Microsoft wasn't a name you’d have come to associate with innovation. But the company’s newfound love for AI and its pouring billions into the tech is changing that. The company’s search engine Bing recently shot into the limelight after being limited to a single-digit market share for over a decade, thanks to the new AI chatbot integration. Microsoft has undoubtedly won the AI-boosted search engine race, pulling ahead of Google at it. And now the focus has shifted toward integrating AI into office productivity apps. Earlier this week, Google announced a suite of upcoming generative AI features for its various Workspace apps, including Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Only a couple of days later, Microsoft announced 365 Copilot – similar generative AI capabilities for its own office productivity apps. Neither of the two additions has been rolled out to the general public as of yet, but enough information has been provided nevertheless to differentiate between the two. What’s Google’s take on AI office productivity on Workspace? Google’s goal with generative AI is to help Workspace users “harness the power of generative AI to create, connect, and collaborate like never before.” The company was rather straight-to-the-point with its announcement, specifying the full list of features users will experience once they roll out: Docs: Brainstorm, proofread, write, and rewrite using AI Slides: Auto-generate images, audio, and video Sheets: Generate insights and analysis from raw data via auto-completion, formula generation, and contextual categorisation Gmail: Draft, reply, summarise, and prioritise your emails Meet: Generate new backgrounds and capture notes in meetings Chat: Enable workflows for getting things done What’s Microsoft’s version of AI office productivity with 365 Copilot? Meanwhile, Microsoft’s goal with generative AI is to help people focus on the stuff that matters instead of spending “too much time consumed by the drudgery of work on tasks that zap our time, creativity and energy.” Where Google’s approach is integrating a bunch of separate AI features into Workspace that work together to boost productivity, Microsoft’s AI features are bundled together into a single assistant (or Copilot, if you may) that can be summoned throughout its Office apps. Below we’ve summarised the list of generative AI features that Microsoft is aiming to bring to Office: Word: Create drafts to edit and iterate on PowerPoint: Create presentations with a simple prompt Excel: Analyse trends and create professional-looking data visualisations Outlook: Use AI to “clear your inbox in minutes, not hours.” Generate email summaries and draft responses Teams: Summarise key discussion points – including who said what and where people are aligned and where they disagree – and suggest action items accordingly From the early previews, Copilot looks to be a chatbot which you can evoke to help you perform certain tasks. This GPT-4-powered chatbot can be accessed via a dedicated Copilot button on the toolbar atop Office apps. Microsoft has taken care that this chatbot’s interface feels and behaves the same way across the board. The differences As already stated, Google’s generative AI features will be scattered across its apps and will pop up when and where you need them. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s generative AI features seem to have been bundled into a single entity called Copilot, much like Clippy, which you can summon when you need assistance. You can already access something similar on the new Microsoft Edge which recently gained a new sidebar that lets you chat with Bing and compose blog posts and emails. Aside from the aforementioned features, Microsoft’s AI appears to offer some functionality that Google hasn't mentioned in its announcement. Copilot is highly contextual in that it pulls information from other related documents, emails, chats, meetings, and contacts to assist you with the document you are currently working on. This can be a game-changer for large organisations that have several lengthy documents to analyse and form a bigger picture out of. You can also use Copilot to translate a Word document into a PowerPoint presentation. But Google also has something that Microsoft seemingly lacks at the moment – AI image generation. Similar to tools like Dall-E and Midjourney, you can use Google’s AI to generate images – and then include those images in your presentations. Google also says that this technology can be used to auto-generate audio and video. Of course, both Google’s and Microsoft’s office productivity AI features are still under development, so it’s highly likely that both companies will try to fill the gaps and integrate missing features. When will Google and Microsoft launch these features? Microsoft says that it will bring Copilot to all its productivity apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, Viva, Power Platform, and more in “the months ahead.” The company is currently running a limited test with a small group of customers to get feedback. Google says it’ll launch its AI experience this month via its trusted tester program starting with the US. The company says it’ll use feedback to refine the experiences before making them available broadly. Like Microsoft, no tentative date was given.
