Copilot Review: Artificial Intelligence for Lawyers

Built into the Apps You Know

One of the best aspects of Copilot, and likely one of its biggest strengths in the market is that can be easily and seamlessly embedded in your most-used apps…for a price. Since this is a Microsoft tool, users can access Copilot features quickly via pop-ups or side panes in programs like Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint. For example, Copilot offers to help draft documents in Word, phrase emails in Outlook, build formulas in Excel, and turn Word documents into PowerPoint slide decks. See Microsoft’s growing list of app-based Copilot features here.

Securely Use Your Data for Your Benefit

When thinking of AI security, we face several permutations of a single question: What will the AI do with the information I provide. Beneath that enormous umbrella question, we find a couple of sub-questions. First, what does a given AI do with any prompt (i.e., question) I ask it. Second, can I responsibly give an AI access to confidential information.
Copilot handles these questions well, particularly if your firm is “all in” on Microsoft 365. The paid versions of Copilot take privacy and security seriously. For the full details, read Microsoft’s extensive article on “Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.” But, fundamentally, Microsoft states clearly, “Prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph aren’t used to train foundation LLMs, including those used by Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.”

Microsoft’s mention of “Graph” is key. Although not widely known, Graph is Microsoft’s term for “your context and content (emails, files, meetings, chats, calendars, and contacts).” It’s the information and documents your firm stores with Microsoft. Copilot’s access to that data means that its results, particularly for document and email drafting, sound like your firm. AI-generated documents are more likely to match what you’d normally write, as opposed to reading merely like a response culled and compiled from the public internet. The more information you store in the Microsoft orbit, the better Copilot gets at helping you.”

Copilot is a powerful tool for firms subscribed to Microsoft 365, who are willing to pay $20/user/month to give firm members access. Additionally, Copilot’s reliance on your firm’s data as source material means any of its “writings” are more likely to read like the firm’s “voice” and deliver advice the firm would recommend.