I've left OneDrive years ago. Will Copilot bring me back?

There are a lot of cloud storage solutions out there, and even though OneDrive is preinstalled with Windows, I must admit that it’s not my first choice. Personally, I consider Google Drive vital for backing up the Android phone data and when it comes to the PC, my external SSD is sacred for document backup.

However, the promise of having Copilot for Microsoft 365 running inside OneDrive sparked a new light on data management.

Why is Copilot marking a new beginning for OneDrive?

To understand why the introduction of Copilot in OneDrive is a turning point in cloud storage usage, we need to look at how we use AI.

Right now, you can ask Copilot, or Chat GPT, or another LLM of your choice, and the AI crawls through the internet in search for the right answer. And yes, you might even upload a Word or PDF document and ask the bot to use it for its answer.

However, the process is not so simple and you need to insist and instruct the bot to use only that particular information if you want it to focus only on what you feed it.

There are also other tools, such as Grammarly, that can analyze your documents, correct them and then create a summarization, but these kind of tools are limited to a certain amount of data.

Data management level PRO

From the many years of creating content, I gathered gigabytes of articles and documents on my drives or on cloud accounts. For instance, when I’m writing this piece on AI, I remember crucial information, citations, but I can’t remember the exact article, when I wrote it and in what circumstances.

Looking for that article with a classic search function in File Manager would be like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack and I drop this idea from the start.

Now, imagine having all those images in one place and an AI bot capable of looking for that information contextually. All you would need to write or say to Copilot would be: Find all my documents related to AI (artificial intelligence) and summarize all the information chronologically. Eventually, you can ask the bot to bring up the source documents so you can pull out additional information.

The beauty of it is that Copilot can crawl easily only through your documents, without mixing the information with any other documents from the internet.

And you can apply this process for anything, like favorite songs and your huge pile of photos you even forgot you have.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 sets you back $30 but it’s a lot better than Copilot Pro

But here’s the catch: Copilot for Microsoft 365 costs a pretty hefty $30. Is it worth the money? For me, the premise of getting the premium search and summarization makes all the sense in the world and the $30 will pay off handsomely.

For companies running a ton of data and searching for client information in a huge PDF, Word or Excel database that would be an incredible time and work saving. And that’s why Copilot for Microsoft 365 is business-oriented and in fact a lot better than the prosumer Copilot Pro version.

Now, you can understand clearly why Copilot for OneDrive would be an ideal addition even for the average user, not only for businesses.

Some of us would go through the extra steps to get Copilot into OneDrive, but many will drop the idea because you need a work or school account and a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license to get it.

Now, the history taught us that eventually, the business features will one day be available to the average user, but if you can get your admin to implement it inside your business, you won’t need to hold your breath any longer.

Would you use Copilot for Microsoft 365? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.