STACK #244 February 2025

TECH FEATURE

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BACK TO UNI

Will it help me be more productive?

Copilot can cut through a lot of the groundwork involved in studying, letting you focus more on what you're learning. Asking Copilot to check the essay you've written isn't that different from sending it to a friend for their opinion, except it happens instantly.

If you're a uni student, AI can't write your essays for you, but it can make it easier to hit your deadlines and keep your grades up. Microsoft Copilot AI features can now be paired with the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity apps that you use everyday, including Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint, streamlining certain processes and assisting you as you work towards your degree. Words James O’Connor MICROSOFT 365 COPILOT Your new study buddy

You can also use Copilot to help with formatting, such as asking for consistent line spacing across a whole document, or hitting the other criteria that your subject demands. It can generate ideas and discussion points if you're struggling to get a paper started, and help out when deadlines are looming, too. You can request a practice test in Word, based on the parameters and text links you give it, or create a study planner based on your existing calendar. What are some uses for Microsoft 365 Copilot outside of study? When it’s time to take a holiday, Copilot can help by generating an itinerary for how you'll spend your break, using any data you've input, including links to activities you'd like to do. It can also assist with planning a travel budget based on your income and spending, which is important if you don't want to get stuck eating nothing but noodles for a month. If you're looking for a job, Copilot can help with your resume by sorting your past jobs and experience into a well-formatted document, and can tailor an existing resume to better suit a specific job ad. If you have a part-time office job, or work in your field of study, a familiarity with Copilot may help you to be more efficient in the workplace when it comes to drafting emails, creating lists and Excel formulas.

What does Microsoft 365 Copilot do? Put simply, Copilot saves you time and lets you focus on the important parts of studying.* In Microsoft Word, Copilot's text generation can help you format an outline for an essay, or give you prompts for angles you should consider. You can ask Copilot to take the notes you wrote while reading this week's biology chapter and summarise them, or look for logical issues or inconsistencies in your work. You can also take your files from Word and ask PowerPoint to build a presentation based on them, saving you a lot of time copying and pasting. Copilot can also find new images for your slides or perform deck-wide formatting changes for consistency. Long emails, newsletters, and documents in your Outlook inbox can be compressed into quick summaries with Copilot, and you can run assessments on emails before you send them to see if you're hitting the right tone as you ask your tutor for an extension.

If you've created a spreadsheet in Excel, Copilot can offer up insights about the data you've collected, handily summarising the information. These are just a few examples – ultimately, all of Copilot's AI features aim to make a student’s life easier.

18 FEBRUARY 2025

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* Microsoft 365 and Microsoft 365 Copilot both require annual/monthly subscription fees. **Minimum age limits may apply to use of AI features.