I'll be honest. I wasn't impressed with Copilot when it first came out.

It was pretty limited. Specially in Excel.

But after the recent updates, things changed.

On the agenda today:

• examples where Copilot in Excel excels
• a whole new Teams experience
• more AI features in MS Paint

🎬 The best of Copilot in Excel

Not that long ago, when I tried to use Copilot in Excel, it refused to cooperate.

It wasn't a one time thing. It was constantly having trouble of some sort.

But since then, it has moved from Preview to general availability. Before Microsoft decided on this move, they had to be sure that they had a good product.

I gave it another go.

I must admit, I was blown away.

In this week's video, I'm sharing a few use cases where Copilot excels.

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With a straightforward prompt, you can:

📋 Save a ton of time summarizing text responses! (this is 🤯)

💡 Get insights on your data (just type that as a prompt and see what happens)

🔎 Look up values from another sheet. (Yep, no need to write a lookup from scratch)

🖍️ Highlight an entire row based on the value in one cell.

Copilot proves to be a great time saver in all those cases.

Remember, a tool like this can give us a productivity boost. But it's only as powerful as the knowledge you bring to the table.

If Copilot doesn't give you the desired result the first time, you can course-correct as long as you know what to ask for.

And if that gets frustrating, you can just do it yourself.

🤓 Geeky News

👨‍✈️ Even more Copilot in Excel magic

Let’s face it - messy data can drive anyone up the wall. Sometimes, it feels like you spend more time cleaning your data than actually analyzing it, right?

Well, Copilot now promises to get it done in seconds, with the new Clean Data feature.

Currently, it's only available in Excel Online but it's coming to Desktop as well.

It can detect inconsistent text case, number format, as well as extra spaces.

It shows the cleaning suggestions, and you choose how to correct them.

How cool is that?

BTW, if you don't see the automatic suggestion from Copilot, you'll find Clean Data under Data Tools.

👥 Teams gets a major revamp for streamlined navigation

​Teams brings chats, teams, and channels into one place under Chat.

You no longer have to switch between the different tabs to keep track of your conversations. You'll get them in a single list, where you can cycle between different views using filters.

You also get a single-list view of all the conversations where you're @mentioned.

You can also organize your conversations into custom sections. In Favorites, you can pin important chats and channels for quick access.

All these features - and more - are coming to Public Preview in November.

🎨 Generative AI in MS Paint & Notepad

New AI features were introduced to Windows Insiders.

Paint now has "Generative Fill." Select an area of your image, describe what you want, and AI will fill it in. The generated object should blend into the existing image.

If, on the other hand, you want to get rid of an object in an image, there's "Generative Erase". It removes the object and fills in the empty space to match the surrounding background.

Notepad introduces "Rewrite." Highlight text and get three rephrased versions. You can adjust tone or length with ease.

Both tools use cloud services, so you’ll need to sign in with a Microsoft account.

👏 Power Stories

A comment left in our Master Power Query course made me very happy.

When you venture into a new topic, it's important to implement what you've learned early on.

Don't wait until you're done with a course to start applying the new skills.

Use the new knowledge to experiment and improve your processes. That's how the knowledge will stick. And you'll be making your work easier from day one.

Hats off to Zulfiquar for doing just that!

Leila

P.S. Our Black Friday deals are almost here! 👀 If you've been thinking about leveling up your skills, this might be the perfect time. Stay tuned for something special… more to follow later this week.