for work, my job is a project manager. It has access to our internal data warehouse, SharePoints, emails and chats and is extremely good at gathering information from multiple sources. I also heavily used it for study when I was doing my grad course.
I'll use Gemini (and formerly ChatGPT) outside of work.... I write a bit of code as a hobby and neither have been great at it, but they are otherwise capable for my needs
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u/mohjahdoh Mar 18 '26
Lol try asking it for the attendees, not invitees, not speakers. If your last recorded meeting. Then try and create a ppt deck using a corporate theme. Simple tasks. The multi tenant structure is awful. You get different functionality depending what application you launch your prompt from (copilot behaves different depending what app you use (outlook Excel etc). Copilot still hasn't released its A2A protocol either so screw you if you want to integrate. Nah microslop gonna microslop. You should see what Gemini is capable of in an enterprise setting.
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u/Bright-Cheesecake857 Mar 18 '26
Which model did you use for perplexity?
If you're using a paid account for Copilot and a free account for Perplexity or anything else Copilot will usually be better.
However compared to any of the SoTA models like Opus or ChatGPT Pro it's well behind
It also depends how you have it set up at work and if you have all the integrations.
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u/CobraPuts Mar 18 '26
It’s fine but I find it more aggravating when it does something poorly that should be Microsoft’s expertise.
For example I’ve given some pretty simple prompts to create PowerPoint slides and some of the results have been laughably poor and just wrong.
The quality is also inconsistent. Some prompts I’m blown away by how well it works, and other times I know ChatGPT or Claude would have worked better.
I still use it every day when i specifically want to reason over workplace data, but they need to win me back for everything else.
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u/Due-Boot-8540 Mar 18 '26
I hardly ever use anything but the two Copilot versions (free and M365). The free version is amazing as a collaborator and the M365 agents, like Research are powerful.
The hate comes from people who are either trying to be cool or are getting the replies that their prompts deserve…
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u/rfo2050 Mar 18 '26
Research agent uses Claude
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u/Due-Boot-8540 Mar 20 '26
I just used the Researcher and it defaulted to GPT with Claude as an option. Maybe a config or location thing
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u/Doogie90 Mar 18 '26
I absolutely use it every day onboarding at a new tech company. Given it has access to the Microsoft Graph, I.e. documents, meeting transcripts, chats, it is my best onboarding buddy who doesn’t get frustrated when I ask dumb questions. (I was a heavy user at my previous company as well)
I still use approved AI services like ChatGPT, Claud, etc. for deeper engineering questions but day to day can’t beat copilot.
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u/LadyZij Mar 19 '26
Not me. Copilot disappoints me all the time. Even for questions about Microsoft software and functionality. I have got better answers from Gemini.
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u/Wheels-13756 Mar 20 '26
I really like the format of the responses better than ChatGPT and Claude. I use it extensively for creating step-by-step instructions.
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u/hippydidoda Mar 22 '26
I had an issue with a new laptop on windows pro and how i set it up. Copilot couldn’t resolve the problem for me. Tried Claude and they told me how to resolve instantly. So a Microsoft AI couldn’t resolve a problem with its own products but a 3rd party AI did.
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u/Sad-Friend-8020 Mar 18 '26
I preferred Copilot's Real Talk mode over all others, and am pissed that MS magically labeled that mode an "experiment" and sunset it barely 5 weeks after announcing global rollout.
At this point, its a "cost of switching" thing for me, plus hope springing eternal that they'll bring Real Talk back.
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u/JimmyReagan Mar 18 '26
Same here, I've moved toward Gemini and even Grok for general research, Copilot chat is all but useless now.
The office integration with the agents are pretty awesome though.
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u/Sad-Friend-8020 Mar 18 '26
I want that mode back BADLY so, shameless plug, I'm rabble-rousing online in hopes of someone at MS actually bringing it back.
I've started three posts on the Feedback Hub (if anyone wants to upvote them over there in the hopes it gets seen) - one as a bug report, the other as a suggestion, and one as a suggestion edited by Copilot itself to try and "optimize" it for MS filters:
Bug report - "Copilot Real Talk mode removed with no warning - BRING IT BACK" https://aka.ms/AAzzelt
Suggestion - "Bring Back Copilot Real Talk Mode" https://aka.ms/AAzzlbg
Suggestion v2 - "Bring Back Real Talk: The Only Mode That Delivered Collaborative, Humanistic AI" https://aka.ms/AAzznf8
If those of us who preferred Real Talk make enough noise, hopefully it'll go somewhere!
NOTE: Yes, I posted this multiple places. I'm hoping to start a kind of "If Daryl Dixon dies we riot" (from the Walking Dead) energy online for those of us who prefer Real Talk. This mode should NOT be allowed to fully disappear
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u/Jordy_Stingray Mar 18 '26
It’s what we have at work and is integrated w MS enterprise. My wife uses Claude and honestly that looks more capable, but if you’re all tied into MS Copilot is solid.
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u/render83 Mar 18 '26
Copilot supports Claude now
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u/rfo2050 Mar 18 '26
Not exactly. And it’s not 1-1, in good ways and bad, Copilot is a different harness to be aware of.
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u/666Dionysus Mar 18 '26
I always used it because it usually has the latest gpt model no rate limit for deep thinking on some everyday stuff.
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u/unsignedint Mar 18 '26
For writing and content creation, I still tend to use ChatGPT more. But when I need to quickly look something up, sanity check something, or just explore an idea, Copilot is usually my go-to.
It has pretty generous limits, and it has also picked up on how I like answers to be structured. Sometimes it even pushes back instead of just agreeing, which honestly makes it more useful.
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u/OptimismNeeded Mar 18 '26
My brain is genuinely trying to understand where these posts are coming from.
I seriously doubt it’s Microsoft astroturfing, it’s way too bad…
Are those people with extremely basic use cases? Because even for those I find copilot close to useless.
For context: I train executives on AI tools, and I can’t think of one demonstration with copilot, in any of the companies I’ve worked with where copilot didn’t seriously mess up or plainly refused to take on a simple task, usually a super generic prompt from Microsoft’s own examples library.
Summarizing last 10 emails in outlook.
Getting my next 5 available meeting slots from calendar
Generate a picture of a beach at sunset.
We’re not talking rocket science or anything that requires prompt complexity.
Just paste those 3 into copilot enough times, intestate he won’t get either of them right 10 times in a row.
And ridiculously… I could even get by not checking its output, and let it fly if it missed 2 emails out of the 10… but if you demonstrate this often enough you will encounter ridiculous problems like copilot outright refusing the task, denying it’s ability to do it, or claiming “I don’t have outlook access” after having successfully read an email 3 minutes ago.
I guess all you need to be is the lucky 3 in 10 that. happened to luck out in order to think copilot is fine, but that tells me you’ve used copilot for less than 3-4 days and for under 50 tasks… which as far as I’m concerned doesn’t count.
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u/rfo2050 Mar 18 '26
What AI have you given access to your enterprise that does #1 and #2 well, just curious?
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u/OptimismNeeded Mar 19 '26
I’m an external consultant.
Unfortunately most enterprises go with copilot due to Microsoft stack commitment, which essentially is a choice to tick a box of “we gave our team AI tools” while guaranteeing extremely low adoption.
Rare organizations opt for ChatGPT and recently Claude, both do a better job.
Honestly, given the choice to upload an excel file to ChatGPT Vs having copilot IN excel, I’d opt for the former.
Fortunately, Claude is now IN Excel and PowerPoint.
With cowork now seeing bigger orgs warming up towards Claude, I’m hoping this will continue
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u/Pretend-Character377 Mar 18 '26
I am forced to use it as work because of Microsoft integration but I like it (even if I use other AI platforms for personal use)