Microsoft announces general availability of 'Copilot'

Microsoft has announced that Copilot (formerly Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise) is now generally available and no longer in preview.

The company launched the Copilot in preview in February.

Copilot offers access to powerful AI models such as GPT-4 and up-to-date information with cited sources, according to the company.
"When eligible users sign in with an eligible work or school account (Microsoft Entra ID), they receive commercial data protection at no additional cost, which means prompts and responses are not saved, Microsoft has no eyes on access, and data is not used to train the underlying large language model (LLM)," Microsoft said in a blogpost on Friday.

Moreover, the tech giant said that Copilot with commercial data protection is now backed by the Universal Commercial License Terms for Online Services to align with other Microsoft commercial online services.

These terms include Microsoft's Customer Copyright Commitment (CCC), which enables customers to take advantage of Microsoft's Copilot services without worrying about copyright claims," the company explained.

In September, Microsoft told customers of its AI Copilot services that if they are challenged on copyright grounds, the company will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved.

Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft said that some customers are concerned about the risk of IP infringement claims if they use the output produced by generative AI.

“The new commitment extends our existing intellectual property indemnity support to commercial Copilot services and builds on our previous AI Customer Commitments,” he said.