On Thursday, Microsoft demonstrated an AI “co-pilot” for its Office suite.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is enhancing its suite of productivity tools with artificial intelligence (AI) software, demonstrating an AI “co-pilot” for its Office software. The globally popular Office suite includes Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

The move by Microsoft is aimed at getting ahead of tech giants such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Baidu (HKG: 9888) and Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) in commercializing AI technology. (FT)

Using the new tool enterprises could speed up the creation of draft documents, artwork and graphs, saving time for millions of workers. Microsoft has been partnering for three years with OpenAI, which has just released its new generation of AI model, GPT-4, already integrated into Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Google also recently announced its own AI enhancements to Google Workspace.

Baidu, meanwhile, released its own chatbot, Erniebot, positioned as a Chinese-language alternative to ChatGPT.

Credit Suisse has estimated that if 10% of Microsoft’s 370 million commercial Office 365 users upgraded to an AI-enhanced bundle of software, it would generate $14.9 billion over the next five years.

Assuming Microsoft also charged more across the board for a scaled-down version of the new capabilities, Credit Suisse said it could generate an additional $18.7 billion.

Though Microsoft has said the co-pilot suite of products would be priced “at a premium,” it did not provide details during the half-hour presentation.