Barely a week goes by with Microsoft making yet another announcement about Copilot AI or launching a new development build of Windows 11 with Copilot added to something. This time, Microsoft added Copilot functionality to the default file manager of Windows, File Explorer.
This particular implementation does not add Copilot directly to File Explorer though. Microsoft added right-click context menu options to File Explorer that interact with the AI when selected.
Right-click on a file in File Explorer or on the desktop, and you find the new Copilot > Send to Copilot option there. This works similarly to Copilot’s integrated file upload feature. In other words, it allows you to ask Copilot questions about the uploaded file.
For example, if it is an Excel document, you could ask Copilot to look up and return data. Word or PDF documents can be summarized. Speaking of summaries, the second context menu options asks the AI to summarize the selected document.
Weakness in tests
This did not work too well in tests some weeks ago. I asked Copilot to return data from an Excel spreadsheet. While it did return some data, it was not complete. Even when reminded that it missed data that matched the query, Copilot would not return the full set of expected data.
I concluded that this feature could become something useful in the future, but only if Microsoft and OpenAI get it right. And with right I mean that the AI’s output needs to be reliable all the time. Even without hallucinations, which refers to incorrect data being returned that is not found in the source, it the AI ignores some of the data.
For now, it is always necessary to verify the output of any AI on the market to make sure its output does not contain errors.
Microsoft has a few months of development time left before it releases the long-hailed first AI-focused version of Windows. It will be interesting to see if that version will be more reliable than the current versions available for testing.
Now You: have you tried Copilot or another AI?