Microsoft says OpenAI's ChatGPT isn't "better" than Copilot; you just aren't using it right, but Copilot Academy is here to help

The Microsoft Copilot app is being displayed on a smartphone, with the Microsoft logo visible in the background, in this photo illustration taken in Brussels, Belgium, on December 30, 2023.

What you need to know

• Microsoft expands Copilot Academy beyond companies with a paid Viva Learning or Viva Suite license and will now be included in the Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
• A separate report indicated that the top complaint at Microsoft about Copilot AI was that "it doesn't seem to work as well as ChatGPT."
• Microsoft narrowed down the disparity to a lack of proper prompt engineering practices.

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With the rapid advances in generative AI, chatbots have emerged from several companies, including Microsoft's Copilot, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude AI, and more. The former two are arguably the most popular among users. However, users are seemingly more inclined toward OpenAI's offering on mobile, especially after the ChatGPT maker shipped GPT-4o — consequently leading to the "biggest spike ever" in revenue and downloads on mobile.

Avid AI users often boast about ChatGPT's advanced user experience and capabilities compared to Microsoft's Copilot AI offering, although both chatbots are based on OpenAI's technology. Earlier this year, a report disclosed that the top complaint about Copilot AI at Microsoft is that "it doesn't seem to work as well as ChatGPT."

This can be attributed to the fact that ChatGPT has been around for much longer and recently surpassed 200 million weekly active users. On the other hand, a report by Appfigures revealed that Microsoft's poor promotion practices and subtle launch of the Copilot app on mobile hurt its discoverability in the App Store and Google Play Store.

At some point, Microsoft even decided to pump the brakes on shipping new Copilot experiences to focus on improving and enhancing the existing ones. The company announced new Copilot experiences at its special event, including Copilot Pages and Copilot agents.

We aren't "using Copilot as intended," but Copilot Academy is here to help

Windows Copilot key (Image credit: Windows Central)

The report further disclosed that a lack of proper prompt engineering practices prevents users from realizing Copilot's full potential. A Microsoft employee indicated that the quality of Copilot's response depends on how you present your prompt or query. At the time, the tech giant leveraged curated videos to help users improve their prompt engineering skills. 

And now, Microsoft is scaling things a notch higher with Copilot Academy. As you might have guessed, Copilot Academy is a program designed to help businesses learn the best practices when interacting and leveraging the tool's capabilities. 

Microsoft launched Copilot Academy in April but was limited to a paid license with Viva Learning or Viva Suite. However, the program is now available to a broader audience, including businesses with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

The Copilot Academy ships with a ton of features, including:

• Academy content updates and refinement: We continually assess the value and impact of individual courses. We will periodically add new content as it becomes available, and are always working to ensure the materials provided are helpful and of the highest quality.
• Copilot Academy nudges (2024 Q4): these Teams notification nudges will encourage new users to try Copilot Academy and keep existing users in the loop for new Copilot Academy updates on a monthly basis.

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