Copilot

Windows 11 includes a conversational AI-powered assistant called Copilot that brings the ever-improving productivity and creation capabilities of the cloud-based Microsoft Copilot to your PC.

Note: Copilot is the most complex app in Windows 11 and the most difficult to document because it changes and improves continuously, and often in lockstep with other AI assistants. Indeed, Copilot is a worthy topic for a standalone book, or it would be if it weren’t for how frequently it changes. As such, this chapter serves as a general overview of the app and its capabilities. But if you’re familiar with any other AI assistant, Copilot works similarly.

Defaults

Copilot uses cloud-based AI to interact with you, so your PC must be online to use this app. But depending on your PC, you will see one of the following two Copilot apps preinstalled with Windows 11:

• Microsoft Copilot. This is the version aimed at individuals using their own personal computer. It’s the version you will see on a Windows 11 PC for consumers.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot. This is the version for businesses and it’s preinstalled on a Windows 11 PC when the the PC maker bundles the commercial versions of the Microsoft 365 Desktop apps with their hardware.

This book focuses on individuals, not business users, so this chapter covers Microsoft Copilot, not Microsoft 365 Copilot. The latter includes most of the same features as the consumer Copilot, but it also includes advanced productivity functionality that integrates with Desktop apps like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Tip: Anyone can download the Microsoft Copilot app or Microsoft 365 Copilot app from the Microsoft Store at any time if needed.

Free vs. subscription

The functionality you receive from Copilot can vary because some features are available to everyone for free while some features–or more liberal usage limits–are only provided to those who have an eligible consumer Microsoft 365 subscription. That’s bad enough, but Microsoft confuses matters even further by imposing other restrictions:

• You must sign in with a Microsoft account to access most Copilot features. If you sign in to Windows 11 with a local account and don’t sign in to a Microsoft account with Copilot, you are restricted to using basic chat features and the Discover feed, which includes a Copilot Daily voice-based news of the day overview.
• You must have a Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, or Premium subscription to access exclusive Copilot functionality. A Microsoft 365 Basic subscription is ineligible.
• You must be the subscription owner to access exclusive Copilot functionality. Microsoft 365 Family and Premium both support multiple users, but only the first user–the subscription owner–gets access to the exclusive Copilot functionality. (If you have a Microsoft 365 Personal subscription, you are automatically the subscription owner.)

Learn more: You can learn more about the Microsoft 365 subscriptions for consumers on the Microsoft website.

On that note, I focus only on the Copilot features that everyone has access to in Windows 11 in this book.

How to launch Copilot

You can launch Copilot in more ways than is typical with in-box Windows 11 apps:

• Taskbar. If you have a consumer PC, Copilot will be pinned to the Taskbar by default for easy access.
• Start. can also run Copilot using its Start-based shortcut or Windows Search, of course.
• Keyboard shortcut. Copilot can be configured to appear when you type the Alt + Space keyboard shortcut.
• Copilot key. Most modern PCs now include a Copilot key with their keyboard, typically located between the Right Alt key and the Arrow keys. When you tap this key, Copilot appears.

The first time you launch Copilot, Windows 11 adds it to the list of apps that run automatically in the background when you sign in.

Copilot provides a familiar AI chatbot-like interface by default with the following controls:

• Chat box. The prominent text box in the center of Copilot is used to converse with the AI assistant using text or, optionally, your voice, and you can customize how it interacts with its underlying cloud-based AI models and share your screen with Copilot from here as well.

• Suggestions. Copilot displays several suggestions–“Create an image,” “Write a speech,” and so on–below the Chat box to help you get started interacting with the AI assistant.
• Files. On the lower-left is a list of documents and other files you recently accessed on this PC so you can attach one or more to a chat and use the AI assistant to learn more, get a summary, and otherwise analyze that information.
• Recent chats. Copilot displays your most recent chats the lower right so you can quickly continue a recent conversation.
• Sidebar. The Copilot sidebar is collapsed by default, but you can expand it to access additional Copilot features, including an Experiments view where you can try Copilot Labs experiments that may become standard Copilot features in the future.

• Quick view. Barely visible in the upper-right of the Copilot app window is a control you can use to toggle its Quick view, a smaller, simpler, and always-on-top version of Copilot that’s useful when you want to use the AI assistant to interact with other apps or anything else that’s on-screen.

Customize

Some system-wide Copilot behaviors are customized in the Windows 11 Settings app. But Copilot also has its own in-app settings interface for configuring this app further.

Uninstall Copilot

Given the relative lack of popularity it has compared to AI assistants like Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, and OpenAI ChatGPT, it’s possible or even likely that you will never use Copilot. Fortunately, you can uninstall it easily using the normal methods. If you do uninstall Copilot, be sure to look at the Copilot key item in the next section too.

Tip: This is true of Microsoft 365 Copilot as well.

Customize Copilot in Settings

There are two key Copilot-related options in the Windows 11 Settings app you should look. Inconveniently, they are located in different places.

• Auto-start. You can determine whether Copilot auto-runs each time you sign in to Windows 11 by navigating to Apps > Startup. Locate Copilot in the list of apps and enable or disable it as desired.
• Copilot key. You can determine what the Copilot key on your keyboard does to some degree by navigating to Bluetooth & devices > Keyboard. Locate the option “Customize Copilot key on keyboard” under “Shortcuts and hotkeys”; you can configure it to “Search,” “None selected,” or “Custom.” Note, however, that “None selected” is a terrible option as this Settings page will launch every time you hit this key if you choose that option.

Tip: You can use the Keyboard Manager utility in Microsoft PowerToys to configure this key to do anything you want. I configure it to perform the same action as the key to its right (usually Left arrow, but it varies by keyboard).

Customize the Copilot app

Copilot offers an astonishing range of functionality, so it is perhaps not surprising that it also offers numerous ways to customize how this app works. If you’re going to use Copilot in Windows 11, you should spend the time to examine its settings interface, which you can see by clicking the “Account” button (which will display your profile picture if you sign in to Windows 11 with a Microsoft account) and then Settings.

Some of the key options to consider here include:

• Voice. Copilot offers a nice selection of realistic sounding voices to choose from at Preferences > Voice for your voice-based interactions
• Auto-start and close behaviors. The Preferences > Auto start on login and Preferences > On close, keep the app running options determine whether Copilot is always available.
• Keyboard shortcut. You can optionally launch Copilot using the Alt + Space keyboard shortcut at Preferences > Use Alt + Space to launch Copilot.

Tip: Unfortunately, this is a popular keyboard shortcut in Windows 11 and enabling this feature may conflict with other system features or apps. For example, you can use Alt + Space to access the legacy window menu in any app or window in Windows 11. And if you install Microsoft PowerToys, the Command Palette utility uses Alt + Space as its keyboard shortcut by default.

• Hey Copilot voice activation. You can optionally enable “Hey, Copilot” voice activation of Copilot at Preferences > Listen for ‘Hey, Copilot’ to start a conversation. This works similarly to “Hey Siri” on Apple devices or “Hey Gemini” on Android.
• Let Copilot edit and rewrite text when using Copilot Vision. Copilot Vision helps you learn more about the images and text you see in any app on-screen. If you enable Preferences > Vision session text editing, Copilot will also be able to edit or rewrite the text you see in any app on-screen.
• Memory. Memory is a key Copilot feature that personalizes your experience if you allow the AI assistant to remember your conversations and the information you provide about yourself. You do so on the Memory page in settings, and you can even import the memories you created with other AI assistants here.
• Connectors. You can connect Copilot to popular Microsoft (OneDrive, Outlook) and third-party (Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar) apps and services so you can ground the AI assistant in your data to get more relevant and accurate answers and functionality. You can see which connectors are available and enable those you use on the Connectors page.
• Privacy. Unless you use Copilot as a semi-anonymous answer engine, much as you would Google Search or some other web-based search engine, you need to cede some privacy to use this AI assistant fully. The Privacy page in Copilot settings provides several privacy-related features you should examine. I strongly recommend disabling “Training on conversation activity” and leaving “Training on voice conversations” disabled.
• Web browsing. Copilot includes a built-in, integrated version of the Microsoft Edge web browser that can be configured differently from the standalone app in Windows 11. There are sub-sections on the Web browsing page for Passwords and autofill, Web data and security, and more, and Microsoft is counting on you not taking the time to go through it all. But if you’re using Copilot, you need to do this, if only to familiarize yourself with the data it’s handing Microsoft and then making any changes you feel are necessary.

Chat: Have a conversation with the AI assistant

Copilot presents a chat user experience in which you use text- or voice-based prompts to ask the underlying cloud-based AI models just about anything, direct it to create content, or interact in other ways. In many cases, it works much like a traditional web search engine like Google Search. But there is one key difference in how you interact with Copilot or any other AI assistant: These chats are conversational and don’t necessarily end with the first response you get. That is, you can keep chatting with Copilot to learn more, refine responses, and build off the initial prompt.

Copilot is configured to use a “Smart” mode by default so that it can automatically choose the correct AI models based on your prompt. This is the right mode for all the most common chat interactions, from straightforward questions to learning more about a topic, document, or image, generating content, and more.

When Copilot responds to you, it provides source references for the answers it gives, and you can click those items to view each original source on the web. You can also rate the answers, share the prompt and the answer with others, copy the chat to the Clipboard, and perform other actions directly. You can also just keep the conversation going by messaging Copilot again. Or, if you want to start a new chat, you can do so by clicking “New chat” in the sidebar.

Some common chat interactions include:

• Ask a question. You can ask Copilot direct questions like “What is the capital of Massachusetts?” and so on.

• Learn more about a topic. You can ask Copilot to provide report-like essays about any topic. For example, “I want to start reading Tolkien. Which of his books should I start with, and which are the most interesting and approachable?” After providing the answer, Copilot will often prompt you with follow-up suggestions so you can continue the conversation, like “If you want, I can also build you a reading roadmap, a ‘Tolkien for beginners’ guide, or even a thematic reading order depending on what kind of stories you enjoy most.”

• Summarize or analyze a document. You can click the “Attach” (“+”) button in the Chat box to get a summary or analysis of a document in PDF, Word, Excel, Markdown, and many other formats.

Tip: The “Attach” button is also used to generate images and accomplish other tasks.

• Writing help. AI is incredibly useful for writing, and that’s true whether you need help starting a new document, email, or whatever else, or just want help editing something you’ve already written to be longer, shorter, more concise, or any other change you can imagine. For example, you might tell Copilot something like, “I have to write a blog post about generative AI and need help coming up with a good introduction,” and Copilot will respond with several options to choose from and then help you refine it for tone or add more content.

Discover: Your daily news feed

The Discover view in Copilot provides a widget-like feed of low-quality news stories similar to the Microsoft Start Feed in Widgets and the feed in the default New tab page in Microsoft Edge.

But there’s a twist: It also provides a Copilot Daily feature that will read you a short summary of the day’s news which might be of interest. And there is the ever-present Chat box so you can interact with the AI assistant about whichever news stories you see there.

Copilot Vision: Learn more about what you see on-screen

Copilot Vision is an incredible capability that lets you learn about anything you see on-screen. To do so, you share your screen or a specific app or window with Copilot, decide whether to interact with voice (the default) or text, and then converse with Copilot using a unique and small Copilot Vision interface that stays on top of other windows so you can interact as needed.

As an example of how this works, I downloaded a photo I took of the Monumento a la Independencia (“Monument to Independence”) in Mexico City, which is more commonly called The Angel of Independence, and opened it with the Photos app. Then, I opened Copilot, clicked the “Share screen with Copilot” (eyeglasses) button in the Chat area, and chose “Photos” from the list of options for sharing.

Copilot highlights the borders of the Photos app as a visual reminder of which app is shared and then it displays the Copilot Vision interface.

You converse with voice by default, but you can switch to the normal Chat interface–with its normally-sized Copilot window–if desired. Continuing the photo-based example, I asked Copilot, “Can you tell me what this is?” It immediately responded by voice with, “Sure! That monument you’re looking at is the Angel of Independence in Mexico City. It’s a pretty iconic landmark right on Paseo de la Reforma.” Which is correct.

Then, I asked a follow-up, “Can you provide me with a brief history of this monument?”

“Absolutely!” Copilot responded. “The Angel of Independence was built in 1910 to commemorate the centennial of Mexico’s War of Independence from Spain. It’s one of Mexico City’s most famous landmarks and a symbol of freedom. So, it’s got a lot of history behind it. Do you want to know anything else about it?”

And it goes from there. Copilot Vision is a great option when you see something visual and want to learn more about it. Remember this is still a Copilot chat, too, and that means you can continue conversing and do other things related to that on-screen image. You can ask “Can you show me more photos like this?”, for example, or generate new images or new writing, or whatever else Copilot can do.

Imagine: Create and reimagine images

Copilot uses generative AI to create or edit content of any kind, and this has emerged as one of the most popular AI use cases for obvious reasons. That’s especially true for images, where one can use generative AI to create new images or reimagine an existing image in different styles. Not surprisingly, Copilot lets you create or reimagine an image directly from the Chat box by attaching a file with its “Attach button” or through Copilot Vision.

You can also create a new image in the Library view, and Copilot provides a dedicated Imagine experience, accessible from the sidebar, that you can use to restyle existing images or create new images in an interactive way.

There are two main areas here:

• Restyle your photos. Here, you scroll through the thumbnails in a carousel until you find a style you like, and then you upload an image so that Copilot can reimagine it in that style. When you do, the normal chat experience appears with a Copilot-written prompt, and the AI gets to work making the image you requested.

• Inspire your next image. The bottom area provides a bottomless grid of example images with sample prompts like “Change to Pop Art,” “Switch to Paper Cut,” “Switch to Anime Look,” and so on. You select one and then can optionally upload (attach) your own image to create a personalized version in this style. Otherwise, you can just add to the prompt to get it started, and then respond to any follow-up questions to get the perfect image.

As always, these chats are conversations that can continue until you get exactly what you want. For example, I followed up the previous example with the prompt, “I love this but can you make a widescreen 16:9 version?”

Tip: All the images you create with Copilot–from within Imagine or elsewhere–can be accessed and managed in the Library view.

Library: Manage your image creations and pages

The Library view in Copilot lets you create new images and pages and access and manage the images and pages you previously created.

Images are well understood and described above, but a Copilot page is a focused space you can use to brainstorm ideas about a specific topic you intend to write about formally. You can upload documents related to the topic to help ground Copilot, and there’s a Chat interface for interacting with the AI assistant about the topic plus sharing capabilities.

There are two views within Library:

• Images. Here, you can find a grid of thumbnails of the images you created previously with Copilot, plus a “Create image” button to create a new image. If you mouse-over a thumbnail, you can access Share, Download, and Delete options. And you can click any thumbnail to view that image full-sized and navigate to the other images.
• Pages. Here, you can similarly view and manage existing pages and create a new page. When you create or open a page, you get a basic text editor for writing, Copy, Share, and Delete controls, and a Chat/Sources toggle for the pane on the right. You use Chat to interact with the AI assistant about the page, of course, and you use the Sources pane to upload documents related to the page.

The Library item in the Copilot sidebar is expandable to view each image creation. Curiously, this expanded view does not display individual pages.

Projects: Create study aids to learn more about any topic

A Copilot Project is a collection of creations that can include a summary, study guide, quiz, or a set of flashcards–or any combination of those things–that you create with the AI assistant to help you learn more about a topic.

To get started, you click the “New project” (“+”) button next to Projects in the Copilot sidebar.

Here, you give the project a name and optionally upload documents or other files to use as source materials for the project. Then, click “Create project.”

The project view provides a now-familiar Chat box with an “Attach” (“+”) button and Mode selector, plus a pane on the right you can toggle between Sources and Creations views. Sources lets you upload more documents or other files that Copilot can reference when creating the project. But the Creations view is much more interesting. This is where you pick a creation to add to the project.

Available creation types include:

• Summary. This works a bit like any Copilot-based document summary capability, but the summary is saved as a Copilot page you can read and edit as needed. The end of this summary provides a list of next steps you can take to expand on it.

• Study Guide. Here, Copilot uses the uploaded sources to create a Copilot page formatted as a study guide that helps you review core concepts. It includes key takeaways and suggested steps to enhance the guide and your learning.

• Quiz. Copilot creates a multiple-choice quiz based on the uploaded sources that’s organized into topic sections. It provides the correct answer in the chat, with each question plus a quote from the the original source, and then offers to turn the quiz into a graded test, a practice exam, and other test types and study aids.

• Flashcards. Copilot creates a series of questions and answers in text form in the chat that can be used as the basis for flashcards. As with quizzes, you also get a quote from the original source with each, and Copilot offers to convert the text into Anki-compatible flashcards, topic-sorted decks, and other formats.

A few final points about Projects:

• Having quality source material is the key to success with Copilot Projects.
• While some projects may consist of a single creation, you can keep adding new creations to a project.
• Some creations are output in Copilot Pages form and some are inline in the chat, but everything is saved in the project and accessible later.
• As always, the chat in the project is an ongoing conversation. In this case, you can expand on any of the creations Copilot made, ask follow-ups and for new content, and do anything else you can do with Copilot.

In short, Projects is an incredible study aid. And while the educational use cases are obvious, this feature is useful for anyone learning any topic.