In early 2023, Microsoft did something that caught the entire tech industry off guard: before OpenAI officially released GPT-4, Microsoft had already integrated it into Bing and opened it directly to users worldwide. At that time, ChatGPT was still operating on a waitlist system, while Google was caught completely by surprise, hastily announcing Bard while its stock price plummeted by over $10 billion.
This product was initially called New Bing. Later, Microsoft unified all of its AI product lines under the Copilot brand—Copilot in Word, Copilot in Excel, Copilot in Windows, and this search-integrated version is now simply called Copilot (accessed via bing.com or copilot.microsoft.com).
This article focuses on the Copilot chat and search features for general users, which many people still refer to as "New Bing."
Product Positioning
Copilot’s positioning is a "search assistant with AI chat capabilities," or more accurately, a "GPT-4 with real-time search capabilities." These two perspectives point to the same thing, but user expectations differ:
If you view it as a "search engine," you’ll find that it provides direct answers rather than a list of links, making for a smooth conversation. However, sometimes what you actually want is the original source link.
If you view it as a "ChatGPT alternative," you’ll discover it has one capability that ChatGPT’s free version lacks: real-time internet access.
It is precisely this real-time connectivity that gives Copilot a unique position among AI chat tools.
Core Features
Real-Time Connectivity for Current Questions
The standard version of ChatGPT (GPT-3.5) has a knowledge cutoff; it doesn’t know about events that occurred after 2021. Even if you upgrade to GPT-4 Plus, it won’t proactively search the web by default (you need to enable the Web plugin). Copilot is different: for every conversation, it first retrieves the latest content from the internet, provides an answer based on those results, and includes source links.
This allows Copilot to answer questions that change over time: What is the latest price of a certain product today? What are this company’s latest financial report data? What were yesterday’s game results? What is the latest version of a specific software? What are the recent trends in the AI industry? ChatGPT either cannot answer these or provides outdated information, whereas Copilot can provide the latest answers based on search results.
The inclusion of source links is also crucial for many users. It is widely accepted that AI can hallucinate and fabricate facts; however, every key piece of information provided by Copilot comes with a source link that users can click to verify, which lends a certain degree of credibility to the answers.
GPT-4-Level Conversational Capabilities
Copilot is powered by the GPT-4-level model developed in collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI, meaning it possesses GPT-4-level text understanding, generation, and reasoning capabilities. It is completely free to use—an important point.
ChatGPT Plus requires a $20/month subscription (approximately 145 RMB/month) to access GPT-4; Google Gemini Advanced also requires a subscription; Claude Pro is paid as well. Copilot provides capabilities equivalent to GPT-4 without charging a penny, making it the top choice for many users looking to "get something for nothing."
Coverage of conversational capabilities:
Writing Assistance: Writing articles, emails, reports, product copy, editing and polishing drafts, and translation—these writing tasks where GPT-4 excels are all handled by Copilot. The quality of Chinese writing is also quite good; it’s not just English that can leverage its full potential.
Knowledge Q&A: History, science, culture, legalcommon sense (common knowledge), technical principles... Whatever GPT-4 knows, Copilot knows, and with internet search added, the timeliness is better.
Code Assistance: Writing code, explaining code, debugging, and code review are all supported for mainstream languages like Python, JavaScript, and Java, with quality comparable to ChatGPT Plus.
Analysis and Summarization: Give it a large block of text to summarize key points; give it a contract to explain key clauses; give it an article to analyze its logical structure—Copilot handles these tasks with ease.
Free Image Generation (DALL-E 3)
It integrates DALL-E 3 image generation capabilities, allowing you to generate images directly within the conversation via Bing Image Creator. You describe the desired image in natural language, and the result is generated in seconds.
DALL-E 3 is one of the strongest text-to-image models currently available, with better prompt understanding than Midjourney, particularly in handling text content and complex descriptions. Using DALL-E 3 within Copilot is completely free, with a certain quota of "fast generations" per day (after the quota is exhausted, generation speed slows down but remains usable).
Midjourney starts at $10/month, and ChatGPT Plus requires $20/month to use DALL-E 3; Copilot’s DALL-E 3 is free. For users who occasionally need image generation but don’t want to subscribe to professional tools, this is a very cost-effective option.
Conversation Style Selection
Three preset conversation styles are available:
Creative Mode: Answers are more divergent, suitable for scenarios requiring brainstorming, writing creative copy, or storyboarding. The AI is more willing to provide interesting, unexpected content rather than conservative standard answers.
Balanced Mode: The default mode, balancing accuracy and creativity. It is suitable for most daily use cases.
Precise Mode: More focused on facts and directness, suitable for information queries requiring clear answers. Answers are more concise, cite more sources, and reduce creative flair.
Switching conversation styles based on the task is a valuable habit—use Precise for looking up information, Creative for writing content, and Balanced for daily Q&A.
Web Content Analysis
You can send web links to Copilot for it to analyze and summarize the page content. This feature is practical in several scenarios: send a link to a long English article for it to summarize the key points in Chinese; send a product page link for it to compare key parameters; send an academic paper link for it to explain the core arguments.
Native Windows 11 Integration
In the Windows 11 system, Copilot is integrated as a system-level feature, with a dedicated icon on the taskbar that allows you to invoke the chat window without opening a browser. For Windows 11 users, this is an AI assistant available at hand, offering a smoother experience than visiting a webpage.
Comparison with Major Competitors
vs ChatGPT Free Version (GPT-3.5): The free version of ChatGPT lacks real-time internet access, has a fixed knowledge cutoff, and uses the older GPT-3.5 model. Copilot offers real-time connectivity, uses an GPT-4-level model, and is completely free. From the perspective of comparing free users alone, Copilot has a clear advantage in capability.
vs ChatGPT Plus ($20/month): The paid ChatGPT Plus provides GPT-4 and more features (code execution sandbox, advanced data analysis, DALL-E image generation); ChatGPT’s model training depth and answer quality are still stronger than Copilot’s in some complex tasks; but it requires a monthly fee. Copilot is a feature-covering alternative that is free, suitable for users who do not require extreme depth of functionality.
vs Google Gemini: Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) is Copilot’s most direct competitor—also a product integrating AI with search, and also featuring real-time connectivity. Both have their strengths and weaknesses in search quality and AI conversation quality, with different users providing different feedback. Overall, Copilot has better Chinese support, while Google Gemini has advantages in English content and academic search.
vs Perplexity AI: Perplexity focuses on AI search Q&A, with very clear citation formats, and presents academic and research content more professionally than Copilot; however, Perplexity’s conversational capabilities and writing assistance are not its focus, whereas Copilot is a more all-around option.
vs Claude (Anthropic): Claude has a reputation for writing quality and long-document processing, but the standard version lacks real-time internet access (requiring file uploads in the project). For scenarios requiring real-time information via the internet, Copilot has an advantage; for processing complex documents or high-quality writing, Claude is worth considering.
Who Should Use Copilot
Users wanting free access to GPT-4 capabilities: The simplest and most direct reason. Copilot is currently one of the most stable channels for obtaining GPT-4-level conversational capabilities for free, requiring no subscription, no registration, just direct access and use.
Users needing real-time information: News, latest data, current prices, recent events—real-time connectivity is Copilot’s core advantage over pure AI chat tools. Journalists, analysts, and researchers can use Copilot as an efficient tool when needing to quickly verify the latest information.
Users needing free image generation: If you occasionally need to generate images but don’t want to subscribe specifically to Midjourney or ChatGPT Plus, Copilot’s free DALL-E 3 quota is sufficient.
Windows 11 users: Native system integration makes Copilot easier to invoke than other AI tools, offering an always-available AI assistant experience.
Students and general users: If you need a universal AI assistant that can search, write, and answer questions without spending money, Copilot is the most affordable choice currently.
Limitations
Bing’s search quality in certain areas (especially Chinese content) is not as good as Google’s, which affects the quality of answers Copilot provides—no matter how strong the AI capability is, if the original content found by the search is poor, the answer will be limited.
Content filtering is stricter than ChatGPT’s; answers to certain topics are overly conservative, and sometimes obviously reasonable questions trigger refusals to answer, which affects users who need to explore gray-area topics.
Accessing Copilot from mainland China requires confirming network accessibility; access can be unstable in some network environments, which is a barrier to entry.
For tasks requiring extreme precision and deep professionalism, Copilot’s answers can sometimes seem superficial—it is very good at synthesizing information to provide helpful answers, but in certain professional fields, the depth of its answers does not match consulting a true domain expert.
Pricing
Free version: Access copilot.microsoft.com or bing.com directly without registration. You get a set number of fast conversations per day; once that limit is exceeded, responses slow down but remain usable. Image generation includes a daily free quota.
Copilot Pro: Approximately $20/month (about ¥145). This unlocks priority access (faster response times during peak hours), increased DALL-E image generation limits, and deep integration with Microsoft 365 (using Copilot directly within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).
For most everyday users, the free version is sufficient. Commercial users who need to leverage AI features deeply within the Office suite will find full value only in the combination of Copilot Pro and Microsoft 365.
Copilot’s core value lies in making previously paid capabilities available for free. It isn’t the most powerful AI tool, but among free-tier options, no clear competitor currently matches its combination of real-time web access, GPT-4-level conversation, and free image generation. For everyday work and personal AI needs, Copilot is an exceptionally cost-effective starting point.