Revolutionizing Coding Assistance: The Power of Predictive Text in Microsoft’s Latest Auto-Completion Feature

Microsoft is determined to be the leader in generative AI technology, which means pushing the Copilot AI into every service and application and trying to improve it. Now, Microsoft wants to make interactions with Copilot easier with an auto-complete feature.

Microsoft said in a blog post, “We hear one consistent piece of feedback from our customers: talking to AI is harder than it seems. We’ve all learned how to use a search engine, identifying the right few words to get the best results. AI requires more context — just like when you delegate work to a direct report or colleague. But for many, staring down that empty prompt box feels like facing a blank page.”

The company’s solution to that issue is a new auto-complete feature, which will help you write prompts that get the most out of Copilot. For example, after you type “Summarize”, you might see suggestions for “Summarize my last 10 unread emails” or “Summarize this file and prep an email about it.” Much like older voice assistants, it’s hard to know what Copilot can do until you use it for a while, and the auto-complete function might help with that.

Microsoft also announced a rewrite feature (also called “Elaborate your prompt”), which is supposed to convert Copilot queries into a more detailed prompt before it runs. It seems a bit silly to ask AI to rewrite your question before it is fed to the AI, but more detailed answers can sometimes give you better results with generative AI. That practice is sometimes called “prompt engineering.”

Finally, there are some additional Copilot features coming to work, organization, and school accounts. There’s a “Catch Up” interface that will provide prompts based on your recent account activity, and a tool for publishing prompts so they can be quickly used by other people on your team.

Microsoft says the new Copilot features “will be available in the coming months.” We’re also still waiting on the Copilot features in the mobile Office apps to roll out to everyone, and Microsoft hasn’t figured out yet where the Copilot button should be in the Windows taskbar.

Source: Microsoft Blog