5.6 Microsoft Copilot and AI-Powered Applications
Key Takeaways
- Microsoft Copilot is an AI assistant powered by GPT models that is integrated into Microsoft 365, Windows, Bing, Edge, and other Microsoft products.
- Copilot in Microsoft 365 can draft emails in Outlook, create presentations in PowerPoint, analyze data in Excel, and summarize meetings in Teams.
- Copilot uses RAG to ground responses in your organization's data — it searches your emails, documents, chats, and meetings for relevant context.
- Azure AI Foundry (formerly Azure AI Studio) is the unified portal for building, evaluating, and deploying custom AI applications on Azure.
- The AI-900 exam tests your awareness of Copilot capabilities and how organizations can build their own AI applications using Azure AI services.
Microsoft Copilot and AI-Powered Applications
Quick Answer: Microsoft Copilot is an AI assistant integrated into Microsoft 365, Windows, Bing, and Edge. It uses GPT models with RAG to help users draft emails, create presentations, analyze data, and more. Azure AI Foundry is the portal for building custom AI applications. The AI-900 tests awareness of these capabilities.
Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered assistant that is embedded across Microsoft's product ecosystem. It uses large language models (primarily GPT-4o) combined with RAG over your data to provide contextual AI assistance.
Copilot in Microsoft 365
| Application | What Copilot Does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Outlook | Draft emails, summarize email threads, suggest responses | "Draft a reply declining this meeting politely" |
| Word | Write, rewrite, summarize, and format documents | "Summarize this 20-page report into key findings" |
| Excel | Analyze data, create formulas, generate charts, identify trends | "What are the top 5 products by revenue?" |
| PowerPoint | Create presentations from prompts or documents | "Create a presentation from this Word document" |
| Teams | Summarize meetings, capture action items, answer questions | "What decisions were made in today's meeting?" |
| OneNote | Summarize notes, generate to-do lists, draft content | "Create a to-do list from my meeting notes" |
How Copilot Works (The Architecture)
- User prompt — you type a request in natural language
- Grounding — Copilot searches your organization's data (emails, documents, chats, calendars) for relevant context using Microsoft Graph
- Augmented prompt — your request + retrieved context + responsible AI instructions are combined
- LLM processing — GPT-4o generates a response grounded in your data
- Post-processing — content filters check the response, citations are added
- Response — the grounded, filtered response is displayed in the application
Copilot in Other Products
| Product | What Copilot Does |
|---|---|
| Windows | System tasks, file search, settings help, content creation |
| Bing | Search with AI-generated summaries and answers |
| Edge | Summarize web pages, generate content, answer questions about pages |
| GitHub | Code completion, code review, documentation, bug detection |
| Dynamics 365 | CRM insights, sales recommendations, customer summaries |
| Power Platform | Build apps and automations with natural language |
Azure AI Foundry
Azure AI Foundry (formerly Azure AI Studio) is the unified portal for building, evaluating, and deploying custom AI applications:
Key Capabilities
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Model Catalog | Browse and deploy models from OpenAI, Meta, Mistral, Cohere, and more |
| Prompt Flow | Visual builder for designing AI application workflows |
| Evaluation | Tools to evaluate model quality, groundedness, and safety |
| Content Safety | Configure content filters and safety guardrails |
| Deployments | Manage model deployments with version control |
| Data & Indexes | Connect data sources for RAG and fine-tuning |
| Agent Builder | Build AI agents that can call tools and take actions |
Foundry Projects and Hubs
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Hub | Top-level container for shared resources (compute, storage, connections) |
| Project | Workspace within a hub for a specific AI application |
Building AI Applications on Azure
Organizations can build custom AI applications using Azure AI services:
Common Application Patterns
| Pattern | Description | Azure Services |
|---|---|---|
| Smart chatbot | Customer service bot with natural language understanding | Azure OpenAI + Azure AI Search + Bot Service |
| Document processing | Automated extraction of data from documents | Azure AI Document Intelligence + Azure AI Search |
| Content moderation | Automated review of user-generated content | Azure AI Content Safety |
| Search and discovery | Intelligent search over organizational knowledge | Azure AI Search + Azure OpenAI |
| Real-time translation | Multilingual communication platform | Azure AI Speech + Azure AI Translator |
| Visual inspection | Automated quality control from images | Azure AI Vision + Custom Vision |
The "AI Application Stack"
[End User Application] ← Web app, mobile app, chatbot, Copilot
│
[Orchestration Layer] ← Prompt Flow, LangChain, Semantic Kernel
│
[AI Models] ← Azure OpenAI (GPT-4o), Azure AI Services
│
[Data Layer] ← Azure AI Search, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB
│
[Infrastructure] ← Azure subscriptions, RBAC, networking
On the Exam: Know that Copilot uses RAG over organizational data (via Microsoft Graph) to provide grounded responses. Know that Azure AI Foundry is the portal for building custom AI applications. You do NOT need to know how to build applications — just understand the concepts and which services are used for which purposes.
How does Microsoft Copilot in Microsoft 365 access your organizational data to provide relevant responses?
What is Azure AI Foundry?
Which Copilot capability allows it to summarize a meeting you missed and list the action items?
Match each Microsoft Copilot application to what it can do:
Match each item on the left with the correct item on the right