In early February, Microsoft launched its generative AI-based chatbot, then known as Bing Chat, as a public preview. Since then, the company has been adding new features and improvements to the chatbot. In November, Microsoft announced that the name for Bing Chat, along with Bing Chat Enterprise, would be changed to simply Copilot, the name that"s been given to Microsoft"s other generative AI services.
Today, Microsoft announced on its official Bing blog that Copilot has left the public preview stage and is now considered to be generally available. What does this mean, exactly? Microsoft stated:
With Copilot now generally available, organizations and users can feel even more confident adopting it as part of their daily workflows. Copilot with commercial data protection is now backed by the Universal Commercial License Terms for Online Services to align with other Microsoft commercial online services. These terms include Microsoft’s Customer Copyright Commitment (CCC), which enables customers to take advantage of Microsoft’s Copilot services without worrying about copyright claims.
Copilot is now available with commercial data protection at no additional cost for people and businesses who are subscribed to the company"s Microsoft 365 commercial and educational plans. Microsoft plans to add support Copilot with commercial data protection to most of its Entra ID users sometime in the future.
Businesses that have already been using Copilot during the public preview stage don"t need to do anything else now that it is generally available. Companies that don"t use products that are labeled as being in a preview state can check out the official documentation on the chatbot. Users who want more info before using Copilot can also check out Microsoft"s adoption kit.
Of course, businesses and their employees can always just surf over to the Copilot website to try it out on their own before making it available widely.