In the realm of AI Chatbots for Business, tools like Copilot (formerly known as Bing Chat) and ChatGPT are becoming popular business tools. These AI chatbots can automate tasks, generate insights, and improve efficiency through conversational AI. While both platforms offer intelligent abilities, Copilot and the publicly available ChatGPT have some essential differences that businesses should evaluate.

Copilot is Microsoft’s AI assistant integrating with Bing search and Edge browser. It can summarize content, answer questions, compose text, and automate workflows by accessing web data. Copilot runs on powerful AI like GPT-4, providing enterprise security features.

This post aims to provide a detailed comparison of the benefits, use cases, limitations, and capabilities of Copilot and ChatGPT, guiding businesses to identify the most suitable AI chatbot for their needs.

Comparing AI Chatbots for Business: Copilot and ChatGPT Features

What is Copilot?

Copilot is an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT, but it can be used to automate tasks, access data, generate insights, and assist with tasks to reduce employee manual work.

Here are some key features and general uses of Copilot:

  • It can read and summarize PDFs and provide bullet points of significant takeaways
  • Copilot can answer any question about current events, history, random facts, and more — concisely and conversationally.
  • It is run on the powerful GPT-4 AI model and earns trust with its consistent source citations.
  • Copilot can analyze the current web page or article you are in and summarize the content for you.

According to the Work Trend Index, employees are looking to use AI tools to help them unlock creativity and productivity at work — 70% say they would delegate as much work as possible to AI.

Copilot Benefits:

ChatGPT Benefits:

  • Streamlined workflows: Copilot can automate tasks and access data to reduce an employee’s manual work. This can improve productivity.
  • Up-to-date information: Since Bing is a search engine, the chatbot can provide real-time data from the web. This ensures accurate, current information.
  • Enhanced security: Copilot offers encrypted chat data and built-in privacy features to prevent leaks. It also has limited access and commercial data protection.
  • Customizable options: Bing provides three chat modes and AI fine-tuning options to optimize the bot for different needs. ChatGPT does not have customizable settings.
  • More conversational: ChatGPT tends to provide longer, more conversational responses that mimic human chats. Bing replies can be more concise.
  • Broader knowledge: Without web access, ChatGPT relies on its vast training data to answer various questions and scenarios.
  • Easy to use: ChatGPT does not require any account or integration. Anyone can start chatting with no setup or restrictions.

AI Chatbots in Action: Copilot vs ChatGPT for Business Efficiency

Access and Usage Limits:

One central distinction between the two AI chatbots is the required access and usage restrictions. Copilot requires a Microsoft account to chat with the bot. Microsoft has also instituted usage caps, 30 turns per session and 300 daily chats for account holders.

In contrast, ChatGPT (Free) does not require any account or approval to begin chatting. Any user can go directly to the ChatGPT site and instantly ask questions without usage limits. While the open access fuels ChatGPT’s popularity, it also makes the bot harder for its creators to control and monitor.

Data privacy & Security:

Microsoft takes a principled approach to developing responsible AI, and this ethos is reflected in Copilot for Enterprise. It provides robust commercial data protection to keep business information secure. The chatbot’s responses are grounded in verifiable web data from reliable sources, not unproven information.

Microsoft created Copilot following its AI principles of fairness, reliability, safety, privacy, security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. The company also works closely with its partner OpenAI to encourage responsible use of the technology.

Additionally, Microsoft heavily incorporates user feedback to improve Copilot before releasing it more broadly, helping ensure it remains trustworthy. Between commercial data protections, web-based responses, ethical AI principles, and extensive user testing, Microsoft has implemented multilayered measures to deliver a safe Copilot experience.

“We’ve heard from many corporate customers who are excited to empower their organizations with powerful new AI tools but are concerned that their companies’ data will not be protected,” Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s chief communications officer, wrote in a blog post shared with TechCrunch. “[Using Copilot,] what goes in — and comes out — remains protected, giving commercial customers managed access to better answers, greater efficiency and new ways to be creative.”  Techcruch

Specific Use Cases for Copilot:

Create AI-generated images

You can use Bing to create AI-generated images within the Copilot window. This feature allows you to generate unique and creative graphics using plain English prompts. For example, you can type “Can you generate a photo-realistic image of a businesswoman working on her Windows PC using AI tools?” and get this image:

You can learn more about Microsoft Designer and DALL-E from this page.

Real-time competitive intelligence

Copilot can be valuable for gaining real-time competitive intelligence using AI techniques and web data. For example, a marketing analyst needs to research a competitor’s new product launch. The analyst asks Copilot about the product’s pricing, features, and launch strategy. Leveraging natural language processing, Copilot understands the intent and responds with a summary of the most relevant information it finds across the web, like press releases, product reviews, and industry analysis.

Copilot can provide rapid insights by applying AI approaches such as machine learning to parse huge amounts of unstructured web data quickly. The analyst can then ask more nuanced follow-up questions to investigate the competitor’s marketing messaging, positioning, and potential vulnerabilities. This AI-augmented access to continuously updated web data helps the analyst efficiently conduct competitive research and identify actionable strategic insights in real-time.

In closing

When choosing between Copilot and ChatGPT, businesses should consider their specific needs around security, capabilities, and use cases. While both bots are brilliant, Copilot offers more control, customization, and secure enterprise features than the publicly available ChatGPT. Evaluating their differences allows companies to determine the best AI assistant.

Contact us today if you want to add Copilot to your tech stack. Don’t miss this opportunity to streamline your workflow and enhance customer interactions.

 

**Updated Jan 2024 to reflect the name change:  Bing Chat is now Copilot, according to an announcement during Microsoft Ignite 2023.