Every AI announcement from the Microsoft Surface event

The Microsoft Surface event on Thursday featured a bevy of artificial intelligence announcements. The company promised AI advancements that would change how people user their products.

Chief among the announcements: a new AI tool called Copilot. Let's get into it.

Copilot

Think Clippy but AI. OK, not really, but kind of. Microsoft has dubbed Copilot "your everyday AI companion."

"It will be a simple and seamless experience, available in Windows 11, Microsoft 365, and in our web browser with Edge and Bing," the company said in a statement. "It will work as an app or reveal itself when you need it with a right click. We will continue to add capabilities and connections to Copilot across to our most-used applications over time in service of our vision to have one experience that works across your whole life."

Copilot will begin its rollout on Sept. 26 as a part of an update to Windows 11. Basically, it's an ever-present hub for all the AI tools available via Microsoft. Remove the background from a picture, summarize a paragraph, organize your windows — all from Copilot. The tool lives in your taskbar or will pop up with the Win+C keyboard shortcut.

Bing Chat with Edge

Microsoft's web browser will be fully integrated with Bing Chat. Integrating the AI tool into your web usage should result in pretty neat features. Edge should, for instance, be able to give personalized answers and help you shop more efficiently. For instance, Microsoft noted, if you chat with Bing about your favorite sports team, then Edge should be able proactively tell you if they're playing in a city to which you're traveling. The AI tool will also be able to ask questions about your shopping needs to help you select a product.

DALL-E 3 model from OpenAI in Designer

Basically Microsoft promised an even more powerful image creator using DALL-E 3 from OpenAI. Basically, you should be able to create more realistic, specific images. Designer, which is Microsoft's AI-powered tool for making images and graphics, will allow you to expand photos, replace items with AI-generated images, and lots more. It will also be directly integrated into Bing.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Work is about to get even more efficient. (Yay?)

Microsoft promised to integrate Copilot into its work tools, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. The idea is the AI tool should be able to help you parse through your dozens of emails, spreadsheets, and chats more efficiently. It should be able to tell what is actually important and urgent, and help knock out the tedious tasks.