Topics Answered in this Article
What is UT Verse and when should I use it?
What can Microsoft Copilot help me with?
Can I use Copilot for university research or proprietary data?
How do I get Copilot in Word, Excel, and Teams?
Do I need the desktop version of Office to use Copilot?
What extra features does Teams Premium offer?
Coming Soon
The UT AI Hub
We are excited to share that the UT AI Hub will launch in late March and serve as a comprehensive platform providing access to full versions of the four leading large language models: ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, and Claude. This hub will provide our community with unprecedented flexibility to choose the most appropriate AI tool for specific tasks and preferences.
Current Features
UT Verse
The UT Verse is a chat-based, AI-powered platform specific to the University of Tennessee community. This is UT’s generative AI chat, where you can have AI conversations about topics geared toward our internal audiences, university business, and research. Use UT Verse for your UT-specific AI conversations, including conversations about your research and proprietary university data.
Microsoft Copilot Chat
Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered platform that searches for information, creates content, and communicates with others. It will provide relevant and up-to-date results from various sources, generate original and engaging content, and assist with writing & editing your content. Bing Chat Enterprise will also help in locating additional information on your topic. Use Microsoft Copilot for general AI conversations that do not include conversations about your research or proprietary university data. You can write prompts for creating assignments, media campaigns, looking up Excel commands, and more.
Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft Applications
The version of Copilot that directly integrates with Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is now available for an annual fee. Licensing costs and the purchase form are available at tiny.utk.edu/ms-license.
Teams Premium
Teams Premium builds on the standard Teams experience by introducing advanced features that support a more productive and secure collaboration environment. It benefits faculty and staff managing large meetings, virtual appointments, or webinars. The original announcement is online at oit.utk.edu/news/microsoft-teams-premium-coming-march-3/.
Key Features
- AI-Powered Meetings: Automatically generates meeting notes, recommended tasks, and personalized highlights—even if you miss the meeting.
- Customization: Offers branded meetings, organizational backgrounds, and personalized webinar experiences.
- Advanced Security: Includes watermarks, sensitivity labels, end-to-end encryption, and controls over who can record.
- Virtual Appointments: Streamlines appointment management and provides analytics to track performance.
- Immersive Experiences: Supports town halls, onboarding, and other large-scale events with Microsoft Mesh 3D environments.
Key Points about Microsoft Copilot and the Office Desktop Apps
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 works inside the Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams).
- Copilot is not a standalone desktop app you download separately. It’s integrated into Microsoft 365 apps.
- If you only have access to the web versions of Office apps, you’ll see Copilot in the browser experience, but some advanced features require the desktop apps.
- The version of Copilot that directly integrates with the desktop apps for Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is available for an additional annual fee. Licensing costs and the purchase form are available at tiny.utk.edu/ms-license.