Microsoft's Copilot gets new design tools

Microsoft's AI helpers, known as Copilot, are getting better thanks to new updates. These improvements are being highlighted through a big advertising push during the Super Bowl.

Yusuf Mehdi, who helps market Microsoft's products, shared some news on their blog. He celebrated one year since Microsoft started offering AI-powered help through Bing Chat. Over the past year, they've seen a huge increase in use, with over 5 billion chats and images made. Mehdi mentioned, "Now with Copilot as our singular experience for people looking to get more out of AI creation, we’re introducing further... capabilities."

The Copilot tools, available on web browsers, Android, and iOS, now work with a better AI called Deucalion. They've also made the design cleaner, making it easier to get answers and suggestions on what to ask Copilot, like explaining AI to a young student.

One specific tool, Designer in Copilot, which uses AI to turn text into pictures, has been updated to let users change images more easily. This is available to English-speaking users in several countries. Those who pay for Copilot Pro, a premium service, get extra features like resizing and changing the orientation of images.

Mehdi also teased a new feature called Designer GPT, aiming to give users a special space to bring their ideas to life through images.

However, there was a controversy earlier with the Designer tool when some people misused it to create inappropriate images of celebrities. Microsoft said they've fixed these issues by blocking the creation of celebrity images, but it's a constant challenge to keep up with misuse.

Mehdi emphasized Microsoft's commitment to making AI technology accessible and useful for everyone, in line with their mission to empower people and organizations.

He did not comment on some users' complaints about Copilot Pro's slow performance and bugs, which might be due to not having enough server power to support the service.