Microsoft Launches Copilot GPT Builder for All Pro Subscribers

Lawsuits be damned, Microsoft is advancing its Copilot AI chatbot, leveraging its investment and partnership with OpenAI.

Today, Microsoft announced that the Copilot GPT Builder, a tool for creating and sharing customized, task-specific versions of the chatbot, is now available to all subscribers of its Copilot Pro tier ($30 per user per month).

Users can access the Copilot GPT Builder by navigating to the right side menu of the Copilot web app on desktop and selecting “See all Copilot GPTs.” This will open a dialog box featuring various "Custom GPTs," including options from Microsoft and the ability to “Create a new Copilot GPT.”

Creating a custom Copilot GPT begins in a conversational chatbot interface. Users can switch to a structured form view with "Create" and "Configure" tabs. Similar to OpenAI’s GPT Builder, users can enter plain language instructions in the “Create” tab, which the tool will transform into a personalized GPT, handling all technical programming behind the scenes. This empowers employees to develop applications tailored to their specific job roles and workflows without requiring technical expertise.

Once the custom GPT is ready, users can go to the "Configure" tab to edit the GPT's name, description, behavioral instructions, and even upload files for retrieval augmented generation (RAG). RAG allows AI to access data not included in its original training set, enhancing its response accuracy.

“Copilot GPTs are custom versions of Copilot with specific instructions and documents for grounding (RAG) chat responses,” stated Jordi Ribas, CVP and Head of Engineering and Product for Copilot and Bing, on X.

For instance, companies can connect OpenAI’s GPT-4, which powers advanced versions of ChatGPT, to their internal document systems, enabling the chatbot to retrieve pertinent information, such as company policies or personnel data. The new Copilot GPTs are designed to facilitate similar functionalities.

Additionally, users can toggle web browsing and image generation capabilities via Microsoft's Designer AI app, based on OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 model.

On LinkedIn, Brad Abrams, a Microsoft product manager, shared links to two custom Copilots that are accessible to all users through the Copilot mobile app, regardless of Pro subscription status:

- Synonym Finder: A tool to help users find synonyms across a wide range of contexts.

- OKR Assistant: Aids software engineering teams in crafting effective Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

Despite the apparent similarities between Microsoft's Copilot GPT Builder and OpenAI's offerings, OpenAI has stated it did not participate in developing Microsoft’s tool. This might lend support to reports suggesting that Microsoft aims to reduce its reliance on OpenAI. Recently, Microsoft partnered with French open-source AI startup Mistral to integrate its closed-source Mistral Large model into Azure and announced several in-house AI models, including Orca, Phi-2, and Deucalion.