TL;DR: The goal of AI has always been to take mundane tasks off our plates so we can focus on more important things. Microsoft’s new Copilot Actions brings that reality a bit closer. The feature enables Copilot to complete online errands for you, such as booking reservations. The tool comes alongside Copilot Search, a search engine that ditches traditional search results in favor of AI-generated summaries.

Copilot Actions uses simple chat prompts to allow you to offload things like booking travel arrangements, ordering flowers, and even scheduling a ride after an event through existing online services. Microsoft has partnered with Expedia, Booking.com, and Kayak for travel arrangements, OpenTable for restaurant reservations, and 1-800-Flowers for floral deliveries. However, the feature isn’t limited to just partner sites. Microsoft says it works with most similar websites, paving the way for Copilot to handle all kinds of online errands.

While other companies such as Amazon, OpenAI, and Google have similar automated browser task concepts in the works, Microsoft has an advantage over those since it’s beating them to the punch. It has already started a slow rollout of the initial version to the general public, with broader availability coming over the next few months. It’ll certainly be interesting to see just how capable and reliable the feature proves to be at autonomously clicking through websites and filling in data fields, which can sometimes be quite complex.

The second significant Copilot expansion is an AI-powered search engine called Copilot Search. The feature works similarly to the AI Overviews that Google crams at the top of your search results. However, Microsoft’s version ditches web links entirely. Instead, you get AI-generated answers and summaries based on information from multiple internet sources.

Unlike Google’s AI Overview, Copilot Search has a dedicated chat interface. The advantage here is that you won’t need to tailor your wording like you’d do for a traditional search engine. You can also fire follow-up questions in a conversational style to iteratively refine and expand on the results.

Of course, the usual AI-search caveats apply. Keep expectations in check because it will hallucinate. This class of tools also doesn’t have an excellent track record for accuracy. Always fact-check it if accuracy matters. These are just the standard downsides to the current state of GenAI.

Users can access Copilot Search by visiting bing.com/copilotsearch initially, though Microsoft plans to integrate it more tightly into the Bing search experience over time. For now, don’t expect anything revolutionary.