Microsoft is rebranding Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise as part of Copilot to simplify the user experience.
Announced at Microsoft Ignite this week, the move intends to make Copilot more accessible for everyone to leverage the tech giant’s premier AI-powered productivity tool via Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
For subscribers of Microsoft Entra, Copilot in Bing, Edge, and Windows also introduces commercial data protection.
Copilot (formerly Bing Chat Enterprise) will be out of preview and become generally available starting December 1. Microsoft intends to expand the eligibility of Copilot with commercial data protection to even more Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) users for no extra cost.
What Was The Distinction Between Copilot and Bing Chat Enterprise Before?
Windows Copilot is Microsoft’s free generative AI-powered productivity tool within Windows and its Edge browser.
In addition to Windows Copilot’s feature set, the subscription-based, enterprise-targeting 365 Copilot offers commercial data protection, guaranteed security, privacy and compliance, the AI-powered Microsoft 365 Chat, and integration across the Microsoft 365 Apps.
Bing Chat Enterprise was a generative AI chat tool for businesses with a heavy emphasis on data protection. It was always planned to be included in the overarching Copilot subscription when it was named Bing Chat Enterprise, but now when it becomes generally available next month, it will be as a Copilot feature.
What Else Has Been Announced at Ignite 2023?
Microsoft is combining to-dos, tasks, projects and plans into Planner for one unified collaborative experience.
The tech giant is merging Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project for the web into a single product. The Planner app in Microsoft Teams will be updated with these new features in the spring of 2024, with web functionality planned to be introduced later in 2024.
Among several new updates being added to Microsoft 365 for frontline workers is Copilot’s availability for subscribers to the F3 license.
Copilot will be added to the F3 license starting in December and will be available for no extra cost. The product will also include commercial data protection, allowing frontline workers to make intelligent requests. Examples include looking up inventory or summarising large internal documents without being worried about sharing sensitive business data.
Other updates to Microsoft 365 for frontline workers include the Shifts plugin for Copilot, dynamic features for managing frontline teams and being able to deploy Shifts at scale.
Microsoft is also adding new management tools to the Teams Admin Center, including shared calling for Teams Phone. Announced at this week’s Microsoft Ignite event, shared calling simplifies Teams Phone deployment, allowing admins to empower groups of users to make and receive public switched telephone network (PSTN) calls through a shared phone number and calling plan.
Other significant new management features being introduced are low-friction Teams Rooms deployment options and advanced collaboration tools.
- View more Microsoft Ignite news here
