Microsoft's AI assistant Copilot can now automatically summarize Word documents when shared through OneDrive.

Copilot Pro launched this month with a $20/month subscription. This gives access to more image generations, the latest OpenAI model, and integration with 365.

First reported by MSPowerUser, this feature is limited to sharing Word files for the web and only works when shared via OneDrive, requiring the person sharing the document to have a subscription to both Copilot and 365

Long file sharing is limited to sharing via OneDrive.

The ability to send a brief summary of a long file is especially useful when you want to give your boss or friends a quick overview of what you are sending before they open the file.

This summary will be included in the email sent to the recipient when they click Share Word Document. It will give you an idea of what you can read when you open the file.

Copilot's summary means that the reader can get the gist of the document without having to scroll through pages.

The same summary can be generated in the Copilot app or in Word itself, but adding it when sharing files can streamline the workflow.

There are hundreds of potential uses, features, and use cases for AI in 365, including meeting summaries in Teams, generated images in PowerPoint, and text generation in Word.

Microsoft has promised some advanced features, such as converting Word documents into PowerPoint presentations and in-depth analysis and automation in Excel, but many of these are still in development and have yet to be rolled out to all users Not all of them have been rolled out to all users.

Document summarization of shared files is currently only available for subscriptions, but in the future this type of functionality could become part of the standard Microsoft 365 plan as a way to highlight Copilot's potential to new subscribers.