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You’d be forgiven for shedding observe of the place we’re as much as with Microsoft’s AI chatbot—which, due to a partnership with OpenAI, is powered by the identical expertise you will discover driving ChatGPT and DALL-E. Originally known as Bing Chat and performing as an extension of Microsoft’s search engine, the bot has since been rebranded as Copilot.
Copilot is rapidly discovering its method into Windows 11 and varied different Microsoft merchandise, and we now have a standalone app to utilize. It’s primarily a spin-off of the Bing app on iOS and Android, with the primary AI chatbot features retained and among the different Bing extras (like information and buying offers). Microsoft first launched the app on Android, however shipped the iOS model three days later.
If you are inquisitive about testing out Copilot’s generative AI capabilities in your iPhone or Android gadget, here is methods to get began with the app and what it’s good to learn about the way it works.
First steps with the Copilot app
You can seize Copilot freed from cost from the Google Play Store on Android or the iOS App Store, and you may get began proper after putting in it: You do not even must register with a Microsoft account, although in the event you do not you will be restricted to 5 queries per day, and you will not have entry to among the extra superior options (together with AI picture technology).
There are just a few choices in relation to interacting with the bot. You can faucet on one of many urged prompts, kind out a query or immediate within the textual content field on the backside of the display screen, or faucet the microphone button (backside proper) and communicate on to Copilot (and get spoken solutions in return). If you employ the voice choice, the mic icon adjustments to a keyboard icon for when it’s good to return to textual content prompts.
Copilot places generative AI at your fingertips.
Credit: Lifehacker
You’ll additionally see a digicam icon on the backside of the interface—faucet this, and also you’re capable of add a photograph out of your cellphone (or take a brand new one) for Copilot to research. You would possibly need to ask one thing about what’s within the image, for instance, or produce a brand new picture primarily based on the one that you’ve got equipped.
There aren’t any settings to talk of contained in the app, however you’ll be able to faucet the three dots (high proper) to begin new subjects and configure the “tones” of the chatbot. These tones allow you to select a stability between creativity and precision, so make your alternative accordingly primarily based on whether or not you need the responses to be as imaginative as potential or as factually appropriate as potential (and as at all times, do not consider the whole lot an AI tells you).
Text technology
One of the first methods you should use Copilot—as with ChatGPT and Google Bard—is to generate textual content with it. If you need to get artistic with Copilot, you would possibly need to ask it to compose a poem on the subject of your alternative, and you’ll even specify the shape, fashion, tone, and size of the poem if you wish to.
There are extra business-like purposes of the expertise, too: Copilot will compose an e-mail to your boss, or a pitch to a consumer, or a abstract of an idea for you. One of the methods through which these generative AI bots will be helpful is in explaining troublesome subjects in easy phrases—and also you’re additionally capable of ask follow-up questions in the event you want one thing clarifying additional, or there is a specific level you are undecided on.
You can get the app to provide textual content in all types of the way.
Credit: Lifehacker
Copilot also can work with textual content that you just paste into it: You can ask for important feedback by yourself writing, for example, or ask to make a block of textual content extra concise or extra flamboyant by way of its language. Note that there is a copy icon on the finish of every reply as nicely, so if it’s good to copy the textual content and paste it some other place, you’ll be able to.
One big perk of Copilot over ChatGPT is free entry to GPT-4, a extra highly effective successor to the GPT-3.5 mannequin. To use it, faucet the Use GPT-4 toggle swap on the high of your chats. Just take into accout the responses may be considerably slower, and the outcomes you get will typically be extra pure and insightful, as a result of they’re skilled on extra information.
Search, photographs, and extra
Copilot goes method past textual content technology. You can, for instance, ask it the identical sorts of questions you would possibly put right into a search engine: Ask it for social gathering sport concepts, or for a journey itinerary for a selected metropolis, or for merchandise that it recommends, or for recommendation on methods to obtain a selected process. If Copilot appears to be like up one thing on the internet, you will see web site citations on the finish of its response.
You also can attempt queries you would possibly pose to Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant—whereas additionally making an allowance for that inaccuracies can creep in, even when Copilot is referencing the net. One real use for Copilot and different generative AI engines is to recollect a phrase that is on the tip of your tongue—in the event you describe the phrase you are virtually recalling, and put it in a sentence, Copilot will often get the one you want.
Copilot also can produce photographs and search the net.
Credit: Lifehacker
Image technology is constructed into Copilot too, so you’ll be able to merely ask it to create photos of something you want from textual content prompts: Cats in sizzling air balloons, an alien cityscape, an exploding cup of espresso, or no matter you want. The picture creation capabilities are the identical as we have already seen on Bing, and you will be given 4 variations to select from—faucet on any of them to see a bigger preview.
Microsoft hasn’t gone on file about its Copilot app but, however so far as I can see, you are restricted to 30 inputs per dialog in the event you signal into the app. It’s potential that quotas will range over time, as Microsoft manages demand for its highly effective generative AI instruments—which for now at the very least, you should use freed from cost.
