Microsoft’s Post

Transcript

Every day AI is changing how people work. Understanding the basic anatomy of a copilot can help us make sense of how rapidly AI is evolving. It all starts with the user experience interface, or UX, which receives a prompt from the user. Most of us are familiar with the text-based prompts for a copilot, but you can also prompt using voice, images, video, and more. The prompt tells the copilot's orchestrator to pull relevant information from its foundation models, which are AI-powered reasoning engines that can analyze information to answer questions or solve problems. Copilots can use large language models or LLMs, small language models or SLMs or even fine-tuned or custom models. Because foundation models can only reason over the data they have access to, connecting a copilot to new sources of data through the orchestrator expands its knowledge. for example, the orchestrator may make grounding calls to connect to your user and business data or the web when needed to craft more accurate and relevant responses. The orchestrator can also expand the copilot's knowledge through its memory of past interactions, remembering your preferences to make future interactions more personalized. Most foundation models come with certain native skills they do well, like writing or summarizing content and generating creative ideas. but they aren't very good at other important skills like math, data analysis, or design. You can add these types of skills to copilots by connecting the orchestrator to additional systems such as other apps like your calendar, specialized AI tools, workflows inside your business systems, or even to other copilots. By carefully orchestrating the interactions between the user knowledge, skills, and foundation models, the copilot becomes even more powerful than the sum of its parts. That's because only the copilots that can tap into the right knowledge and the right skills will deliver the full power of AI to every employee, every team, and every business. For more insights, subscribe to the AI at work newsletter.