How to enable new Copilot on Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word users can enable an early preview of Copilot, the new AI chatbot designed for Office apps and other products from Microsoft.

The experience is similar to Bing Chat, but this one is tailored to work tasks, helping users be more productive and use their time more efficiently. It appears in the sidebar of Office apps, which will work much like an assistant to help users generate content for documents, emails, presentations, and more.

In Word, users can ask Copilot to generate content on a certain topic or based on the content from another document, refine the content by asking the chatbot to do the writing and edit and adapt the content to make it theirs. The chatbot also checks for mistakes and makes suggestions based on users’ preferences to improve the crafting of the document.

As of now, it is unclear when Copilot will arrive to everyone, however, XenoPanther on Twitter has spotted an early preview of the feature hidden in the Microsoft Word Preview, which you can enable through the Registry. Copilot can also be enabled for Excel and OneNote.

Here is how to enable the new Copilot on Microsoft Word

Open Start > search for Registry Editor > click the Open button.

Navigate to the following path:

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\ExperimentConfigs\ExternalFeatureOverrides\word

How to enable new Copilot on Microsoft Word_1

Right-click the Word key > select the New menu > select the String Value option.
Name the key Microsoft.Office.Word.CoPilotExperiment > press Enter on the keyboard.
Double-click the newly created key and set its value to true > click the OK button.
Restart the computer.
When done, launch or re-open Microsoft Word (version 16.0.16325.2000), and the Copilot experience should appear on the right side.