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Whether you believe AI will be the salvation of humankind or the death of it, whether you think it’s little more than a plaything to while away your time or the surest way to get onto the fast track at work, you’re going to use it someday. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week or next month. But one day, you’ll turn to it. And you’ll most likely be surprised at how helpful it can be.

For many business users, that means using Copilot, Microsoft’s umbrella name for a variety of AI products. There are already highly targeted Copilots for various Microsoft products, notably Microsoft 365 Copilot, which integrates with Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Outlook, and OneNote. For business customers, that version of Copilot is only available through an additional subscription. For consumers, Copilot integration with these apps is included with M365 Personal and Family subscriptions, with limitations.

In this article, though, we’re going to give you tips about how to get the most out of the everyday, free version of Microsoft Copilot, available as an app for Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS; in the Edge browser; in Microsoft’s Bing search engine; and on the web. You might see it referred to as Windows Copilot, but it behaves similarly across these interfaces. In this story, I’ll cover how to use Copilot on a Windows 11 PC, but the information will be generally applicable to wherever you use it.

Know the Copilot basics

Before you start using Copilot, you need to understand exactly what it is — and what it isn’t. It’s what’s called generative AI, or genAI for short. It’s called that because it can create, or generate, different kinds of content — notably text, images, and videos. In this article, we’ll primarily cover text-based content, although I’ve got a tip for you about how to use it to create images as well.

For text generation, Copilot uses a large language model (LLM) to do its work. It’s based on ChatGPT, developed by a company called OpenAI in which Microsoft is a major investor. It’s trained on massive amounts of articles, books, web pages, and other publicly available text. Based on that training, it can respond to questions, summarize articles and documents, write documents from scratch, and much more.

Like ChatGPT, Copilot works as a chatbot. You ask it a question or feed it a prompt, and it generates a response. You can ask a series of follow-up queries in an ongoing conversation, or start over with a new query.

Using Copilot can initially be somewhat eerie, because its responses are often human-like. But don’t be fooled — it has no human intelligence. So when asking it for information, give it very precise detailed information about what you want. Microsoft also recommends that you “avoid using relative terms, like yesterday or tomorrow, and pronouns, like it and they. Instead, use specifics, such as an exact date or a person’s name.”

Multiple ways to access Copilot

The free version of Microsoft Copilot is available in several ways, including as a desktop app, a mobile app, in the Edge browser, and as a web tool in Bing or on its own.

The Copilot app for Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS

If you use Windows 10 or 11, Copilot for Windows is always just a click away — there’s an icon of it right in the middle of the taskbar. (If you don’t see the icon, try updating to the latest version of Windows 10 or 11. If you’re using Windows in a business or educational setting, your organization may not have enabled Copilot.)

Click the Copilot icon, and Copilot appears as an app that can be moved, resized, and closed like any other app.

Copilot runs like any app in Windows and can be moved, resized, and closed.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

Microsoft has just announced that a new version of the Windows app is beginning to roll out to users in its Windows Insider early testing program. Among other enhancements, the new version will include a side panel that provides quick access to previous conversations.

There are also Copilot apps for macOS, iOS, and Android. To use any of them, download it to your device, click its icon, and follow any directions that follow for installation.

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Here’s the iOS Copilot app.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

To start using Copilot in any of these apps, simply type your query into the “Message Copilot” box.

Copilot in Bing and on the web

A simple way to use Copilot is to head to Microsoft’s Bing search website and click the Copilot button in the center of the page. That launches Copilot. You can also get there directly by heading to copilot.microsoft.com/.

Copilot is a little chattier in Bing than in the other interfaces, but it works the same way.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

Note, though, that even when you do a regular web search on Bing without selecting the Copilot button, you’ll often find answers from Copilot in addition to a web search. Copilot’s answers typically appear before the results of the web search and are labeled as coming from Copilot.

Copilot in Edge

Microsoft Edge browser users have an easy way to use Copilot — click the Copilot icon at the upper right of Edge’s screen, and a Copilot pane slides into place on the right side of the screen.

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Here’s the Copilot pane in Edge.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

Type your request into the “Message Copilot” search box at the bottom of the Copilot pane, or else click one of the suggestions for things you can do with Copilot in the pane. Scroll down through the pane for all the suggestions, which change over time.

Some are directly related to the web page you’re currently on, such as “Create a summary” or “Expand on this topic.” Others might be about the news, or for topics such as “Best cities for entry-level careers now” or “Where can I find good sales for President’s Day?”

Talking with Copilot

If you’d like, you can speak with Copilot rather than interact with it via a text prompt, whether you’re using it in a desktop or mobile app, in Edge, on the web, or via Bing. To get the most out of voice chat, you’ll need to be signed in to your Microsoft account; otherwise, you can only use voice chat for two minutes per day, and the chat will simply cut off when your time’s up.

To chat with Copilot verbally, click the microphone icon, give Copilot access to your microphone when prompted (you’ll only have to do this once), and begin speaking. Copilot will speak back to you. (If you don’t like the default voice, there are three others to choose from.) You can ask follow-up questions or request changes to Copilot’s output.

You can talk with Copilot instead of typing, but you won’t get the full range of Copilot’s capabilities.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

You won’t see Copilot’s spoken responses during the voice chat, but you can view them later. When you’re done with the voice chat, click the X to the left of the mic icon. You’ll return to the main Copilot window, where you’ll see a transcript of your conversation.

Note that you’ll be limited in what you can do if you talk instead of type. For instance, Copilot currently can’t create images or summarize a web page from a voice prompt. But that may change. When Copilot Voice was first rolled out, its abilities were quite limited, and it’s gained more capabilities over time. It’s now quite capable for brainstorming and is especially useful on a mobile device.

So if you’re the kind of person who prefers speaking to typing, give it a try. If it doesn’t do what you want, you can always go back to typing your prompt.

Now that you know the Copilot basics, let’s find out how to get the most out of it with the following tips.

1. Sign into Copilot with your Microsoft account

You can use Copilot without your Microsoft account, but you can use it more effectively if you sign in. Doing that gives you several benefits. You’ll be able to start a Copilot chat on one device, such as your PC, and then continue it on another device. You can also call back individual chats you’ve had with it.

If you want to use Copilot’s “Think Deeper” feature (covered later in this article) that provides deeper, more detailed information than regular Copilot searches, you’ll have to sign in as well. And those who want to use voice chat for more than two minutes per day also need to sign in.

2. Create a web page summary

Life is too short to spend it trying to dig your way through all the text on a web page to find the few nuggets of useful information buried there. So use Copilot to summarize the contents of the web page you’re currently on in Edge.

Click the Copilot icon at the upper right of the screen, then click Create a summary in the Copilot pane. The summary will appear.

Copilot in Edge creating a summary of a web page.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

If you want to keep a copy of the summary, scroll down to the bottom of the summary, hover your cursor over it, and click the Copy message button (the rightmost button) in the toolbar that appears. Then you can paste it into Word or whatever other application you want.

3. Get more detailed information about a web page

If you’re like me, you often come across information on a web page and want more details than are provided on it. Copilot has a simple way to do that. In the Copilot pane in Edge, click Expand on this topic just to the right of “Create a summary.” You’ll get a well-organized piece of writing that offers information about each of the topics on the page. As with creating a summary, you can copy the text to the Clipboard and paste it into an application.

You can also use the results as a jumping-off point for getting more detailed information about anything in Copilot’s answer. Just ask Copilot to expand on it.

Copilot can dig more deeply into the information on any web page.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

4. Generate a first draft

For many people, the hardest part of writing is getting down a first draft. Facing an empty screen waiting to be filled with words so frightens many people that they can become paralyzed and put off working on it.

Copilot can help by generating a first draft for you. It’s best suited for documents that aren’t overly long or complex — memos, emails, marketing pitches, summaries, and similar material. It doesn’t work well on sizable reports, especially those that include other kinds of materials like spreadsheets and graphics.

To do it, launch Copilot, type in what you want it to draft for you and press Enter. Or, if you prefer, you can launch a voice chat and say your request out loud.

Copilot can help you generate a first draft of many kinds of documents.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

The more information you provide about what you’re looking for, the better your draft will be. The best prompts for Copilot include the purpose of what you’re writing, what its audience will be, what you would like emphasized, and as much detail as possible. You’ve got a maximum length of 4096 characters here, so you won’t need to be succinct. Don’t fret about exact wording — Copilot will do that for you. Just describe what you want done.

If there’s a particular tone you have in mind for the piece, make sure to include that in your description, such as professional, casual, enthusiastic, or straightforward. I’d recommend, though, that you not ask Copilot to be funny. Copilot is good at many things, but being funny isn’t one of them.

Make sure to tell Copilot what the draft will be used for. Will this be an email? A blog post? Something best suited for a paragraph format? A bulleted list of ideas? Include that as well.

Also tell Copilot how long you want the draft to be. Be as specific as possible and include a word count. If you want, though, you can leave it vague and type in short, medium, or long. If you do this, the precise word count will be affected by the tone you select — if you ask it to be enthusiastic, for example, it will create significantly longer drafts than if you ask it to be professional.

Once you’ve finished your description, press Enter or press the arrow on the right side of the input box. Copilot gets to work and writes a draft for you. After it creates the draft, you can copy it by highlighting it and copying text as you normally do, by pressing Ctrl-C.

If you’re not happy with the draft, tell Copilot to regenerate it, and offer suggestions for improving it. You can keep iterating this process until you’ve got what you want.

Copilot will also sometimes suggest other pieces of information you might want to add to the draft. The suggestions will appear just underneath the draft itself and may show prompts that might be as broad as asking if you want more details added or as granular as asking if you want to add the dimensions of a product for which you’re writing a marketing pitch.

5. Don’t be fooled by Copilot’s hallucinations

Copilot appears to be an all-seeing, all-knowing font of information, able to pull up the most arcane facts on request. That’s not the case, though. In truth, it’s more like a not-always-reliable, self-taught polymath who, when confronted with a question he can’t answer, makes something up in order to appear more knowledgeable than he really is.

That’s because Copilot, like all genAI, is subject to what AI researchers call “hallucinations” but the rest of us call lies. Every genAI lies, often with serious consequences. Take the example of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who gave his own lawyer a group of legal citations to be used to convince a judge to free Cohen from the court’s oversight. Cohen used Google’s Bard AI to find them. But the citations were bogus — Bard hallucinated them.

Similarly, a lawyer named Steven Schwartz suing the airline Avianca for a client submitted a 10-page brief with more than half-a-dozen citations to a judge in support of the suit. The lawyer had used ChatGPT, the brains behind Copilot, to find the citations. ChatGPT hallucinated every single one of them. The New York Times has found a number of instances in which Bing Chat — the previous name for Copilot — hallucinated incorrect information it attributed to the Times.

Don’t let this happen to you. When you use Copilot, double-check important facts and citations before using them. Typically, genAI doesn’t lie about easy-to-find straightforward facts. Rather, it’s more often arcane facts or highly specialized information like law cases that you need to be concerned about. So make sure to verify if Copilot’s so-called facts are really facts. Copilot typically includes citations for where it found information. Follow the link to each citation — you may find links to nowhere, or you may find that a fact attributed to a source is nowhere to be found at that source.

Whatever you do, don’t ask Copilot to check those facts, because there’s a reasonable chance Copilot will say they’re true. That’s what happened to Schwartz. He asked ChatGPT to verify that the fake citations were real, and ChatGPT said they were. Instead, use a search engine and double-check the information yourself.

Also, if you want to make sure what you write is as accurate as possible, don’t use Copilot to write your final draft, because it could introduce a last-minute hallucination. Copilot’s output should always be used as a starting point, not final copy.

6. Check for Copilot plagiarism

Copilot sometimes has the opposite problem to hallucinations. Rather than make things up, it copies text verbatim — or nearly verbatim — from material it’s been trained on. That can be copyright infringement, whose use carries legal consequences. And even if there are no legal consequences, if you’re found violating copyrighted information at your workplace, you could be disciplined or be fired.

It’s difficult to know how often Copilot does this. But a New York Times lawsuit against Microsoft and ChatGPT cites several instances of ChatGPT, the brains behind Copilot, plagiarizing its articles, including a Pulitzer-Prize-winning, five-part 18-month investigation into predatory lending practices in New York City’s taxi industry. The suit charges: “OpenAI had no role in the creation of this content, yet with minimal prompting, will recite large portions of it verbatim.”

It can be tough to know when Copilot’s output plagiarizes copyrighted text. However, there are things you can do to reduce the risk. First, pay attention to the tone of Copilot’s answers to your prompts. Any sections that sound different from the rest or from its previous answers could signal a problem. Rewrite that section if you have any suspicions.

If you come across text you suspect might be plagiarized, copy a section of it into your search engine and do a search. That can find original text that Copilot has plagiarized. Also, follow the citation links at the bottom of Copilot’s response to you, read through them and see whether any text has been plagiarized.

You can also try using any of the many websites that claim they check for plagiarism. I’ve tried a number of them and have been underwhelmed by their usefulness. They’re generally good at finding obvious plagiarism — every one I tried was able to say with certainty that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was written by a human, not a genAI like Copilot. But you’d be able to do the same thing on your own. However, if you want to use them, here are two free ones to try: GPTKit and ZeroGPT, which is available for free only for personal use. This article tests and reviews ten free ones.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, don’t use Copilot’s answer verbatim and pass it off as your own. Consider its output a first draft, not a finished piece of work.

Note that Microsoft indemnifies users of paid versions of Microsoft’s commercial Copilot services (such as Microsoft 365 Copilot) against claims of copyright infringement. However, that offer doesn’t extend to the free versions of Copilot covered in this article.

7. “Think Deeper” with Copilot

Sometimes Copilot’s answers can have a once-over-lightly feel to them, especially if you’re asking it complex questions. Its Think Deeper feature can alleviate that. Based on ChatGPT’s o1 reasoning model, it breaks down questions into components and steps and provides a deeper dive into topics. Because of that, it takes extra time providing an answer, typically about 30 seconds or so.

To use Think Deeper, just click the Think Deeper button at the right end of the Copilot input box, then enter your query. When you’re done with Think Deeper, click the button again to turn it off.

Think Deeper provides a deeper dive into topics than regular Copilot results.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

Note that Microsoft appears to be in the process of rolling out Think Deeper across the various Copilot interfaces. My editor, for example, was able to use Think Deeper in the macOS Copilot app and via the web app, but it was not yet available in her Edge browser on macOS. If you find that it’s not available for you in one interface, try another.

In my tests, I found “Think Deeper” lived up to its billing. I asked both basic Copilot and the Think Deeper feature, “What is the best way for me to become a government contractor to sell my Work@Home office furniture to the federal government?” I then compared the answers. Copilot by itself offered useful if somewhat general advice, such as “Stay compliant with all federal contracting rules and regulations, including reporting and documentation requirements.”

Think Deeper gave a more useful answer with more specific advice, including “Ensure your furniture meets any relevant standards, like ANSI/BIFMA for safety and durability. Also, be mindful of the Trade Agreements Act (TAA), which requires products to be made or substantially transformed in the U.S. or designated countries.”

Keep in mind that just because the feature gives you deeper answers, it doesn’t mean they’re always right. So you should still check it for hallucinations. You may, however likely find fewer of them than if you’re using Copilot as your normally do.

8. Go back to previous Copilot conversations

There’s a good chance that at some point you’ll want to revisit a conversation you’ve had with Copilot. Although it seems as if they vanish once you close Copilot, that’s not the case. You can easily view a list of them and go back to any you’d like. You’ll first have to sign into your Microsoft account on Copilot if you want to do it.

To do it, click the View history button to the left of the Copilot input box — it’s an icon of a clock enclosed by a circular arrow. If you don’t see the View history button, click the Copilot logo to the left of the input box. The main interface will change to what Microsoft calls the Copilot home page, which offers up suggested chat topics. At the same time, the View history button will replace the Copilot logo on the entry bar.

You can access your chat history by calling up the Copilot home page and clicking the View history button.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

When you click View history, Copilot lists the most recent conversations, by day. They’re listed not by the specific prompt you used, but instead by a summary, such as “Selling to the federal government” or “Image request for woman working.”

In the pop-up list, click the title of the conversation you want to revisit, and you’ll be sent back to it. If you want to share the conversation with others, click the arrow to the right of the title. That brings up a popup. Click “Create & Copy Link” and you can send that link to someone else. You can also delete the conversation by clicking the trash icon to the far right of the title.

When you sign into Copilot, your conversations are saved and can be reviewed and revisited on multiple devices, such as a PC and an iPhone.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

You’ll be able to revisit conversations on any device on which you’ve signed into Copilot. Each device lists all conversation you’ve had on all your devices, if you’ve signed into them for the conversations.

In my tests, Copilot kept 10 months of conversations. But that may vary from person to person. When I asked Copilot how long it kept conversations, it responded, “I actually don’t have the specifics about how long your conversation history is kept,” and pointed me to a Microsoft privacy statement that did not have an answer, either.

9. Create and use images with Copilot

Copilot is not just a text-based chatbot. It can also create images and give you information about an image you upload to it, such as a photograph of a city. Its ability to create copyright-free images is particularly useful for those who need them for brochures, sales presentations, and other similar material.

You create images in the same way that you create drafts of documents. Start off by describing the image you want — for example, “Make an image of a woman sitting at a desk in her home office working on a computer.”

You can have Copilot make copyright-free images you can use in brochures, or for other purposes.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

As with creating text-based documents, the more information you provide, the better. Tell Copilot, for example, for what purpose you’ll be using the document. Describe the tone you want, such as formal, cozy, business-like, playful, and so on. Don’t settle for the first image. Keep asking Copilot to make changes until you have one you want. Once you’re happy with the image, download it by clicking the download button to the right of the image.

Keep in mind that the images Copilot creates tend to be highly idealized and have the feel of something created by AI, so you may need to continue to iterate until you have one that’s not quite so artificial-looking.

I’ve found that sometimes when you ask Copilot to create an image, it doesn’t display the image, but does display a download button. If this happens to you, click the download button — the image it created will be downloaded.

You can also ask Copilot to provide information about a photograph. To do that, copy it into Copilot and ask it to identify it for you and provide additional information. You can be as detailed as you like when asking the question.

This works well for most images. However, Copilot won’t identify photographs of people — guardrails have been put around that for privacy purposes.

Asking Copilot to identify a location.

Preston Gralla / Foundry

Bonus tip: Remove the Copilot icon from the Windows taskbar

Not everyone is a fan of AI. You may be among the people who don’t want to use it. Or maybe you just don’t like having the Copilot icon smack dab in the middle of your taskbar. If that’s you, you can remove the icon. Right-click it and select Unpin from taskbar. There’s no way to remove the Copilot icon from Edge, though.

This article was originally published in January 2024 and updated in March 2025.

I have a confession: My productivity system is a bit of a mess. When I see people sharing beautifully organized Notion dashboards and using the latest subscription-based productivity tools, I often wince.

Why does my Windows workflow feel like a cluttered desk in software form?

The things I need to keep track of are split between browser bookmarks, a collection of OneNote notes, Microsoft’s To Do app, folders of files in OneDrive, and others in scattered places. My productivity “system” is never going to be Instagram-worthy. (Let’s be honest: Your productivity system probably isn’t about to go viral on social media, either.)

After going down some rabbit holes researching new Windows productivity apps to upgrade my setup, I accidentally achieved productivity enlightenment: If your Windows productivity setup feels like a mess — but you’re actually getting things done — it’s not broken!

If it looks chaotic to someone else, who cares? People waste too much time tweaking and optimizing productivity tools instead of just using them. All that matters is whether your system works for you.

Want more Windows PC advice? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. I’ll send you free copies of Paul Thurrott’s Windows Field Guides (a $10 value) as a bonus!

The myth of the universally ‘perfect’ productivity system

Let’s call a truce in the productivity software wars. Geeks like me have been arguing over the best to-do list app since productivity and software blog Lifehacker launched 20 years ago. People are always trying to find the ideal productivity setup. Maybe the next to-do list app will be the one that’s absolutely perfect, with no friction, and ready to do everything you want.

Or maybe not. Unfortunately, nothing is ever truly perfect for everyone. That’s both freeing and liberating, allowing you to embrace your messy productivity system. In fact, trying to find the perfect productivity tool is a huge productivity trap. In pursuit of perfection, you’ll find yourself constantly researching new apps, migrating data, and getting up to speed on new workflows. Hey, maybe this new to-do app will boost your productivity by 1%! Let’s say it does: Even if so, is it worth spending hours switching systems? If you enjoy it, that’s great. Just don’t mistake it for productivity: It’s a hobby of tinkering with productivity tools. (I’ve had the same hobby. I get it.)

Also, keep in mind: Everything has downsides. Lots of people have impressively organized Notion notebooks, for example, but it takes some setup. Plus, it’s rather rigid compared to a freeform collection of whatever tools happen to work. Even as a Notion power user, you might find yourself adding extra tools for more flexibility. 

My chaotically productive Windows workflow

Here’s what I realized: My unusual collection of productivity hacks is actually quite useful. I’m not paying an extra dime for a productivity tool — no subscriptions. And, since I’m largely using basic tools built into Windows, there’s no risk that a fancy productivity tool I rely on will shut down overnight. It’s robust, simple, and flexible.

So let’s get to my chaotically productive workflow. These are all just things I personally do using a workflow that’s evolved to take advantage of common tools in weird ways that work for me. What works for you will be different, and that’s the key.

Email inbox as reminder tool: If I know I’ll need to reference an email soon, I’ll just leave it in my inbox — possibly with a star. Who needs “inbox zero” or a perfect labeling system? I’ll archive the email when I’m done.

Browser bookmark bar as a scratchpad: I drag links I want to save for later right to the bookmarks bar — no need for extra tools. I’ve used that same setup for reminders, too, such as saving a bookmark named “Birthday on Wednesday” at the left side of the bookmarks bar so it’s always in my face. It’s like a digital sticky note, and I can delete it when I’m done. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave — this works in any browser.

Your browser’s bookmark bar can be a lightweight to-do list, a note-taking tool, and even a reminder system. There are no rules!

Chris Hoffman, IDG

Controlled chaos for notes in OneNote: To capture article ideas and other raw writing-related inspirations, I jot them down in OneNote. I don’t worry much about organization. Instead, I make a new section for each month (like “March 2025”), dump notes into that monthly section, and move on with my day. To find the notes later, I can scroll through the monthly section or just use OneNote’s search feature. The key is that I can capture notes fast.

Microsoft To Do as a calendar: I use Microsoft’s tasks app, and I wish it integrated with a modern calendar app. After some digging, I decided to just use it as a calendar, anyway. I have a task list titled “Calendar” in Microsoft To Do, and it’s filled with important dates (appointments, birthdays, shows, and so on). I can quickly see a chronological list of all the events I have planned, and it’s integrated with the “Planned” view so I can see everything upcoming in one place — both tasks and calendar events. Microsoft To Do wasn’t meant for this — not at all — but it works for me.

Microsoft To Do doesn’t integrate with the new Outlook, but it should.

Chris Hoffman, IDG

Folders of jumbled files in OneDrive: I don’t obsess over the perfect folder structure for where each file should go. I sometimes sort files into folders, but often I just dump files right into my Documents folder with a clear name. I can find them with search later.

Turning to paper when software is too much: When I was running How-To Geek as editor-in-chief, my digital task lists became overwhelming. I turned to a physical notepad next to my PC. On good old-fashioned paper, I wrote down the most important tasks I had to accomplish each day and checked them off as I went. Something about the physical paper was an antidote to the digital chaos. And it wasn’t a fancy Moleskine notebook, either — just a random pad of paper I had lying around.

The cross-device syncing bonus: Since I’m using built-in Windows tools, they’re always close at hand, and they sync between all my PCs with no extra software. That means I can easily access them on my phone, too.

Aim for organized chaos

That was a weird list, right? I’m sure some of these points sound ridiculous. “Wait, you do what with your browser’s bookmarks bar?”

The point is that this controlled chaos evolved naturally as I looked for the fastest, lowest-friction ways to save, organize, and find information.

That said, not every mess is a good, productive mess. If you struggle to find where you left things, that’s a sign your system isn’t working for you. (Search is key to the efficiently messy approach, though: With good search features, you can dig up web pages, notes, files, emails, and other things without worrying about categorizing them perfectly in the first place.) If the system feels frustrating to use, that’s bad.

On the other hand, if you’re spending lots of time managing your productivity system — making sure every note, email, and file is categorized in exactly the right place — that’s also not optimal. If you’re putting lots of time into finding the right tools rather than getting things done or properly relaxing, that’s not boosting your productivity. That’s draining your productivity.

There’s a sweet spot, and it will evolve over time. That’s what I realized about my setup — it’s always changing. It’s rather chaotic, but I also find myself managing it. I might dump something on my browser’s bookmarks toolbar as a quick way to capture something for later before I move it to OneNote or my To Do app, for example. There’s a sort of organized chaos where you can enjoy the freeform flexibility of your tools while keeping them reasonably organized.

Forget aesthetics — enjoy productivity

The web is full of productivity gurus showing off their beautiful productivity systems on social media. But I’ll bet most people are like me and don’t have an Instagram-worthy setup.

Too many people waste endless hours searching for the perfect productivity system. If you’re getting things done, you can stop searching. If it works, it’s already perfect — for you.

Will it evolve? Sure. Let it. But you don’t have to throw your entire system out and start over again. And you especially don’t have to impress anyone else — you just need to get things done, your way.

Let’s stay in touch! Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter, and I’ll keep cutting through the online noise and sharing useful advice with three new things to try each Friday. Plus, you’ll get free in-depth Windows Field Guides as a special welcome gift.

Opera has announced that its browser is now equipped with Browser Operator, a built-in AI agent that can help users with a variety of tasks. For example, if an Opera user wants help buying a large pack of socks in a certain color or booking a flight, the user can ask Browser Operator can do it.

The video below shows how it works:

Browser Operator is currently classified as a preview version, indicating there might still be some bugs to work out.

In addition to Browser Operator, Opera also plans to invest in additional AI features in the near future.

Microsoft has begun pushing out a new version of its generative AI (genAI) Copilot application to users testing new builds of Windows 11. The app has an updated interface with a panel on the right listing the history of queries that have been posed, and the responses on the left. 

Microsoft has designed the app along the lines of the user interfaces (UIs) available in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini. (The current version of Copilot for Windows in the Microsoft Store has a plain interface with no history panel. Once a user poses a new query, the old conversation disappears.)

Copilot is now a native Windows app with the implementation of XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language), a Microsoft-developed language that encodes the UI separate from the application code. 

the The new version isn’t available to everyone. It is still in preview and is being rolled out to testers of Windows 11 through the Windows Insider program. 

“We are excited to be previewing improvements with our Insiders to ensure all our customers have a great Copilot experience for Windows,” Microsoft said in a blog post.

Microsoft is constantly rolling out Copilot updates across its Windows ecosystem and Microsoft 365. The company this week announced that it added updates to its Copilot Studio software and is now previewing Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, which “enables your agents to take advantage of the full functionalities of Copilot Studio within Copilot Chat,” the company said in a blog post.

The chat feature provides agents access to data sources across Azure services and can coordinate or handoff queries to other agents. It also allows the creation of agents based on specific actions or triggers.

Another feature allows users to “monitor their custom agents’ trends and performance with analytics,” Microsoft said. 

Last month, the company added a feature called “intelligent meeting recap” to Teams that summarizes meeting notes by speaker and topic and generates round-ups and summaries.

The company also recently released a Copilot app for Macs. The AI assistant can summarize, generate images, provide recommendations and create content. The app works only on Macs with an M-series chip and macOS 14.0 or later.

With the AI Phone and Magenta AI, Deutsche Telekom is helping to shape further developments in the smartphone sector.

Deutsche Telekom

What would it be like if a digital concierge on your smartphone could reserve a table, call a cab or summarize texts by voice command or keyboard input in the future, without you having to call up the various apps? That’s Deutsche Telekom’s vision for an app-free AI phone — a vision that is now taking shape.

The German telecommunications group is being supported by the AI start-up Perplexity.ai and its digital assistant. This can be accessed directly via the home screen or the smartphone’s power button. The AI phone offers additional AI features in the form of applications from:

• Google Cloud AI (object recognition),
• Elevenlabs (podcast generator) and
• Picsart (GenAI design tool).

As Head of Technology Claudia Nemat announced at the Deutsche Telekom booth at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the AI phone will be available in the second half of the year “at an affordable price”. Technical details about the Android-based smartphone were not disclosed. However, as most of the data is processed in the cloud, the hardware requirements are not that high.

Alternatively, Deutsche Telekom offers customers selected AI services via its MeinMagenta (My Magenta) app with “Magenta AI”. These already include the AI-supported search engine from Perplexity — but apparently not the Perplexity Assistant, which is freely available as an app. The aforementioned AI tools Google Cloud AI, ElevenLabs and Picsart are also set to be added in the summer.

Deutsche Telekom has also thought about public administration and business customers. At MWC, the company is using more than 30 solutions from ten countries to show how AI can contribute to growth, efficiency and customer satisfaction. One example is an AI chatbot that helps court clerks to search and analyze legal documents saving 70 percent of time, according to Nemat.

AI keeps hackers happy

Deutsche Telekom

When it comes to cyber security and AI, Deutsche Telekom was apparently inspired by its competitor O2 and its AI grandma. Similar to Daisy, who drives telephone fraudsters to despair through endless conversations, the second-generation Telekom AI honeypots, based on the open source platform Beelzebub, now react as if the hacker’s request had been successful and evaluate their actions in parallel. According to Telekom, this also provides data on the attackers’ tactics and tools.

However, AI is not only intended to provide more security in the network, but also to ensure efficient and smooth operation. To this end, Deutsche Telekom says it is working with Google Cloud to develop a “RAN Guardian Agent”. The multimodal AI assistant, which is based on Gemini 2.0, should be able to

• analyze network behavior in real time,
• Recognize anomalies and
• take self-healing measures if necessary in order to optimize network performance.

According to Nemat, the adjustments are so granular that humans would not be able to make them on their own.

The WLAN becomes an alarm system

Telekom also presented WiFi Sensing in Barcelona. With this technology, which is supported from Wi-Fi 7 onwards, algorithms analyze the Wi-Fi signals between the access point and Wi-Fi-enabled devices and detect when something changes. Thanks to machine learning, the technology can even distinguish whether a child, an adult or a pet is moving through the room. In contrast to the use of cameras, privacy is protected: Wi-Fi sensing also penetrates walls.

One possible scenario for Wi-Fi sensing is that movement in an empty home – in the event of a break-in, for example – triggers an alarm. In a smart home, the router could detect that everyone has left the home and trigger the heating to be turned down accordingly.

It is currently not known when corresponding applications will be available for Deutsche Telekom Speedport routers.

The notion of responsive platform security on Apple devices becomes far more profound now that Jamf, a leading device management and security vendor in the space, has agreed to acquire Identity Automation, an education-focused dynamic identity and access management (IAM) platform, for around $215 million.

What’s interesting about this deal is that the combined technologies should allow Jamf to support dynamic identity and access scenarios in a variety of industries.

Some, such as education, healthcare retail, aviation, and field engineering, are frequently characterized by rapidly changing roles, teams, schedules, and location, and require dynamic adjustment of security policy to support workers in what they do. Student roles and access frequently change based on class, grade, school, and district, for example, while air crews might require secure access to company resources from rapidly changing geographies.

Making identity and access dynamic

Identity Automation’s platform automates identity and access management workflows, which enables IT to more easily support security in such situations. The acquisition means Jamf can combine identity and device access in its software, further empowering Apple-based IT admins with what appears to be an initial focus on the education sector, where roles are particularly dynamic. 

It’s important to understand that education IT frequently finds itself provisioning tens of thousands of devices in a very short time, particularly at the start of each semester. In that context, tools like these could prove invaluable. Identity Automation CEO Jim Harold, explained: “An intuitive user experience is essential to ensuring technology enhances rather than hinders the classroom experience.”

Said Jamf CEO John Strosahl: “By bringing our security solutions together, we’re creating a more streamlined and user-friendly experience that enables fast, dynamic access to all the resources users need to be productive. We see the huge potential to help organizations that have a shared-device model, deskless workers, temporary staff, or contractors. By removing cumbersome onboarding and off-boarding processes, users can be productive as soon as they pick up a device.”

How Identity Automation works

Identity Automation offers its service through a cloud-based platform and includes tools for managing identity lifecycles, governance, and authentication:

• Identity Lifecycle Management: End-to-end lifecycle management automates provisioning, role assignments, and de-provisioning with real-time updates from HR systems.
• Access Governance: Policy-driven configurations control who has access to systems and data.
• Authentication: Customizable, multi-factor authentication policies handle role-based access, Single Sign-On (SSO), and rostering capabilities.

What makes the acquisition more interesting is that the tech can also integrate with other identity and SSO solutions, including those from Okta, Clever, and ClassLink. It will integrate with Microsoft Active Directory (AD) for authentication and MFA, and enable federation and SSO access for Google’s cloud-based applications.

In other words, bringing this technology into the Jamf fold means it will be available to a range of users for use in numerous deployment models.

It’s also logical to think it might eventually give Jamf additional reach into international markets, given that Identity Management’s RapidIdentity service is adopted nationally in Norway.

Why does this matter?

Accelerating technological change and the implications of increasingly mobile workforces and AI-driven business processes imply that security provisioning must itself become a business-enabling tech, not just a security requirement.

Combined with Declarative Device Management and No Trust, IAM systems that enable dynamic and responsive access and identity management should help support fast-changing business environments, particularly when the threat landscape is becoming more hostile by the day.

That Mac, iPhone, and iPad users can expect to be peer players in this evolution of device management also reflects Apple’s growing status in the enterprise. Would this have been true on the launch of the original iMac? Almost certainly not.

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Monitoring of both remote and in-office employees is at an all-time high, a trend highlighted by federal workers being told to report their weekly accomplishments.

A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that 80% of companies are monitoring remote or hybrid workers. Specialized software can track online activity, location, and even behaviors such as keystrokes and tone in communications — often without workers’ knowledge.

“There’s been a breakdown of trust” said Brent Cassell, a vice president in Gartner Research’s HR advisory group. “You’ve got situation where only about 52% of employees say they trust their organization and 63% of employers trust employees. It’s a faceoff.”

Gartner estimates that 71% of employees are digitally monitored, up 30% from a year ago. In fact, remote employee monitoring is “quickly becoming a multi-billion dollar market,” Cassell said.

According to videoconferencing vendor Owl Labs, nearly half of employees (46%) surveyed last year said their employers added or increased the use of employee tracking software to gather data about various activities in the previous 12 months. One likely reason: because return-to-office (RTO) mandates alone aren’t working, with managers hesitant to enforce them on employees who prioritize the flexibility to work where they’re most productive.

“One of the biggest drawbacks to employee monitoring and tracking is that it erodes employees’ trust,” said Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt.” The manager-employee power dynamic is undergoing a major shift, with 92% of employees now valuing supportive management almost as highly as pay. In 2025, a ‘green flag boss’ is a key recruiting differentiator, pushing companies to prioritize management training to retain talent.”

Poor management, especially for Gen Z workers, can lead to bad social media publicity. More than a third of US workers (34%), including 48% of Gen Z employees, have posted complaints about their jobs, Weishaupt said.

According to a recent report by ExpressVPN, an online privacy and security provider, 74% of employers now deploy online monitoring tools. Another 67% use biometric methods, including facial recognition and fingerprints, to ensure employees are on the job. Those figures are roughly in line with what a 2022 New York Times investigation found: eight of the 10 largest US private companies track productivity, often in real time.

Gartner’s report showed corporate managers still depend on monitoring systems to trust employees. According to the latest Gartner data, only 42% of HR leaders agree their organization trusts employees to complete their work without being monitored.

Gartner

Cassell said his son’s middle school monitors its students so teachers can always see what’s on their tablet screens. “It’s interesting to me that the approach used to monitor seventh and eighth graders at my son’s middle school…is being adopted for managing adults in large organizations,” Cassell said. “It feels odd to treat grown professionals the same way.”

The increase in monitoring, however, is not surprising, Cassell and others noted.

“Leaders and managers want to make sure their workers are being productive, regardless of where they’re located,” said Helen Poitevin, a distinguished vice president analyst at Gartner.

Monitoring increases worker stress

The constant oversight is stressing workers. In a survey of 1,500 US-based employers and 1,500 workers by ExpressVPN, 24% said they take fewer breaks to avoid looking idle, while 32% feel pressured to work faster. In response, 16% fake productivity with unnecessary apps, 15% schedule emails, and 12% use tools to evade detection. Nearly half (49%) would consider leaving if surveillance increased, with 24% willing to accept a pay cut to avoid it.

“Surveillance may seem like a solution for improving efficiency, but it’s clearly eroding trust and morale in the workplace,” said Lauren Hendry Parsons, ExpressVPN’s Digital Privacy Advocate. “As companies adopt increasingly invasive tools, they risk losing the loyalty and well-being of their workforce.”

According to the ExpressVPN survey, significant growth has occurred in electronic, physical and AI-enabled tracking tools:

• Online tracking tools: 74% of companies use software to log web browsing (62%) and track screens in real time (59%).
• Physical surveillance: 75% monitor employees in the office with video surveillance (69%) and biometric access controls (58%).
• AI-driven productivity metrics: 61% use artificial intelligence to evaluate employee performance.

If employee monitoring practices are not communicated transparently by employers, worker trust can erode, according to Gartner Research. That not only affects employee retention; it hurts productivity. In low-trust organizations, only 17% of employees bring new ideas to their managers, compared to 70% in high-trust organizations, the researcher said.

Gartner in 2022 found that the number of large enterprises using tools to track their workers had doubled since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gartner

Monitoring can reduce productivity

Watching employees too closely can actually make them more likely to break the rules, because they feel like they have no control over their actions, said David Welsh, a professor at Arizona State University who researches organizational and behavioral ethics.

For example, forced back into the office, many employees have admitted to showing up for just a few hours — enough time to swipe in with their employee badge, have a cup of coffee, and be seen in the workplace — then heading back home to do their work, according to one study. Known as “coffee badging,” the trend showed up on a survey of 2,000 full-time US workers conducted by videoconferencing tech vendor Owl Labs.

“However, if a company treats employees fairly and explains why monitoring is used, people are less likely to react negatively,” said Welsh, who published a study on employee monitoring.

To make monitoring work without causing productivity and attrition problems, “businesses should focus on fairness, trust, and giving employees a sense of control,” he said.

According to Owl Labs, 86% of employees think companies should be legally required to disclose tracking practices. In its 2024 worker survey, employees said they now value flexible hours almost as much as healthcare — 28% vs. 29%, respectively — highlighting the importance of autonomy, according to Weishaupt. Strong manager-employee relationships are key to better retention and engagement, he said.

According to ExpressVPN, 86% of employers do disclose their surveillance practices, but that hasn’t eased employee concerns. More than 77% of workers believe companies should be legally required to disclose all forms of monitoring, while 78% support stricter federal and state regulations.

“Employees are demanding accountability, transparency, and respect for their privacy,” added Hendry Parsons. “Employers must strike a balance between oversight and autonomy — or risk alienating the very people who drive their success.”

Despite the misconception that remote work reduces productivity, Gartner research said 55% of employees with flexible work options are high performers, compared to 36% in traditional 9-to-5 office roles.

Employee monitoring technologies collect data to generate insights and reports, but measuring “productivity” is complex and context dependent. These tools often track time spent on tasks, which doesn’t always reflect performance, Gartner said. While there are risks, they can improve employee experience and productivity — when used properly.

Can employing monitoring be done right?

Monitoring isn’t “inherently bad,” according to Cassell. If organizations are transparent about what data they collect, why they collect it, and how it can help employees, most will be more accepting.

“The key is trust — organizations need to earn employees’ trust by clearly explaining the purpose and benefits of monitoring,” Cassell said. “When done right, employees may not fully embrace it, but they’ll be more comfortable with it.”

Truckers, for example, are routinely monitored by the employers to ensure time management principles, record accidents, and ensure driver safety. Knowledge workers at desk jobs can also benefit from monitoring, Cassell said, as it can help them meet deadlines and keep up with business goals.

For example, Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform designed to help organizations improve employee engagement, well-being, learning, and productivity. If a company tracks an employee’s work but also offers productivity tips to help them improve, and the data isn’t used punitively, “employees are more likely to accept it,” Cassell said.

Many workers feel uninformed about how the monitoring data is used. According to Gartner, 41% report no communication about data collection, and even when communicated, clarity is often poor. Transparency about what data is collected, why, and who has access to it can build trust and boost employee engagement.

To ensure a successful implementation, HR leaders should tailor communication to different roles, account for geographic differences, and engage individual managers, according to Gartner.

While monitoring performance isn’t new, hybrid work has amplified concerns about its ethical implications and the potential for creating a toxic work environment if done poorly.

“Organizations have to trust their employees before their employees trust them,” Cassell said. “One way that they can do that is letting them know what they’re doing and why and how it benefits them. And when they do that, what we find is employees are maybe not entirely okay with it, but they are more okay with it than they otherwise would be.”

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has claimed its V3 and R1 models achieve a theoretical daily cost-profit ratio of 545%, highlighting cost implications for enterprises adopting similar models from other cloud providers.

In a GitHub post published over the weekend, DeepSeek estimated its daily inference cost for V3 and R1 models at $87,072, assuming a $2 per hour rental for Nvidia’s H800 chips.

Theoretical daily revenue was pegged at $562,027, implying a 545% cost-profit ratio and over $200 million in potential annual revenue.

[ Related: More DeepSeek news and analysis ]

However, the company noted actual earnings are significantly lower due to free web and app access, lower V3 model costs, and discounted developer rates during off-peak hours.

This is the first time the Hangzhou-based company has disclosed profit margins from inference tasks, where trained AI models generate responses or perform functions like chatbot interactions.

Authenticity and enterprise impact

Analysts say DeepSeek’s focus on scalability and efficiency is notable, but caution that it is too early to view its claims as an industry benchmark applicable to companies in or outside China.

“Also, in theory versus practice, there is a significant difference, as cost metrics are also highly subjective to geography, resources, and revenue generation,” said Neil Shah, partner & co-founder at Counterpoint Research. “However, we don’t know the purpose of these public claims, but they will definitely put pressure on Western companies to at least reveal and/or internally optimize their costs.”

If accurate, DeepSeek’s profitability despite deep discounts would signal a sustainable low-cost AI model, potentially pressuring rivals to cut prices while prompting enterprises to reassess vendor choices and long-term AI strategies.

“There are no US-based AI firms of scale that are profitable right now,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and chief analyst at Amalgam Insights. “Open AI is not even close and both Microsoft and Google are spending billions of dollars to enter the market.”

Park noted that while DeepSeek’s figures are theoretical and difficult to verify, one thing is clear – DeepSeek has massively reduced the cost of inference.

“DeepSeek’s AI models, when hosted on established cloud platforms such as AWS and Microsoft Azure, can offer enterprises a balance of performance, governance, and affordability,” said Abhiram Srivasta, senior analyst at Everest Group. “These models are reportedly more cost-efficient than those from leading US AI firms, requiring significantly less compute power, which translates to lower operational costs.” 

Threat to US companies

DeepSeek’s claims of cost efficiency and its open-source approach could intensify competition in the AI market, particularly for US firms investing heavily in proprietary models.

The company currently offers its models as open source, allowing US-based enterprises to audit and modify them.

As long as the deployment does not rely on Chinese-hosted infrastructure, there may not be any significant barriers to global adoption. “Given that many current models are good enough for established generative AI use cases, DeepSeek is absolutely a threat to US based AI model builders,” Park said. “AI developers, focusing on theoretical artificial general intelligence are likely to be quickly surpassed by those making more practical agentic models that can get work done and provide interaction visibility.”