Microsoft 365 Copilot: Are You Ready for Your Personal AI?

 

Microsoft announced the upcoming availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot last week, and it appears to be a game changer.

At the enterprise level, it will help you find anything you need inside or outside the company, and it will eventually learn enough about you and your company to do much of your email, typing, and presentation preparation for you, making you look better in front of your boss and peers. It is, however, in its early stages and only a shadow of what it will become.

Let's look at how Microsoft 365 Copilot will likely mature as Apple, Google, and others race to match or surpass it.

We'll finish with my Product of the Week, a new Dell laptop.

$30 for Your Own AI

The announcement appears to have gotten people excited because it will cost you or your company $30 per month per user to get this feature. People are upset because Microsoft does not conduct market research prior to pricing actions. So, unless you've been pricing the more limited versions, which tend to be more expensive, the perception of what an AI is worth is that it's too expensive.

What should your personal AI be worth?

According to the studies I've seen, once you learn how to use generative AI and it learns how to work with you, productivity gains range from 30% to 80%, which means you either work a lot or you don't.

That should be a simple decision for a business. IT professionals are wary of productivity promises because so many have proven to be false. However, this bold claim came from a Wharton Professor who did the work to calculate the benefits, not from Microsoft.

Assume you earn $60,000 per year. A 30% increase in productivity should be worth $20,000 per year, which is much more than $30 per month, and an 80% increase should be worth around $48,000 or $2,000 per month.

You advance to the higher range by using the AI more frequently and learning how to use it more effectively. As the AI learns to do more repetitive work or begins executing your ideas more efficiently and accurately, the potential value of this tool, particularly as it evolves, could end up being multiples of your salary, not just a percentage of it.

I'm not sure why Microsoft doesn't try to put the price into context, but this is a fantastic deal. The only reason I haven't purchased Copilot is that it won't be available until later this year.

The Future of Microsoft 365 Copilot

I anticipate that this tool will evolve into a true AI-powered digital assistant, and I hope that Microsoft revisits the Cortana concept, but this time does it right with the full avatar. When supported by generative AI, it will do what Clippy should have done (I preferred F1) and become a true assistant.

Consider having a digital assistant who can book your travel, monitor your accounts, provide you with background information on people who call, text, or write to you, protect you from phishing attacks, and screen your calls. It can provide you with better alerts on news or events of interest to you from around the world, or it can simply help you write stuff so you can still be funny without jeopardizing your career.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is not executing as well as it once did in terms of creating demand and ensuring influencers are trained and positive. This will slow adoption but give us time to learn these new tools before we become obsolete ourselves.

Remember how you needed to be familiar with Microsoft Office to get many entry-level jobs? It's only a matter of time before that requirement includes the various AI products being released by Microsoft and others. To avoid becoming obsolete, I recommend learning to use these tools as soon as possible.

Finally, if you had asked me at the launch of Windows 95 whether we would have our own AI a few decades later for $30 a month, I would have laughed at you. It became much less crazy last week as Microsoft 365 Copilot hit the market. It is expected to be released before the end of the year.

Dell Latitude 9440 2-in-1

The Dell Latitude 9440 2-in-1 laptop, like most 2-in-1s, is about one pound heavier than many other laptops in its size class. However, the extra weight gives it a sense of toughness that lighter laptops cannot match.

It is one of the more expensive products in its category, costing $2,369 USD. Nonetheless, its solid build quality should allow it to last if you pound on your laptop as much as I do.

If you want to connect to the cell phone network, you can get it with a WAN interface (a free upgrade that also includes a fingerprint reader), and it has the latest Wi-Fi 6E for additional wireless connectivity. Furthermore, this is a standard 2-in-1 that you can use.

Dell has significantly improved its product presentation, as evidenced by this laptop's boxing approach. The Latitude 9440 2-in-1 comes in a black box that is not only eco-friendly but also quite attractive.

Latitude 9440 2-in-1 Laptop

The laptop has few ports, but few of us use a lot of accessories with our laptops. Furthermore, many business monitors can power the computer as well as provide extra ports, so we no longer require a plethora of ports on a laptop. With three USB-C ports, the 9440 supports Intel's Thunderbolt 4 standard, so it can be expanded with almost any Thunderbolt dock.

It can connect to two networks at the same time, which improves wireless performance, and the display is nice with 513 nits, which should work well outside — most notebooks in this class have closer to 300 nits. Third-party tests show that the colors are exceptionally accurate for a laptop, let alone a PC.

If you don't want to deal with finding a plug for it, you should be able to leave your power supply in your computer bag or at home and charge it at night.

Overall, the Dell Latitude 9440 2-in-1 laptop is a standout and this week's Product of the Week.