08 Feb 2026 - AI
Microsoft not only have a relationship with OpenAI (aka ChatGPT), they also do with Anthropic the creator of Claude. I have experience of Copilot as an IT professional, I’m aware of this relationship and it raises more questions from a professional perspective, from a personal one no more than using any GenAI tool.
Personally, I’ve just started to look at Claude, not fully as I spend enough on AI subscriptions already, I’ve heard things about Claude being better at creating Microsoft office files. Intriguing that an almost unknown a few years ago is close to a main player like this who’s relationship with OpenAI goes back to 2014, now 11/12 years ago. I imagine Microsoft is flirting with many. You get access through your Microsoft account and their Frontier program (aka Preview). I don’t get many opportunities to create office files personally, I create enough at work, suggested prompts help here. I tried a few using PowerPoint, Word and Excel, some more interesting than others all in their own unique way.
Two attempts with this one, first a quiz, hoped for an interactive presentation. What I got was very static, question slide followed by answer slide, missing questions, content bleeding from slides. Not a great start!
Second attempt had better results, but what do I expect using generic prompts, AI slop, oh I hate that phrase! An European budget travel plan was another suggested prompt which gave better results. Compared to Copilot, Claude creates presentations in a very different style.
I wasn’t expecting much here after PowerPoint, I was presented with a financial budget spreadsheet as a prompt, sounded technical for a spreadsheet so a good example use case for a tool that uses formulas and charts. It didn’t disappoint really, not amazing by any means but useful. A multi-tabbed spreadsheet with a dashboard was produced including some formulas. Many missing formulas but with further manual or AI driven changes a lot could be achieved, a good starting point for many.
Feeling more confident about what I’ve been hearing about Claude, Word would be a good test, using Copilot and GPT-4 and 5 I’ve seen good results when it comes to writing. It didn’t disappoint at all, style seems older or is that the font, content looks very detailed with tables and charts. I need to experiment more with this one.
Microsoft office file creation seems easier to do or get started when using Anthropic’s Claude, you are presented with options you can select in a user friendly form format, you get very detailed processing information during pre-processing, takes a long time to process and create the file, eventually, you get a good UX for viewing the created file and not thrown into the online application, then get the chance to edit through further chat conversation using natural language. Overall, a good experience with areas for improvement. Copilot does seem to be behind when it comes to this, interestingly. Do I favour one over the other? not really, it’s horses for courses.
Resources: Office | Copilot
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