Microsoft has announced the expansion of its Copilot with commercial data protection to more customers. Starting in early 2024, all faculty and higher education students (ages 18+) will be eligible for Copilot with commercial data protection, formerly Bing Chat Enterprise. That will let them use Microsoft"s AI-powered chat with access to GPT-4, DALL-E 3 image generator, and other features without sharing prompts and responses with Microsoft for future model training. Access to Copilot with commercial data protection will require a school Microsoft Account.
Microsoft says students can use Copilot to summarize articles, get step-by-step explanations, improve writing skills, get feedback on their work, brainstorm ideas, and more. Jonathan Fozard, Associate VP at Florida State University, said the following about how Copilot improves education:
Artificial intelligence has the power to revolutionize higher education. Our partnership with Microsoft has allowed us to improve learning for students and support innovative research across Florida State University through an automated, safe, and reliable platform. I am excited to see what our next generation of leaders can achieve with tools such as Copilot.
In addition to giving access to Copilot with commercial data protection, Microsoft will soon offer Copilot for Microsoft 365 to faculty and staff. Starting January 1, 2024, education clients will be able to access Copilot for Microsoft 365 at $30/user per month. As a reminder, Copilot for Microsoft 365 combines large language models (LLMs) with your organization"s data for better productivity. That data includes emails, meetings, chats, documents, and more in addition to standard features, such as answers or image generation.
Microsoft also reminded about the company"s Customer Copyright Commitment, which ensures clients are protected from copyright claims when using generative artificial intelligence. You can learn more about Microsoft"s efforts to expand Copilot to more users in a post on the Microsoft Education Blog.