Bringing a new wave of Copilot innovation to education

We’re introducing a new wave of Microsoft Copilot innovation with Business Chat and Copilot Pages, updates to Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps, Copilot agents, enterprise data protection, and more. In this blog we’ll share new education insights, recap the latest innovations coming to our customers with Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot, and provide resources to support your AI journey.

AI is reshaping education, and institutions need a plan. With new education insights from the 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Survey, it’s clear that AI use in education is here with 71% of education professionals using it at work. At the same time, 63% reported their institutions lack a vision and plan to implement AI, likely contributing to 81% of education professionals not using tools provided to them—but instead choosing to bring their own AI to work (BYOAI).

As the future of work and education continues to evolve with AI innovation, it’s increasingly important to ensure that educators and students are engaged and encouraged to build AI literacy. 77% of business leaders say with AI, early-in-career talent will be given greater responsibilities, yet many education professionals express reluctance to admit to using AI and say they don’t know how to use it effectively. Learn more about the need for bridging the AI literacy gap and starting AI conversations in our AI in Education Report.

Enhancing Microsoft Copilot with enterprise data protection

Microsoft Copilot is your AI assistant for education, providing secure access to advanced AI models for free so you can focus on what matters most. We’ll continue bringing new models to Copilot, now including GPT-4o, and capabilities like recent chats to reference or continue previous chats. In August 2024, we shared several additional updates to enhance data security, privacy, compliance, and user experience which begins rolling out today. While signed in with a school account, Copilot will offer enterprise data protection (EDP) in a simplified, ad-free interface that can be accessed at Microsoft.com/copilot, in the Microsoft 365 app, and will soon be available in Microsoft Teams and Outlook. 

Enterprise data protection means that your Copilot prompts and responses are protected by the same terms and commitments that are widely trusted by our customers—not only for Microsoft 365 Copilot, but also for emails in Exchange and files in SharePoint. With EDP, we secure your data, your data is private, and your access controls and policies apply based on the underlying subscription plan. Additionally, we help safeguard against AI-focused risks such as harmful content and prompt injections, and your data isn’t used to train foundation models.

Education institutions like Wichita Public Schools and Auburn University have already leveraged Copilot to empower students, faculty, staff, and researchers. We look forward to continuing to support institutions worldwide in their mission to provide equitable AI access and learning about where Copilot is improving educational outcomes.

These updates will be available to all educators, staff, and higher education students aged 18 and older over the next month. We’re also excited to continue our private preview program for students 13 and older, now with enterprise data protection. For more information, review the enterprise data protection FAQ.

Microsoft Copilot Wave 2 innovation

Microsoft 365 Copilot, integrated into the apps you use every day and available as an add-on, has added 150 new features and capabilities since general availability and more than 700 product updates based on customer feedback. We’ve announced three key updates: Business Chat and Copilot Pages, transforming Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps, and Copilot agents.

Business Chat and Copilot Pages

• Business Chat (BizChat) is a central hub that brings together all your data—web data, work data, and line of business data—with the rich capabilities of the Microsoft 365 apps. BizChat is where you can work with Copilot like a partner, turning organizational content into a rich database of information and insight.
• Copilot Pages is a dynamic, persistent canvas in BizChat designed for AI collaboration to ensure the data in your organization is persistent, accessible, and valuable. You and your team can work collaboratively in a Page with Copilot, seeing everyone’s work in real time. In the coming weeks, we’re also bringing Pages to the free Microsoft Copilot when signed in with a Microsoft Entra account.

Updates to Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps

• Copilot in Excel is now generally available with new skills, and we announced Copilot in Excel with Python—empowering anyone to conduct advance analysis or visualize complex data—all using natural language, no coding required. 
• Copilot in PowerPoint now offers Narrative Builder, helping you to iterate with Copilot to build a great first draft in minutes and with Brand manager, Copilot can leverage your organization’s branded templates.
• Copilot in Teams can now reason over both the meeting transcript and the meeting chat to give you a complete picture of what was discussed and leave no question, idea, or contribution behind.
• Copilot in Outlook helps you quickly get to the messages that matter with Prioritize My Inbox, which analyzes your inbox and soon, you’ll even be able to teach Copilot the specific topics, keywords, or people that are important to you.
• Copilot in Word will enable you to quickly reference not only Word, PowerPoint, PDFs, and encrypted documents, but also emails and meetings, and offers the ability to partner with Copilot inline as you work on specific sections of your document.
• Copilot in OneDrive is rolling out now and makes it easy to gain insights, summarize, and compare up to five files with a clear, easy-to-ready summary of the details and differences within your files—without opening a file.

Copilot agents

• Now generally available in BizChat, Copilot agents run the spectrum from simple, prompt-and-response agents that anyone can build, to more advanced, fully autonomous agents.
• Simple and secure to manage, all agents have the same Responsible AI and enterprise data protection promises—your data never leaves the Microsoft 365 trust boundary, and everything happens within your tenant.
• To make it even easier to build custom agents, we announced agent builder. It’s a new, simplified experience that complements Copilot Studio to enable easy creation of custom agents and realize the value of your organizational data.

Copilot is transforming productivity in the workplace, empowering customers to accelerate research on rare diseases, save customer service agents hours each week, or go from content ideation to production significantly faster, and more.

In education, institutions like the University of South Florida are preparing students for this new future of work and are already seeing the value for their faculty and staff. We’ll also continue to enhance the value of Microsoft 365 Copilot with capabilities built for students and educators.

Get started on your AI journey

With new innovations and improvements coming every day, one constant is the importance of providing guidance, learning opportunities, and resources. We’ve compiled a relevant list below to help you get started.

Learn from more educators, and students:

• Discover Smart ways students are using AI responsibly at every level to enhance learning and avoid potential pitfalls.
• Hear from O’Dea High School and Indiana University educators on how Educators and students now have a secure AI ‘scaffolding’ to support them in the classroom.

Explore and share AI resources:

• Microsoft Education AI Toolkit: Designed to guide school leaders through the process of integrating AI into their school’s operations and building robust plans for your organization.
• AI for educators learning pathway: Explore the potential of AI in education, enhance teaching and learning with Microsoft Copilot, and equip and support learners.
• AI Classroom Toolkit: A creative resource that blends engaging narrative stories with instructional information to create an immersive learning experience.
• Microsoft Copilot Scenario Library: Get inspired with guidance by departments such as IT, HR, Legal, Communications, Operations, and more.
• Copilot technical skilling resources: A collection of kits, learning paths, Microsoft Mechanics videos, resources for developers, and upcoming events for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Worklab: explore the latest research insights on the future of work and generative AI
• Minecraft Education AI Foundations: A set of accessible, engaging materials for building AI literacy with Minecraft for students, educators, and families.
• AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit from TeachAI: Designed to help education authorities, school leaders, and teachers create thoughtful guidance.