Copilot in Excel with Python announced by Microsoft

The next wave of Microsoft 365 Copilot is being launched, uniting web, work, and Pages as a new design system for knowledge work.

First, Copilot Pages is introduced as a dynamic, persistent canvas designed for multiplayer AI collaboration, marking the first new digital artifact for the AI age.

Second, enhancements to Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps are being rapidly rolled out. Customers report that Copilot in Microsoft Teams has transformed meetings, making it the top area where they see value. Similar improvements are anticipated for advanced data analysis in Microsoft Excel, dynamic storytelling in PowerPoint, managing inboxes in Outlook, and more.

Third, Copilot agents are being introduced, streamlining the automation and execution of business processes, thereby enabling teams to scale like never before.

These updates are being shared with customers worldwide. From enterprises to small businesses, their feedback has been instrumental in enhancing Copilot. Nearly 1,000 customers have provided insights on how they use Copilot, its impact, and areas for improvement. Based on this feedback, over 700 product updates and 150 new features have been launched this year. With GPT-4o and improved orchestration, performance has seen significant enhancements, with Copilot responses being more than twice as fast on average and satisfaction improving by nearly threefold. This development represents the world's best AI feedback loop, with a commitment to continuously integrate the latest models and capabilities, including OpenAI o1 with advanced reasoning.

Copilot in Excel with Python

Copilot serves as the new UI for AI, beginning with Business Chat (BizChat), a central hub that consolidates web data, work data, and line-of-business data within the workflow. BizChat transforms organizational content into a rich database of information and insights, facilitating collaboration with Copilot as a partner, thus turning each artifact into a reusable business asset. Copilot Pages, now rolling out to Microsoft 365 Copilot customers and set for general availability later in September 2024, embodies this new work paradigm.

Pages captures ephemeral AI-generated content, making it editable and shareable among teams. Users can collaborate in real-time with Copilot, integrating data, files, and web content into their Pages, fostering a new pattern of multiplayer collaboration.

In the coming weeks, Copilot Pages will also be accessible to over 400 million users with a Microsoft Entra account, offering web grounding, enterprise data protection (EDP), and the Pages feature. Users can explore Microsoft Copilot at Microsoft.com/copilot and integrate it into the Microsoft 365 app, with future availability in Outlook and Teams.

For millions globally, work is conducted within the Microsoft 365 apps, where Copilot is becoming an integral daily tool, enhancing personal productivity and saving time. With Wave 2, insights gained from customer feedback are being utilized to further improve Copilot.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2: Pages, Python in Excel, and agents

In Microsoft Excel, where data management occurs, Copilot is now generally available. It now supports working with data not formatted as tables and offers enhanced capabilities such as additional formula support (XLOOKUP and SUMIF), conditional formatting, and the ability to collaborate on visualizations like charts and PivotTables. Copilot in Excel can also now handle text data alongside numerical data.

Moreover, Copilot in Excel with Python is being introduced, merging the capabilities of Python, a leading programming language for data analysis, with Copilot. This allows users to conduct advanced analyses such as forecasting, risk analysis, machine learning, and complex data visualization using natural language, without requiring coding skills. Copilot in Excel with Python is currently in public preview.

"In the past, if we were building a major campaign like the Finance is Open campaign, it would’ve taken us three months to generate the content. We can do that now with Copilot in less than one," said Joerg Klueckmann, Head of Corporate Marketing and Communications, Finastra