Copilot Actually Lives Up to Its Name
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Most of us using AI have our preferred solution for daily use. My personal choice is Microsoft Copilot*. Why? There are many reasons including the approach to UI design, features, integration, and responsible development. Another reason is because it came naturally to me since I work for a Microsoft partner and had the privilege of watching it grow and improve with time.
But the reason I continue to use it is because Copilot actually lives up to its name. It’s not meant to take over my life; it’s meant to sit beside me as my "copilot" and let me take the wheel. I’ve found a balance to avoid overdependence while also making my life easier. Copilot is designed to solve problems – it’s a hammer and all you need to do is give it a nail in the form of thought with clarity.
*The version of Copilot referenced in this blog post is the personal edition offered in the Microsoft 365 Personal subscription. Similar to ChatGPT Pro.
My Recent Personal Copilot Use Cases
Everyday Problem‑Solving
Life Logistics and Planning
Planning for a move with a detailed checklist and finding the best movers in the area
Preparing for a domestic flight with recent TSA changes
Creative and Personal Projects
Planning updates to my website
Tips on using Microsoft Clipchamp
Help with styling my new apartment
Personal Decisions and Shopping
Get coaching on the best type of shoes to buy for my feet and style preferences
Searching for Christmas gifts
Searching for book recommendations
Finding promo codes for online photo prints
Self‑Tracking and Reflection
Tracking weight loss and creating an exercise plan
I'll focus on a handful of these examples to showcase the impact Copilot has had on my life with such minimal collaborative effort.
Troubleshooting My Blu-ray Player
I am a huge fan of "Battlestar Galactica," the 2004 series. I wanted to rewatch the Blu-ray box set recently and noticed my remote control wasn’t working. In the past, I might have gone to Google to find a help article written by someone else that didn’t have any details about my specific player. But with Copilot’s help, I found a root cause in only 5 minutes and resolved it in even less time. Turns out the batteries in the remote were so old that some acid leaked onto the battery contact and prevented the new batteries from working correctly. That was just the first step.
Once I knew the root cause, I needed to know how to remove the acid with a home remedy. Copilot suggested rubbing a cotton swab dipped in white vinegar on the contact and voila, after drying it out, the remote worked just fine. I was able to start my latest marathon of the greatest sci-fi series ever to air on television. I will remember this lesson forever. This is exactly the kind of small, annoying problem where Copilot shines. Back to Use Cases
Pest Research and Preparing for Pest Control
For months last year, I was dealing with a pest issue in my new apartment. Nothing too awful, but still very annoying. Through pictures and detailed descriptions, I determined the pest’s species and root causes for it showing up in an apartment. I needed to make the most of the pest control visit that was coming up at that time. Because Copilot helped me identify the species, the pest control team arrived with the right equipment and addressed the issue properly. I know more about springtails than I ever wanted to, but I’m ready for next time this happens. Recommendation: don’t research them, they are incredibly creepy to see up close. Back to Use Cases
Planning for My Recent Move
After other challenges in that apartment, I decided to move to a different unit. I needed a detailed plan to make this happen with a dozen different constraints, including a unique timeline, preventing impact to my work schedule, and reducing overall costs. Copilot helped me create a checklist that I could track, find the highest rated movers in the area with cost in mind, reduce impact to my work schedule, and even reminded me to take breaks to avoid burnout. It genuinely felt like I had a mini "project manager" watching over me so I could focus on the physical labor and break free from indecision. Back to Use Cases
Creating Images for Blog Posts
I write blog posts regularly and don’t want to subscribe to a stock photography platform just to find some generic images or specific images for the topic at hand. Microsoft Designer is my go-to graphic designer for blog posts. That said, it required me to develop a specific prompting skill set to generate the best possible images. So, my output isn’t just AI generated images, it is now the ability to think in the context of image metadata and ask, “How would I describe this idea to a real-life graphic designer?” and that learned thought exercise will pay off for years to come. Back to Use Cases
Troubleshooting an Internet Glitch
Not long ago, my fiber internet connection went down one afternoon. It came back up almost immediately and I thought nothing of it because that can happen sometimes. But 30 minutes later, it went down and came back up again. This caught my attention because it rarely happens twice, back-to-back. After work, I sat down to binge my recent TV obsession, “S.W.A.T.”, and noticed it was missing from Netflix. I thought, “This is odd, I was watching this last night. There’s no way it just randomly got removed from Netflix overnight.” I switched to my phone and turned off Wi-Fi. While on my wireless cellular connection, I opened Netflix and sure enough, “S.W.A.T” was there in the catalog. Clearly, something went wrong during those two brief outages.
I presented this evidence to Copilot and learned that sometimes an ISP (Internet service provider) will reassign public IP addresses or move customers to a new block of public IP addresses and in that process, geolocation information can become corrupt. How does that relate to a show on Netflix suddenly going missing? Because Netflix will look for geolocation information in your public IP address to make sure it offers the shows only available in your region. When my geolocation information became corrupt, Netflix couldn’t read my regional information and defaulted to a catalog that excluded all my favorite shows, including “S.W.A.T.” Luckily, I was about to move to a new apartment unit on a different block of IP addresses. And just as Copilot predicted, the shows reappeared when I moved in. Don’t you just love solving a mystery? Back to Use Cases
Planning for a Trip to Spain
This trip to Spain was no ordinary vacation. I planned to visit three cities in 10 days and really needed to understand what I was up against. I had to consider everything from safety and contingencies to food, currency, passport rules, airports, and venues. I honestly couldn’t have prepared for this trip without Copilot’s help. It would have required hours of Googling in the past and even then, I’d have questioned my preparedness. Back to Use Cases
Indexing and Interpreting My Dreams
I enjoy the experience of remembering my dreams and even revisiting them long after being documented. It makes sleep more adventurous. I also enjoy strengthening my understanding of the subconscious mind because exploring that mystery is fulfilling. Our dreams are a portal to a deeper understanding of self and Copilot is helping me learn how to do that.
I find it rewarding to know myself just a bit more each day, even if some of it is left to interpretation. Back to Use Cases
Final Thoughts on Why Copilot Actually Lives Up to Its Name
It’s easy to presume that AI will consume us as we consume it. And to an extent, we should expect deep integration into our lives but not in a way that replaces critical thought. Each of the use cases I’ve shared with you originated from critical thought in the first place. I just used Copilot to clarify the goals for myself, and it led me to the best possible outcomes. AI shouldn’t replace critical thinking. If used correctly, AI has the power to strengthen it because you’re forced to think clearly about your goals before expressing them in a prompt. A poorly written prompt will yield a poor response.
When you articulate your goals with precision, Copilot rewards you with a response that genuinely makes you believe it’s talking to you like a real person. But just remember – it’s not real; it’s a pattern recognition solution ready to solve your problems. With practice, you might soon be articulating your goals more precisely to real people because you were trained to do it for a machine that demands precise expression.
I've grown to lean on Microsoft Copilot in every sense of the metaphor, learning how to express my thoughts more clearly and letting it carry some of the burdens of daily life for me so I can focus more on life itself.
