Microsoft 365 Copilot has been getting a lot of attention with and was launched last week. Perhaps the most disappointing thing for almost everyone is the minimum requirement to license 300 users at this stage. Microsoft will reduce this requirement over time but in the meantime you can get a piece of the AI action using Bing Chat Enterprise (BCE).

If you are like me and send a lot of time reading and writing in your job, then BCE might be just the tool you are looking for. In the demo video below I show a few simple things that I am using daily to save time and improve the quality of my work.

Summarising web content is very handy. It can be used both to improve existing content or to generate a summary for sending via email or posting in Teams. BCE can also generate document outlines, help with brain storming ideas and help refine and improve content.

I asked BCE to summarise this blog post and it gave me the following response: https://steveknutson.blog/2023/10/14/who-will-benefit-the-most-from-microsoft-365-copilot/

BCE can’t read a document opened in Office Web Apps or a PDF file displayed in the browser. To get around this I had to copy and paste content. This is limited to 2000 characters which makes pasting in a lengthy document impossible, however it is very good at summarising sections of a document.

BCE also allows you to choose the writing style;

• Tone e.g., formal, casual, succinct, funny etc
• Output type e.g., paragraph, bullet point list, email, LinkedIn post, report
• Length e.g., short, medium, long

Just like other AI tools, BCE is their to support you and it is important to review the content it generates. Don’t expect it to replace all of the effort required to write something well, but be happy it can help support you and free a little time.

You can try Bing Chat Enterprise now if you have Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard or Business Premium licensing. User requirements are for BCE to be enabled in your tenant and to be logged in with your M365 account in the Edge browser.

Please note that this will become a paid option in the future $US5 / per user / month. This is significantly less than Microsoft 365 Copilot at $US30 / user / month. Bing Chat Enterprise might be the AI productivity tool for the masses.

Microsoft announces Bing Chat Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing.