What is a prompt?
A prompt is a way to communicate with digital assistants, such as Copilot or ChatGPT. It’s a piece of text that clearly indicates what you expect from the AI language model. Whether you want it to create, summarize, or edit something, your prompt guides everything. The secret to a good prompt? Keep it simple and to the point. This way, Large Language Models (LLMs) understand you better, and you get exactly what you need. Don’t be afraid to get creative with Copilot’s capabilities to get a great response! In this article, you’ll learn how to efficiently and innovatively prompt in Microsoft Copilot.
There are various types of prompts you can use depending on what you want to achieve or the task you need to perform:
- Learning about projects and concepts: “What is [project X] and who are the key stakeholders working on it?”
- Editing text: “Check these assumptions for contradictions for the product launch.”
- Transforming documents: “Turn this FAQ document into a 10-slide onboarding guide.”
- Summarizing information: “Write a summary of this [presentation].”
- Creating engaging content: “Create a value proposition for [product x].”
- Catching up on missed points: “Give me a summary of the updates and action items for [project X].”
The difference between prompts in Copilot and prompts in ChatGPT
Both ChatGPT and Copilot are powerful AI language models that can help you generate text. However, how they are used and integrated with tools makes them unique and distinct. They both operate based on prompts, but Copilot goes a step further by seamlessly integrating with Microsoft 365 applications and internal data from your organization. This provides a more personalized experience.
While ChatGPT is broadly applicable for general text generation, Copilot takes it further. It can pull, recognize, and turn data from your company into tasks within the Microsoft environment. The prompts you give Copilot lead to actions that go beyond just text generation: they can help automate tasks, analyze data, and even generate charts—all within the trusted Microsoft 365 environment. Microsoft is actively rolling out Copilot in all their applications, including Microsoft Customer Insights, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft Power Platform, and many more.
Important: Large Language Models (LLMs) are designed to predict and generate words and phrases. It’s always wise to check the answers you get from these AI models for any inaccuracies or biases and compare them to reliable sources.
How do I write a good prompt in Copilot?
The basic elements of a good prompt in Copilot
A good prompt in Microsoft Copilot consists of four basic elements: goal, context, source, and expectation.
- Goal: What response do you expect from Copilot?
- Context: Why do you need this, and who is involved?
- Source: Which information sources or examples should Copilot use?
- Expectations: How do you want Copilot to respond to best meet your expectations?
A deeper dive into the basic elements
If you want to make your prompt for Microsoft Copilot really powerful, it’s essential to dive deeper into these four core components. By understanding and refining these elements, you can maximize Copilot’s potential and improve the quality of the conversation. With the following building blocks, you can create the perfect prompt.
- Role definition: Define the role and knowledge domain that Copilot should base itself on.
- Task formulation: Tell Copilot exactly what you want it to do. Provide all details clearly and in understandable language.
- Context: Provide as much relevant context as possible, such as the target audience, products, services, reasons for the prompt, locations, resources, or other relevant factors.
- Answer format specification: How do you want Copilot to respond? Do you want a list, step-by-step explanation, a detailed or concise answer?
- Set limits: Limit the style, tone of voice, or formulation to avoid or limit the length of the answer.
- Provide examples: Examples help Copilot give a similar answer. Include an example in your prompt.
Example prompt for a sales manager:
“You are a sales manager for a computer company. Write a sales pitch for the latest line of high-end gaming laptops. The pitch should highlight the powerful specifications, such as the latest generation graphics cards, processors, and cooling systems that provide an optimal gaming experience. Your target audience is the gaming community around Ghent. The tone of voice should be energetic and persuasive, with a focus on your technical knowledge and gaming performance. Avoid generic sales language and make sure the benefits are clearly communicated. The pitch should not be longer than 200 words and will be used in marketing campaigns.”
This example prompt includes all the essential elements for an effective prompt: it defines the user’s role, formulates the expected task, provides context, specifies the answer format, sets limits, and gives clear direction for the desired output.
Keep the conversation going and don’t stop at your prompt
With the right ingredients for a strong prompt, you have a powerful tool to get Copilot to provide the most relevant answer. But it doesn’t stop there. After you’ve given a good prompt, it’s important to keep the conversation going to get an even better answer on specific parts. You can do this by:
- Generating content ideas: Start with broader requests and then provide specific details about the content.
- Insights from meetings: Ask for a summary of a meeting and then request more information about what you specifically want to know.
- Assistance with storytelling: Ask Copilot to write a story and then guide it with specific and relevant details.
- Gaining insights: Ask for a summary of a file and then pose relevant questions to generate deeper insights.
- Translation: Ask Copilot to translate sentences and then request more context or a regional dialect.
- Troubleshooting: Present a technical issue and ask for step-by-step guidance.
Tips to keep in mind when prompting
- Be aware of Copilot’s limitations. Copilot is limited to your current conversation, so provide as many details as possible to get the most relevant response.
- Be professional. Polite language improves Copilot’s response.
- Use quotation marks. Mark the text you want Copilot to generate, modify, or replace with quotation marks. This ensures Copilot better understands your request.
- New topic, new conversation. Avoid interruptions or overlaps and start a new chat if you want to ask Copilot about a new topic.
- Clear communication. Be clear, pay attention to punctuation, grammar, and capitalization so Copilot can understand your question.
- Referencing files or people. Use “/” in Copilot to refer to a specific person, document, meeting, or other topics.
Document length limitations in Copilot
While Copilot doesn’t explicitly state it, it does have limits for the size of documents you provide in the prompts. For optimal performance, it’s recommended to keep documents limited to 20 pages or about 15,000 words. Although Copilot accepts references to documents of any size, there are limits to how much text it can process at once. With longer documents, Copilot will only focus on the first part.
How can you use longer documents in Copilot?
There are two solutions: split or summarize. You can break your document into smaller parts and give them to Copilot individually, or you can summarize sections of your document within Copilot.
Do’s and Don’ts for prompting in Copilot
Creating the perfect prompt is sometimes an art in itself. Discover the best do’s and don’ts for prompting in Microsoft Copilot. By following these guidelines, you improve communication with Copilot and increase the chance of receiving more relevant answers.
Do’s when prompting
- Structure and order: Carefully structure your prompts. Copilot places more emphasis on later parts of a prompt, so put important elements like specific files or sources at the end of your prompt.
- Positive instructions: Tell Copilot what to do, rather than what not to do.
- Repeat for precision: The first result is often not the best answer. Revise your prompt and let Copilot generate a new response.
- Clear and specific: Provide specific instructions through goal, context, source, and expectations.
- Conversation: Keep the conversation going to generate more relevant answers and let AI discover your preferences.
- Provide examples: Help Copilot provide a better answer by giving specific keywords or phrases as guidance when writing text.
- Check for accuracy: Copilot is still an AI model. Always check the answers for accuracy, grammar, and style.
- Provide details: Include contextual details in your prompt, such as colleagues, topics, already established details, or planned actions.
- Politeness: Improve collaboration with Copilot by always communicating politely and professionally.
Don’ts when prompting
- Don’t be vague: Avoid unclear prompts that could lead to inaccurate answers.
- Don’t ask for inappropriate or unethical content: Respect ethical standards and legal regulations in your prompts.
- Don’t give contradictory instructions: This causes confusion and affects the quality of Copilot’s response.
- Don’t interrupt: Don’t switch abruptly to a new topic.
- Don’t use informal language: Use professional language and avoid slang, jargon, dialects, or informal speech.
- Don’t rely solely on Copilot: Copilot is still an LLM, so don’t blindly trust the output. Always consult reliable sources.
- Don’t ask for help with illegal activities: Copilot always adheres to ethical and legal guidelines.
Example prompts to use in Copilot
Prompts for Copilot in Teams
- “Summarize the discussion of our team about /[topic] during our meeting today.”
- “Identify the key points from our /[meeting].”
- “What’s the latest from /[person’s name], organized in emails, chats, and files?”
- “Make a list of unresolved issues from our team regarding /[topic].”
- “Are there any action items from /[meeting] for me?”
- “I’m late to the Teams meeting, was my name mentioned anywhere?”
Prompts for Copilot in Word
- “Rewrite the second part of the report to make it more concise.”
- “Review the document to make it more engaging and persuasive.”
- “Summarize the key findings from the /[document].”
- “Create a standard template for customer feedback reports.”
- “Check this document for consistency in terminology.”
Prompts for Copilot in Excel
- “Remove duplicates from [column A].”
- “Apply color scales to visualize data trends in the /[table].”
- “Summarize customer feedback scores using a pivot table.”
- “Compare website traffic from the past 6 months using a line chart.”
- “Merge first names and last names from column E and column F.”
Prompts for Copilot in PowerPoint
- “Create a sales presentation for client X based on /[document].”
- “Generate a visual representation of [topic].”
- “Restructure my slides for better flow or coherence.”
- “Create an interactive slide with clickable buttons or hyperlinks.”
- “Add a slide about the benefits of our latest product.”
Prompts for Copilot in Outlook
- “Write a reply to Jeroen and make it sound like I write.”
- “Summarize this email conversation.”
- “Write an email congratulating my team on the Q2 sales figures.”
- “Write an email based on the notes from the weekly meeting.”
If you’re looking for more inspiration or example prompts, you can check out Microsoft’s Copilot Lab. Here you’ll find a collection of prompts you can use to explore and make the most of Copilot.
