This post is about two new services launched by Microsoft and Google. The first is a reworked AI companion for consumers: Copilot but not as you know it. The other is NotebookLM by Google, a cool new AI powered research assistant. The space is hotting up.

I’ve only just toyed with both tools so this is not an in-depth review by any means. Lots has already been written on both, so you can dig in yourself anytime. Best though, is to try them out for yourselves.

Copilot

More on this new iteration which was announced last week: An AI companion for everyone – The Official Microsoft Blog.

Here is a short video I put together of how I used it and some early views. Access it yourself from here: Microsoft Copilot: Your AI companion.

The video captures my audio interaction with Copilot. I’m rather keen on this way to interact with AI. I wrote about this recently here: The future of customer success is not human – part 2. We are basically talking conversational AI. This is not a new concept but with audio and the latest innovations, it is taken to new levels.

I was rather impressed by the fluidity of the interaction. I also tried to ask for some local knowledge and the responses were pretty intelligent. This recording was probably my 6th attempt and every time I received different answers, some more impressive than others.

I tried to get queries on specific kayaks in other sessions. I was hoping for links to purchase options. I was given a specific recommendation but no links and was told it couldn’t help with that. I hope and am sure that is something being worked on.

NotebookLM

This service from Google has been around a while. But there are some new developments I tested: NotebookLM now lets you listen to a conversation about your sources.

Again audio is the hero, at least in my interactions. With one click, two AI hosts start up a lively “deep dive” discussion based on your sources. They summarise your material, make connections between topics, and banter back and forth. You can even download the conversation and take it on the go. Here is mine below and the source is this website and blog.

It’s pretty impressive I have to say. As the author of the posts they dissect, I can say that.

I felt the written prompt responses were not quite spot on. I put my entire site as a source and queried topics I wrote about a while back. Really pointed questions and the answers were not up to scratch.

I’m not sure if I need to be more specific in my source reference. I was hoping my entire site was being crawled. The answers I got were not as detailed as I was hoping. This led me to believe some older posts and topics were not being found.

Maybe I need to be more patient and dig deeper with my queries. I’ll keep trying with this tool because it could become an invaluable writing tool.