Microsoft Copilot lands on Mac

Microsoft has just brought its AI chatbot, Copilot, to macOS, if you're looking for yet another AI tool to add to your arsenal.

Copilot is Microsoft's AI chatbot. Like most other chatbots, it can provide you with text, generate images (Generative AI, or GenAI), help you get organized or cook, look things up or locate things for you, play music, and even write code.

Until now, Mac users have been required to use Copilot in-browser on Microsoft's site. However, as of Thursday, a standalone app has finally landed on macOS.

Microsoft released Copilot for iPhone and iPad all the way back in December 2023.

Currently, Copilot uses several large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT-4, DALL-E 3, Codex, and Microsoft's in-house LLM, Prometheus.

Microsoft suggests using Copilot to get straightforward answers to complex questions, turn ideas into images, or polish up your writing. Of course, you can also use it as an alternative method of searching the web.

For example, you could always use it to find out what time businesses are open, or what you should sightsee when visiting a new city.

Asking Copilot for business hours

Copilot is free and can be downloaded from the App Store. To use Copilot, you'll need an M1 or newer Mac running macOS 14 Sonoma or newer.

You can thank Copilot for Apple's push into the AI space with its own in-house AI, Apple Intelligence.

Craig Federighi is said to have spent Christmas 2022 playing with Microsoft Copilot. His experience led him to give his team of software engineers resources to pursue AI — specifically generative AI.