BERLIN: Microsoft's AI chatbot was initially only available in the company's own search engine, where it was called Bing Chat, but following its rebranding as Copilot in November, it's now available on all major platforms.

Days after releasing the Android app in December, Microsoft also published an iOS version the text and image-generating AI chatbot for on iPhones and iPads.

The AI assistant is based on GPT-4 for speech and Dall-E 3 for visualisations and is similar to ChatGPT, except that it also adds the option to generate entirely new images from text input.

It can also be accessed through browsers at Copilot.microsoft.com, while a preview version can be used on computers with Windows 11 and 10.

On newer Mac computers with an Apple chip such as the M1, M2 or M3, you can also simply use the iOS app. In all instances, using Copilot is free of charge, but you must have a Microsoft account and be logged in with it for full functionality.

If you visit the Copilot page in your browser, you can also use one or two plug-ins, such as an AI from Suno.ai to generate complete songs with music and lyrics. However, daily use is limited here.

Microsoft, keen to leverage its head start in AI, in January also announced that the Copilot chatbot will bring about the biggest change to the Windows keyboards in decades with a dedicated key for the assistant.

One press of the new Copilot key is set to activate the assistant for quick research, creating images and generating text.

It won't mean squeezing in another key on future keyboards however, since the new Copilot button is set to repurpose the former Menu key, located next to the Alt key, on the right-hand side of some keyboards.

Computers sporting the new Copilot key are expected to be available to buy from the end of February.

The Copilot key's launch comes after Microsoft manager Yusuf Mehdi heralded 2024 as "the year of the AI PC" in a blog post. Microsoft says it's planning to integrate more and more AI features into the Windows operating system in coming updates.

 - dpa