Copilot (ChatGPT) is integrated with Office and it's a big sign of things to come

What's happened?

We've hit another AI milestone as Microsoft announces Copilot, the integration of ChatGPT with its Office Suite. New Zealand has been included as part of its release. So right now, for USD$30/month, you can get access to Copilot and see what the hype is about. Few features from the website:

1. A single AI experience that runs across your devices - Thinking we can login on our work, home or mobiles and it'll have access to the same information.
2. Access to Copilot (ChatGPT) in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote - Chat is integrated in all the major places you'll be working.
3. Priority access to the very latest models, starting with OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo - Self explanatory. 
4. Enhanced AI image creation - I can't use these very well yet.
5. The ability to build your own Copilot GPT - Same as in ChatGPT-4.

Why is it important? 

LLM's (Large language models e.g. ChatGPT) continue to be integrated with popular software. It opens up another way of interacting with our digital tools. I don't use the Office Suite to its full capability, I've never learnt. For example, I often have trouble with formatting when I need a part of a document in landscape. I know that Word can do it, but it is infuriating every time. Now I can ask Copilot for help. In English. "Hey, can you help me get the formatting right on all sections of the website. I always want the page number to be in the bottom right corner, company name in top right corner."

If we take a step back, we can see that this is the start. The growing uptake of LLM's into our software introduce new ways of interaction. A new bridge between ourselves and our applications. And the key here is that it'll use plain English, a language we already know. Not a new system or software we have to learn.

Potential pitfalls

There are three that I can think of, off the top of my head. 

1. Are we going to become overly reliant on AI to do the basic tasks? Will we forget how to work a spreadsheet or draft an exec summary? And is that a good or bad thing? It requires a lot of nuance to answer, it's likely sometimes yes, sometimes no.
2. Obviously, privacy and security are huge issues. We don't want confidential data that we enter into LLM's to be used elsewhere. For Copilot, they answer a few questions about this here. 
3. Loss of personal touch - This is something I'm getting frustrated with. I can spot AI writing a mile away at the moment. It's... correct but it's often too wordy, too.... boring. Will we lose the flair or creativity that we bring to our work? 

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Kim's thoughts

Love it or hate it, learning to use LLM's will be a core skill as they become ubiquitous in our software. The launch of Copilot into Office is a big step in this direction. I expect that the Google Suite will follow closely behind.

I think that we'll need to adapt to a changing digital landscape. There will be plenty of people for and opposed to what's happening but it's unlikely to be stopped. Therefore, we need to at least understand what's happening and perhaps new opportunities will open up for us as well.

My advice, use ChatGPT, use Copilot, get to understand how it functions, its limitations and its potential. Because it will help to future proof your skillset as LLM's become integrated with almost all our digital systems.

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