Microsoft has quietly updated its Copilot artificial intelligence assistants with the latest version of OpenAI’s large language model GPT-4-Turbo.
This version of the model was previously only available with a paid subscription to ChatGPT Plus which costs $20 per month. It allows for more complex queries and responses.
Copilot is now available across the Microsoft range of products and services including in Windows 11, the 365 productivity suite and as a standalone app for iOS and Android.
GPT-4-Turbo and its more up-to-date knowledge cutoff, better processing capabilities and larger memory isn’t being slowly rolled out to Copilot users with GPT-4 enabled.
What makes GPT-4-Turbo different?
OpenAI is continuously upgrading the large language models underpinning its own and Microsoft’s AI products and services. This includes fine-tuning and enhancing capabilities.
The most recent version of GPT-4, its most advanced model, has an updated knowledge cutoff compared to earlier versions. It has information up to and including April 2023 as well as a much larger 128k context window — a memory equivalent to 300 pages of text.
The previous data cutoff for the base GPT-4 model was September 2021, a year before ChatGPT launched. It also had a context window of 32,000 tokens, so it would forget what you told it after 100 or so pages of text.
One of the other significant changes in GPT-4-Turbo is improved image analysis and significantly improved reasoning capabilities.
This means it is better at following instructions. OpenAI wrote in a blog post that "GPT-4 Turbo performs better than our previous models on tasks that require careful following of instructions".
How do I access GPT-4-Turbo in Copilot?
Microsoft hasn’t officially announced that GPT-4-Turbo is available within Copilot, but they did say in December that the AI tool would get regular upgrades.
Several users noticed that the model listed in the source code of the Copilot website had the same name as the latest OpenAI LLM.
The change has been quietly happening in the background for users of the service. It is only available when you enable GPT-4 and the only way to tell — other than viewing the source code — is to see whether it is giving more up-to-date information.
