Microsoft has introduced significant enhancements to its Copilot AI assistant, integrating OpenAI’s GPT-4o model to support advanced image generation capabilities. The update lets you create detailed visuals directly within Microsoft 365 applications, including Word, Excel and Outlook, by simply describing your desired image. Here’s everything you need to know.

What is the Microsoft Copilot AI assistant?

Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered assistant integrated into Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. Leveraging large language models such as GPT-4o, allows Copilot to draft documents, analyze data, create presentations, and manage emails and meetings. With this new update, Copilot can now create images based on text as well.

What can you do with image generation?

The integration of OpenAI’s latest AI model GPT-4o lets Copilot generate high-quality, photorealistic images from text descriptions, greatly expanding what users can do with visual content. Users can create custom graphics, illustrations and designs without the need for external design tools. Users can modify existing visuals, apply stylistic transformations and produce legible text within images.

Microsoft initially began rolling out these GPT-4o image generation tools to enterprise users through Microsoft 365 Copilot last month. The same capabilities are reaching the general public now through the consumer version of Microsoft Copilot.

This move puts Microsoft Copilot ahead of the tech company’s other creative tools, including Microsoft Designer and Image Creator, both of which rely on older DALL-E models from OpenAI. In contrast, GPT-4o represents the cutting edge in AI-generated imagery, with faster response times and more refined outputs.

With these enhancements, Microsoft pushes to position Copilot as a comprehensive AI assistant that competes against the biggest players, OpenAI and Google Gemini.