If you're keen to play around with some generative AI tech on your phone, you now have another option: Microsoft has launched an Android app for its Copilot chatbot, and like Copilot in Windows 11, it's free to use and powered by GPT-4 and DALL-E 3.
As spotted by @techosarusrex (via Neowin), the Copilot for Android app is available now, and appears to have arrived on December 19. It's free to use and you don't even need to sign into your Microsoft account – but if you don't sign in, you are limited in terms of the number of prompts you can input and the length of the answers.
In a sense, this app isn't particularly new, because it just replicates the AI functionality that's already available in Bing for Android. However, it cuts out all the extra Bing features for web search, news, weather, and so on.
There's no word yet on a dedicated Copilot for iOS app, so if you're using an iPhone you're going to have to stick with Bing for iOS for now if you need some AI assistance. For now, Microsoft hasn't said anything officially on its new Android app.
Text and images
The functionality inside the new app is going to be familiar to anyone who has used Copilot or Bing AI anywhere else. Microsoft has been busy adding the AI everywhere, and has recently integrated it into Windows 11 too.
You can ask direct questions like you would with a web search, get complex topics explained in simple terms, have Copilot generate new text on any kind of subject, and much more. The app can work with text, image and voice prompts too.
Based on our testing of the app, it seems you get five questions or searches per day for free if you don't want to sign in. If you do tell Microsoft who you are, that limit is lifted, and signing in also gives you access to image generation capabilities.
With both Apple's Siri and Google Assistant set to get major AI boosts in the near future, Microsoft won't want to be left behind – and the introduction of a separate Copilot app could help position it as a standalone digital assistant that works anywhere.
