If you work with Microsoft Applications then right now if you are anything like me you are excitedly waiting for the general availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot as its currently in Public Preview at the time of writing. The potential that the various demo's have shown is impressive and I hate to use the phrase but its shaping up to be a real 'game-changer'.
I will come straight to the point - to me the hidden power behind Microsoft 365 Copilot is the 'Semantic Index for Copilot' and its something that as a user you will probably never directly see - but if you use Copilot in any Microsoft App then you will leverage its power. Its something you should understand and be excited about.
So what is this thing and why is it so powerful for me & my business?
In March '23 I saw mention for the first time of something called the 'Semantic Index for Copilot' and also saw that Microsoft were introducing it specifically to prepare organisations so that when the Copilot features were to be later released, customers would be able to get benefits immediately..
Semantic Index for Copilot is powerful for your business because it is designed to work inside your tenant/domain and to monitor, review, analyse & index all the data in your tenant that comes buried in various sources such as Word documents, Excel files, PowerPoint files, email conversations and Microsoft teams chat. It connects this data together in a form of virtual map (in MS Graph), that allows it to later share that information back to your team members. To me this is like the character 'Donna' from Suits, she knew everything and delivered the information just when it was needed!
At the time very little information was shared about it but this fantastic 01:32 minute video was released and pretty much tells you what you need to know.
There is 1 critical piece of information that business owners/managers need to consider though, it is designed to work with Copilot in such a way as to apply all the usual security rules around data in relation to user permissions. If data exists inside a Word document in a file location that the user does not have permission to access, then that data will be excluded from the information provided via Copilot. So the design of your security setup will impact the level of benefit you can gain.....
For fun I used Bing Chat to confirm my understanding, the response it gave me is below:
According to Microsoft, Copilot has real-time access to both your content and context in the Microsoft Graph2. However, it respects per-user access permissions to any content and Graph information it retrieves. This means that Copilot will only generate responses based on information that you have explicit permission to access3.
To answer your question directly, if a piece of information is held in a document that is stored in a file location that a user does not have access to, Copilot will not include that data in any feedback it gives to a user making an inquiry3. I hope this helps!
Some resources for this topic are: