Your first Copilot experience

1. Your first Copilot experience

Let's go back to that TechFlow meeting, where we had an eight-page document and less than five minutes to prepare.

2. Remember your TechFlow meeting?

We used Copilot, asked one question, and walked in ready to contribute. Pretty powerful, right? But Chat is just one of the way to access Copilot. There are actually four different Copilot entrypoints in Word, and each one is designed for a different job.

3. Four ways to access Copilot

Think of them as different doors to the same assistant - we can just pick the door that matches what we're trying to do. Let's look at all four of them and when to use each.

4. Draft with Copilot

First, Draft with Copilot. When we open a blank document, we see a textbox where we can immediately tell Copilot what to draft. This is perfect when we're beginning a new document and need to get words on the page fast.

5. Refine with Copilot

Second, the Copilot button on-canvas. Once we've got content, we'll want to refine it. We can select any text in our document, and a Copilot button appears.

6. Refine with Copilot

Clicking it, we see different options: We can rewrite the text, get writing suggestions, or visualize our content as a table.

7. Refine with Copilot

If we don't select text, we can still click the button, and Copilot will help us continue writing.

8. Chat with Copilot

Third, the Chat pane. We already know this one from our TechFlow meeting. We click the Copilot icon in the ribbon, and Chat opens on the right. This is our go-to when we have specific questions about the document, need a custom summary, or want to extract specific information.

9. Copilot's document Snapshot

Lastly, Copilot at the top of our document. When we open a document with content, we'll see a dynamic document snapshot that helps us more easily understand the document. No prompting needed – Copilot has already created a summary and key insights the moment we open the file. This is perfect when we're quickly scanning for information or need a fast overview without starting a conversation.

10. Same question, slightly different answer

Now, something important about how AI works. Watch what happens when we ask Copilot the same question twice. "Describe what the three key points are in this document."

11. Same question, slightly different answer

On the screen, we see two different answers to the exact same question. This is not a bug: every time Copilot generates a response, it's creating something new - not retrieving a stored answer. That's why the same question can have slightly different results. Both are accurate; they're just different ways of expressing the same information. We mentioned it before – but this is why you should always review what Copilot gives you. Both summaries here are accurate, but one might be more useful for your specific need. You're the expert who decides what works best.

12. Let's practice!

Alright, we now know where Copilot lives and how it behaves. Now we're going to try all four entrypoints ourselves and see how each one helps you work differently. Let's go!

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