Copilot productivity features: the mid-2025 recap
Evolving, Copilot really becomes, well, a true copilot, an assistant you can consult with whenever you need to. At the outset, it was kind of an errand boy doing the “find-collect-summarize” information runs for you, and quickly answering questions. The answers could be wildly at odds with reality, but that’s beside the point.
Since its launch in 2023, Copilot has gone a long way. And, according to investors and various agencies like Jefferies and Morgan Stanley, Microsoft Copilot's revenue potential is expected to exceed $5 billion in 2025 and grow to approximately $11 billion by 2026. This means the AI, already integrated into most of the company’s core products and geared towards becoming an even more indispensable component thereof, already plays a major role in Microsoft's cloud revenue generation.
Thus, Copilot isn’t going anywhere, so it makes sense to start using it. This post recaps the features of Microsoft’s AI that are useful in everyday life of a regular user, those that shave time off routine tasks and boost productivity.
Copilot Notebooks (OneNote)
OneNote isn’t a new product, although it may not be as popular as other apps by Microsoft. The idea of having a single space for assorted notes, docs, clippings, website fragments, etc. is a good one, but after a certain number of content items, the pile becomes just that, a pile, hard to make sense of.
Copilot solves that: the AI prepares summaries, generates insights, makes audio overviews, and even chats about the contents of the notebook. This functionality really ups the usefulness of the app.
Copilot Pages
This is a rather recent addition to the pack: Copilot Pages were released to the general public in April 2025 as a part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot ecosystem. The app is a teamwork facilitator: it allows creating collaborative workspaces designed to capture, organize, and share insights, with AI streamlining all the processes and summarizing, generating, structuring everything inside.
Copilot pages are integrated with the Office package, which makes things so much easier.
Copilot Chat
You have most likely already given this feature a try, and probably liked the results. Although it is still not perfect and should not be perceived as a wise, all-knowing advisor (it can be dangerous), the chat is a handy tool that gives answers when you need them.
In addition to acting as your context-aware librarian, Copilot Chat can generate images, summarize texts and assorted content, translate and analyze whatever is on the screen. This product may look the same, but there are many changes and new functionalities introduced to it under the hood.
Content creation in Word and PowerPoint with Copilot
Copilot can really boost your productivity in Word and PowerPoint by doing the heavy lifting: generating drafts from simple prompts, summarizing long docs and highlighting key points, dealing with formatting, adjusting tone, generating visuals, narrating slide decks and even answering questions from the audience.
The functions are just a few clicks away; if you haven’t already, try them even if there’s no related task at hand. Chances are, the AI will not only help you but ignite your own creativity as well.
Copilot in Excel
Excel is a very powerful tool, but when you start using it for something more serious than keeping track of data in a table format, there is a rather steep learning curve to deal with. Copilot helps climbing it by correcting/generating the formulas and explaining them, analyzing data and presenting the insights in a visual, easy-to-understand form, and recognizing trends and patterns.
Just launch it from the Home tab and describe what you need to achieve in plain words. The positive side effect is that your personal Excel skills are maturing, too.
Copilot Vision
This is a new feature still in the process of rolling out, as of this writing. The promise is quite exciting: Copilot Vision, basically, gives the AI the ability to see what you currently have on your screen, increasing the level of context awareness. Being thus empowered, Copilot can help you in multiple ways and situations, from giving step-by-step instructions how to use a program properly to taking notes in a meeting.
The nice thing about Copilot Vision is that it’s an opt-in deal, and you have full control over what the AI is allowed to see.
Copilot Memory
This one is also quite new, the rollout began in July, 2025. It’s not something you use per se, but a feature that improves – tailors – the experience of your work with Copilot by remembering important user-specific facts, from preferences through working style to frequently discussed topics and recent projects.
Copilot Memory compiles the user’s profile that enables Copilot to serve you better throughout the entire ecosystem. The control over what’s in that profile is in your hands: you can give Memory custom instructions, specify patterns for some scenarios, view, edit, or delete a memory at any moment.
All in all, Microsoft is building a mighty and versatile supporting assistant that, as it seems, makes the entire ecosystem much more convenient to use. Impressive!
