Copilot Just Got Eight Major Upgrades

We're now seeing significant AI upgrades from the big players in the field almost every week, with most new features quickly copied by rival companies as each one looks to stay ahead. Now it's time for Microsoft Copilot to play catch-up, as it adds a host of features we've previously seen tested by Microsoft or launched for other AI chatbots.

Copilot now has Deep Research, for example, to match all the Deep Research tools elsewhere, while Copilot Search has been upgraded. Microsoft has also rolled out its own AI-hosted podcast generator, a tool that's been available for a while on competing services. There's a lot to explore, and each new feature is explained below.

These updates have just been announced and are rolling out over the "coming weeks and months," depending on "platform, market and language." At the time of writing I wasn't able to access or test any of them except Copilot Search, but this is all the information we have about them from Microsoft.

Copilot Memory

Copilot can now remember more about you, and personalize its answers accordingly. In return for a little less privacy, you get a little more convenience: The AI bot won't suggest a mushroom recipe if it knows you hate mushrooms, for example, and can recall previous anniversary gifts for your partner so you don't purchase the same item twice.

This matches what we've seen with Gemini and ChatGPT, and does raise some questions about how much we should really be sharing with these AIs. Microsoft says a full set of privacy options will be coming to the Copilot dashboard, and you'll be able to "choose which types of information it remembers about you or to opt out entirely."

Copilot Actions

Copilot is joining the ranks of the AI agents—bots that can actually carry out tasks for you, such as booking hotel rooms or buying gifts for friends (nothing says you care like having AI do the work of purchasing gifts, after all). It's called Copilot Actions, and the launch partners are 1-800-Flowers.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Kayak, OpenTable, Priceline, Tripadvisor, Skyscanner, Viator, and Vrbo.

This is in some ways an elaborate upgrade on autofill: For example, tell Copilot where you want to stay and when, and it'll do the job of filling out all the forms with that information (and your address and payment details) on the hotel website. As with other AI agents, like Opera's Browser Operator, it has the potential to be very useful and also go very wrong.

Copilot Vision

Copilot Vision isn't actually new, having made its debut on the web last year, but it's now coming to the apps for Windows, Android, and iOS. It means you'll be able to point your device camera at something and have Copilot identify it, or answer questions about it—so the AI is essentially seeing the world around you at the same time as you.

AI tools have long been able to identify the contents of images and photos of course, but Copilot Vision adds real-time processing and interpretation. The Copilot app for Windows will be able to run the same sort of analysis on whatever's on your computer screen as well, and even interact with files and apps if needed.

Copilot Vision is expanding to more devices, including Windows. Credit: Microsoft

Copilot Pages

Copilot Canvas is a bit like ChatGPT Canvas combined with ChatGPT Projects, or something along the lines of the Notion app, giving you space to organize disparate thoughts and notes in one central hub. It'll come in handy for creating content, exploring ideas, and running research projects.

This isn't completely new either, having previously been available to business customers signed up for Microsoft 365 Copilot—where it can be used as a way of collaborating with other people, like a giant Google Docs file with added AI. Now it's rolling out so individual users can explore it too.

Copilot Podcasts

You may well have come across the AI podcasts you can magic up through Gemini or NotebookLM from Google, and now Copilot can do the same: You can either choose one of Copilot's suggestions based on your interests and what you've been chatting about, or feed it specific documents and websites for content prompts.

It's possible to interact with the podcasts while they're playing, Microsoft says, and it gives you another way of exploring topics beyond the default to-and-fro of the text conversation. This is one of the more clever tricks that AI chatbots have managed so far, so it's no surprise to see Copilot joining in with a version of its own.

Copilot is getting into the AI podcast game. Credit: Microsoft

Copilot Deep Research

Microsoft obviously saw ChatGPT Deep Research, Perplexity Deep Research, and Gemini Deep Research, and decided that name was as good as any for its own matching feature inside Copilot. As with the competitor offerings, the idea is you give Copilot a topic to research, and it'll go away and scour the web for relevant articles and resources.

All the information it finds will then be put together in a carefully curated and formatted report at the end, almost like an actual person has done it. Microsoft says queries run with Deep Research enabled will take between three to six minutes to complete; unless you're on Copilot Pro, you'll be limited to five Deep Research queries a month.

Copilot Shopping

If you've ever felt your online shopping could use some AI help, you're in luck: Copilot has added some extra enhancements to its ability to scour the web for the best deals. You can now get the chatbot to research the details of items, and compare them against each other (like the Pixel 9a and the iPhone 16e), in more detail.

Microsoft is also going to start adding direct links to buy products from within Copilot, as well as the option to track prices as they rise and fall—so you might get an alert from the AI assistant telling you the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is now cheaper than ever. And this is something Copilot does better than its AI rivals right now.

Copilot Search

Copilot and Bing go way back, but now Microsoft is taking on Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT Search more directly with a more prominent and widely available search offering: Copilot Search will serve you "intelligently curated information" with the goal of avoiding "potentially misleading information" as much as possible.

This is something that's live now globally, so I could test this one out. As with the Google and ChatGPT offerings, information is neatly laid out, with small citation and source boxes dotted around just in case you want to check the human (or AI?) writing on the web the answers have been scraped from.

Copilot Search correctly identified R.E.M.'s first album for me (mainly by regurgitating Wikipedia—thank you, human contributors), and properly explained how DNA worked—though it was interesting that it quoted a "guest author" on DailyNewsHungary as well as Healthline for this one. Perhaps more work on sources is needed.

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