Microsoft has introduced a new feature allowing users to upload images directly from their mobile devices to Microsoft 365 Copilot. A nice trick but there are other ways to do the same thing, including two from Microsoft itself!
The idea is to streamline tasks such as transcribing handwritten notes, summarizing charts, and digitizing receipts. Copilot can take an image and convert into text or a summary.
Users can access this feature Copilot enabled versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for Windows or the web with a Microsoft 365 Enterprise license.
Digging into the past to OVERsell
Microsoft OVERsells this new option by going back into the past …
“ the process of gathering insights or pulling information from an image on your mobile device was tedious. You had to send the image to your email, download it onto your computer, and then upload it to the Copilot chat box.”
Source: Microsoft blog post
Er, no. Transferring files between devices via email was necessary about a decade ago but these days there are many other options. And more secure options at that.
Most notably OneDrive – a Microsoft product that apparently the Microsoft “Office AI team” are unfamiliar with. Microsoft itself has another device to computer file transfer options for Apple and Android using Phone Link.
There are other options too. For example, WhatsApp lets you send files/photos to yourself (“You” is on the contacts list) to let you copy files to your other WhatsApp linked devices.
Why didn’t Microsoft talk about ‘sneaker net’ (transferring files by floppy disk) or carrier pigeon? It would have made as much sense.
Does anyone at Microsoft critically read their puff pieces before publishing? Increasingly, it seems they don’t, and any AI written nonsense will do.
Image from phone direct to Copilot
In a Copilot chat there’s already an ‘Add an image’ option to upload a photo from the device. Now there can be an ‘Upload from phone’ option as well.
That presents a QR Code which you scan with your smartphone camera.
The QR code has a web page link where you can either take a new photo or select an existing image.
The web page is on Microsoft Azure system (Azure.net) which should be secure but Microsoft makes no mention of security or privacy concerns in uploading a photo.
The photo should appear in the Copilot chat.
Who gets it?
Copilot enabled Microsoft 365 for Windows with an Enterprise license. For the moment just available to Insiders running v2504 build 18603.20000 or later.
