Microsoft Copilot appreciation thread

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Kookoo

788 posts

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#318685 11-Feb-2025 21:35

I'll start.

I really appreciate that Copilot offers to summarise emails that are literally 3 sentences long. That's helpful.

I also appreciate that it offers to reply to emails sent from "noreply" email addresses. That's smart.

Hello, Ground!

kiwifidget

"Cookie"
3425 posts

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#3341729 11-Feb-2025 22:24

I keep getting a popup every time I start my laptop asking me to login or sign up for a free Copilot account.

Nowhere to say "never ask me again".

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

loceff13

1065 posts

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#3341730 11-Feb-2025 22:32

kiwifidget:

I keep getting a popup every time I start my laptop asking me to login or sign up for a free Copilot account.

Nowhere to say "never ask me again".

The joys of being in a dominant market position, no need to improve the product.

linw

2850 posts

Uber Geek

#3341741 12-Feb-2025 03:49

I use it regularly now as my first 'go to' to get specific answers for technical queries. Much better than googling where you get unending stuff which is mostly irrelevant.

I don't understand the animosity towards a free, often useful, service.

Behodar

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#3341750 12-Feb-2025 07:41

The animosity, as I see it, is around the "ram it down your throat" mentality. If it's truly useful then people will use it naturally. They don't need to be subjected to tricks like automatically re-enabling it after an update, or automatically "upgrading" people to more expensive subscriptions with it included.

networkn

Networkn
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#3341774 12-Feb-2025 08:57

loceff13:

The joys of being in a dominant market position, no need to improve the product.

They are hardly the leader in this category, and it's an area the shareholders have indicated they expect exponetial growth so expect them to ignore everything else in an effort to make this product 'better'.

Kookoo

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#3341786 12-Feb-2025 09:50

linw:

I use it regularly now as my first 'go to' to get specific answers for technical queries. Much better than googling where you get unending stuff which is mostly irrelevant.

I don't understand the animosity towards a free, often useful, service.

I'm guessing part of the problem is that the name Copilot covers a wide range of apps and features which are embedded to various degrees within MS products, some of which are free, most aren't. I've got the Microsoft 365 Copilot (known in simpler times as MS Office), so my experience is based on trying to use that. Or, rather, trying not to use that.

Hello, Ground!

timmmay

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#3341853 12-Feb-2025 10:52

I use CoPilot at work, and it's better than no Gen AI. It's useful to find some information, rewrite emails, and help understanding - but you often need to read the source material to make sure Copilot hasn't hallucinated. I find Perplexity much better for search reliability, as it's optimised for search. Perplexity has taken 95% of my search off Google, and the standard service is free and virtually unlimited. If I was going to pay for Gen AI this is the one I would pay for. Gemmini does pretty well for general GenAI but I have less experience with it.

I use Perplexity for coding as well - I was using it last night to write AppDaemon code to integrate with Home Assistant. It will write code for me no problems, when you guide it it can do better than me as I don't code that often, but guidance is required. Github Copilot is also very good for that, and has the context of the code you're writing. I'm also trying Amazon Q to see how that does for coding.

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johno1234

2823 posts

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#3341882 12-Feb-2025 11:47

Still using ChatGPT. I feel so old...

roobarb

653 posts

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#3341984 12-Feb-2025 14:06

linw:

I don't understand the animosity towards a free, often useful, service.

CoPilot with Microsoft 365 is most definitely not free.

It like getting mayonnaise with everything without you asking.

Okay, so you can say there is nothing wrong with mayonnaise, but perhaps you don't want it on your chips but you keep getting it unless you ask not to.

Then they start adding mayonnaise to your coffee, and you have to ask them explicitly, I don't want mayonnaise in my coffee and they look at you strange as if there is something wrong with you.

Now they are putting mayonnaise into your petrol tank when you fill up the car.

Then the raise the price of everything because somebody has to pay for all this mayonnaise they are giving you.

ezbee

2406 posts

Uber Geek

#3342049 12-Feb-2025 17:30

johno1234:

Still using ChatGPT. I feel so old...

With the increasing competition ChatGPT is giving you a good few free bites at the more capable model free.
Google similarly with a better free Gemini model.

https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/google-gemini/google-gemini-2-0-is-now-free-for-users-heres-how-to-access-it-now

So you can ask a few of these and compare as well.
I mainly check facts to be sure and value is the terminology and background to be able to check further in normal searches.

MadEngineer

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#3342175 12-Feb-2025 20:26

It’s gpt v4 equivalent isn’t it? Definitely notice the difference between the limited free responses under 4 and when it drops back to 3.5.

I use it for the odd powershell script. It used to need heavy editing and looking up documentation but copilot just … works.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.