An AI assistant in Edge: the Copilot mode analyzes web navigation to answer your questions

Web browsers are likely at the dawn of a profound transformation. With Comet, Perplexity has started the trend of AI-infused search engines; it will (surely) be followed by OpenAI's own browser. And Edge already proposes Max…

Edge becomes a personalized navigation assistant

Generative AI adds an additional layer to the navigation experience, analyzing the content of web pages (text and images) and the tabs visited by the user. This allows browsers to answer questions or perform tasks based on the information consulted.

This is the case with the « Copilot mode » of Edge, presented by Microsoft as an experimental mode. The feature is optional and is not enabled by default, but it's certain that if the feedback is positive, the publisher will do everything possible to promote it among users.

Edge can thus « see » the tabs to understand the navigation context. Armed with this information, the software can make better comparisons (for example, hotels or restaurants). Microsoft gives this example: Copilot can quickly identify the summer resort closest to the beach and with a full kitchen, when searching for vacation rentals across multiple sites.

Copilot can also detect the most important information on a webpage, such as the ingredients of a recipe, and list them simply without having to deal with the creator's childhood memories.

The company also promises soon to provide Copilot access to an « expanded context » (history or identifiers, beware of data security! ) to perform more advanced actions such as restaurant table reservations or task management.