I’m curious which paid versions of AI, MS Copilot or ChatGPT-4, are best for my use case. I have a subscription to MS 365 and a subscription version of ChatGPT-4.
I decided to ask Copilot. Below is the response. I have yet to verify the accuracy of the citations, but I’m impressed that they were automatically provided.
I’m hoping that Apple will offer AI tools as capable as Copilot and ChatGTP-4, but given how Apple has handled Siri over the years, I’m not confident Apple will pull it off.
Here is the response from Copilot (By the way, I dictated the question and Copilot provided the response verbally and in written form):
Certainly! Let’s explore the differences between Microsoft Copilot and the paid version of ChatGPT 4 to help you decide which one aligns better with your primary use case of writing and creating presentations.
ChatGPT:
Description: ChatGPT is a natural language processing technology developed by OpenAI. It uses machine learning, deep learning, and natural language understanding to engage in conversations and answer questions.
Functionality:
Conversation: ChatGPT can hold interactive conversations, mimicking human dialogue.
Content Generation: It can compose essays, emails, cover letters, poems, song lyrics, and more.
Code Writing: ChatGPT can write code snippets.
Summarization: It can summarize content.
Limitations:
No Internet Search: Unlike a search engine, ChatGPT does not have internet access to retrieve real-time information.
Possible Errors: It may occasionally produce incorrect or “hallucinated” responses.
Use Case for You: ChatGPT can be useful for drafting content, brainstorming ideas, and generating creative pieces. However, you’ll need to review and edit its output.
Microsoft Copilot:
Description: Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered digital assistant that combines large language models (LLMs) with data from Microsoft Graph (including your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, etc.). It aims to provide personalized assistance.
Functionality:
Integration with Microsoft 365: Copilot leverages your data within Microsoft 365 apps.
Productivity Enhancement: It helps organize study schedules, set reminders, and manage tasks.
Content Creation: Copilot can prepare presentations, create drafts, and handle mundane tasks.
Real-Time Information: It provides up-to-date information.
Use Case for You: Microsoft Copilot is well-suited for productivity tasks, including creating presentations, managing documents, and leveraging your existing Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
In Summary:
ChatGPT is versatile for creative writing and brainstorming but lacks internet access.
Microsoft Copilot integrates with your Microsoft tools and provides real-time assistance.
The subscription version of Microsoft Copilot is equally capable across both the Mac and Windows environments. It provides consistent functionality regardless of the operating system. Whether you’re using a Mac or a Windows machine, you’ll have access to the same features and assistance offered by Microsoft Copilot.
Consider your specific needs and preferences when choosing between the two. Both tools have their strengths, so you might even find value in using them together!
I have used both. I don’t think that summary quite characterizes the key differences.
Out of the box Copilot has the ability to attribute sources. ChatGPT can only do that if you use a plug-in; then its capabilities exceed Copilot in that regard.
Both are able to give advice to critique your writing. ChatGPT is superior at this task; however Copilot is seamlessly integrated into Word and other Microsoft 365 apps so it is easier to use.
Copilot works with Powerpoint so it is really strong at converting your writing into a Powerpoint presentation; ChatGPT cannot do that.
I’m experimenting as I need to stay current on this technology for strategic planning for the school I lead. That said, if Apple does a poor job of integrating AI into Notes, Pages, Mail, and Keynote like MS and Google are doing with their products, I may start using Word and PowerPoint more on my Mac. There is a long way to go before I get to that point, but it is helpful to learn these tools now as things progress. It would be helpful to have AI seamlessly suggest improvements to one’s prose and grammar during the writing process and to be able to insert citations based on reliable research sources automatically. We are just beginning to see what AI can do for us. I’m staying abreast of developments. I believe that is my responsibility as an education leader, the whole “lifelong learner” bit.
I have tried the Consensus website itself - not the plugin. I have not found it to be particularly helpful.
Of course it all depends what the nature is of your literature search activities.
My main use case is to identify medical literature on a very focused question in medicine; I usually use these references for court testimony or reports filed in court so the source needs to be credible and on-point. So far Perplexity.AI is the only source I have found which is superior to the standard Pubmed website that is routinely used in medicine. Perplexity has found citations that I was not aware of even after practicing for years in a field related to the question.
I seem to recall that your work is more in the humanities/social sciencies or educational theory. If so that may change the usefulness you get from Consensus vs. from Perplexity - I am not sure if that will give you better results or worse results, but either way you are probably doing very different types of searches than I typically do.
That said - the ChatGPT plugins I have tried have typically been pretty slow- it’s a great concept but I am not sure any of them are practical enough yet to use regularly.
Bloomberg/Gurman says “Apple is planning to add some new AI features to macOS 15, and to its app development tool Xcode.” And “Apple is training both Siri and the iPhone’s built-in Spotlight search tool on large language models, with a goal of improving each feature’s ability to answer more complex questions accurately”. But some new AI features announced later could be exclusive to iPhone 16 models.
IMO if Apple sticks to on-device only solutions then many of these solutions may require new hardware. It looks like WWDC will be very interesting this year.
It does look like an interesting one coming up. However, as much as I want Siri and Spotlight improvement, I’m more interested in having AI integrated into Apple’s default apps. We shall see how this developments. I’m due for a new iPhone and iPad later this year so the timing is good more me.
At least when asked about academic articles, I have found Gemini hallucinates so much that it is useless. I need to check references of course for any app - but with Gemini the responses are simply imaginary so often that there is no point to using it for that use case.
At the least the tools are continuously learning. A few months back I posed the same question and it was unable to answer because it didn’t know who Simon and Garfunkel are.
I know there are many examples like this but it I was taken back because it states their heights and still wasn’t able to determine who was taller.
My work just enabled Copilot 365 and I’ve been playing with it a couple of days.
It’s a bit buggy, especially in Excel (which does say preview) and it seems to often get stuck in some kind of loop.
Nevertheless, the PowerPoint automatic slide generation is nothing short of miraculous. The output looks fantastic and the content is even good. In Teams, I also find the LLM really useful for making bullet points into text. I don’t use Outlook as I prefer Superhuman which already has better AI, so I cannot comment on email.
As a preview, it’s impressive. However, I am still going to use ChatGPT for most things like document and data exploration and I use Adobe Firefly for image generation. I also use JetBrains AI for coding. If I were paying for these and it wasn’t just on my company, I’d choose ChatGPT for now.
@Bmosbacker I stand corrected - I last tried Consensus early on when they had limited features. It has advanced very notably since then and seems to me to be indeed a prime source of academic info of all kinds.
Interestingly OpenAI will shortly be ending its support of Plugins. In their place they have introduced custom GPTs. The Consensus custom GPT works quite well.
Thanks for the update. What exactly does that mean? I have a subscription (don’t say it! ) for ChatGPT. Will I still be able to access the custom GTPs?
In order to use custom GPTs you need a subscription to ChatGPT Plus ($20/Month).
Most of the custom GPTs are free; some charge an additional fee.
Consensus still seems the best one for academic/research but there are a few others which are pretty close and might be better for other use cases. There is also a fee-based PDF AI GPT which says it can query huge PDFs; I have not tried it myself yet to confirm it.
I tried a few of the custom GPTs today and must say they are quite impressive.
You can also create your own custom GPT without programming knowledge; that might be an interesting project for school students.
I suspect you will find this to be like a candy store to explore. I admit it has distracted me today from other work.
FYI - I have been using Consensus GPT pretty extensively over the last week or so for academic literature searches. It is the first AI source I have tried where so far I have not seen any hallucination.
Obviously I need to read every reference it provides - but so far they have all been real and for the most part on-point. There have been a few cases where it quotes things out of context such as failing to distinguish between a pedatric study vs. an adult study or failing to recognize the limitations of a small pilot study, but of course that’s true even more so with a standard Google or PubMed search.
One other caveat probably relates to the context window concept in AI. Sometimes it will retrieve perfectly on-point older studies but not identify newer references; a simple follow up query “show me more” or “show more recent studies” brings up additional references. Or alternatively you can use the provided links back to the Consensus site to find additional references. The Consensus site integrates well with Scite, which is extremely helpful at finding additional related publications.
So bottom line is that while I have only been using it a limited time it is extremely promising for academic research with minimal hallucations.
) for ChatGPT. Will I still be able to access the custom GTPs?