Microsoft 365 Copilot

Copilot for Microsoft 365 interactions comply with strict privacy standards. Using FERPA and Internal ASU data in the Microsoft 365 Copilot is considered low-risk and generally regarded as safe based on the evaluated information security controls. Approval to use these data types with this application is at the discretion of the user's business unit's Accountable Administrator. Copilot for Microsoft 365 will not use any data, prompts, or responses for any AI training.

• Seamless Integration: Copilot integrates directly into the Microsoft Office suite of products, making it easily accessible within familiar environments.
• Intelligent Writing Assistance: Copilot provides real-time suggestions for grammar, style and content improvement, helping users create high-quality documents efficiently.
• Advanced Data Analysis: In Excel, Copilot assists with analyzing and visualizing data, identifying trends and generating insights through charts and graphs, simplifying complex data tasks.
• Enhanced Email Management: Copilot in Outlook helps manage emails by summarizing long threads, drafting responses and prioritizing important messages.
• Efficient Presentation Creation: Copilot helps transform written documents into engaging PowerPoint presentations, suggesting layouts, synchronizing animations and summarizing content, enhancing storytelling capabilities.
• Microsoft Teams Meeting Optimization: Copilot in Teams assists with organizing meeting agendas, summarizing discussions, capturing action items and providing relevant information in real-time, fostering efficient collaboration.
• Image Creation: Image creation is built into Copilot to allow for more engaging documents and presentations.

• Occasional Inaccuracies: May occasionally produce incorrect or irrelevant responses.
• Internet Requirement: Needs internet access to function optimally.
• Lack of Reasoning and Context Awareness: AI tools currently struggle with complex reasoning and executing detailed plans, as they can misinterpret context and lack the ability to understand long-term dependencies.

• Content Creation: Copilot can assist in drafting course materials, lesson plans, presentations, research papers, and lecture notes.
• Writing Assistance: Essay reviews, suggesting improvements in grammar, structure, and clarity, and providing feedback for better writing quality. Creatively updating the tone, style, and voice of essays.
• Summarization: Summarizing academic articles, research papers, and book chapters.
• Translation: Translating text between over 25 languages.
• Organizing Email: Summarizing email conversation threads and prioritizing emails.
• Data Analysis: Analyze and visualize data in Microsoft Excel.
• Meeting Optimization (via Teams): Copilot aids in organizing meeting agendas, summarizing discussions, capturing action items, and providing relevant information in real-time, facilitating efficient collaboration and follow-ups.

• AI community Slack Channel: #ai
• ASU Experience Center: (480) 965-6500 or 1-855-278-5080

• Microsoft is working to reduce AI's carbon footprint.   
• ASU is committed to sustainable AI use and has numerous initiatives focused on sustainable AI use:
  • ASU Community Education
  • Faculty Research
  • Multiple-Model access to allow lower energy models to be used
• ASU GPT Eco (future lower energy chat tool)

There is a free version of Copilot available at https://copilot.microsoft.com/ without cost.  Login is via ASURITE and it offers a basic chat interface. Some details of the free version:  

• ASU non-regulated and internal ASU data can be used in the tool since data is not shared with Microsoft for training purposes
• Image generation is available
• No integration into Office applications
• No support for chat history

For more information on the Ethical use of AI, please visit the Provost Office Generative AI page and ASUs Digital Trust Guidelines.