Nifty Copilot alternatives that add AI to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Microsoft is currently focusing significant financial and human resources on the development of its AI assistant Copilot and its integration into Windows and Microsoft 365 applications. The company sees this as an opportunity to set itself apart from the competition of Libre Office and Google.

Today, users have several alternatives for AI support in Office. This is because ChatGPT from OpenAI, the software that triggered the AI hype, is also suitable for office tasks in conjunction with Word, Excel, and others.

Independent developers provide add-ons that allow you to integrate ChatGPT directly into Word so that you always have it at hand.

At the same time, there are AI systems, especially from American providers, that help you create presentations online. These presentations can then be downloaded and in many cases converted into PowerPoint format PPTX.

ChatGPT for the online versions of Word & Co.

The best alternative to Microsoft Copilot is still ChatGPT. Many users utilize this AI system by drafting texts in Word or Outlook and then copying them via the clipboard into the ChatGPT window and editing them there. They then copy the texts back into the original application.

There is an easier way, especially for users who work with the online version of Microsoft’s Office package. Depending on the browser used, they can either integrate ChatGPT directly or install an extension for this purpose.

Users of the Chromium browser Vivaldi can take advantage of a special feature of the software: Vivaldi is able to display browser tabs within its main window as resizable tiles. After clicking on the rectangle symbol in the lower browser bar, they can be arranged next to or on top of each other or in a grid view.

The solution in this case is as follows: You open the online version of Word or Excel in Vivaldi and then open ChatGPT on a second tile or in a second tab. In this way, you can quickly copy texts into the AI for editing and continue working with the results.

But users of other browsers are not left empty-handed either. If you work with a Chromium browser such as Google Chrome, the ChatGPT Side Panel extension is suitable for you. It installs a sidebar in Chrome and opens the ChatGPT website in it. The same is also available for the Firefox browser with ChatGPT Side Bar for Firefox.

Further reading: The AI PC revolution: 18 essential terms you need to know

Simplify copying to ChatGPT in Word

What works online can also be implemented with the desktop versions of Word and Excel. For example, there is an add-on that makes the time-consuming task of copying longer Word texts to ChatGPT easier. There is one restriction when using the AI: It only accepts entries of a maximum of around 15,000 characters.

This restriction applies to both the free and the commercial version. If you want to edit longer texts, you have to send them to ChatGPT in several portions via the clipboard. You also need to customize the prompt so that the system waits for the remaining parts.

Both tasks can be made easier with the free Word-to-ChatGPT tool from the manufacturer SmartTools. It divides longer texts into several sections at the click of a mouse and formulates suitable prompts that inform ChatGPT that further parts are to follow or that the transmission is now complete.

Word: Send texts directly to ChatGPT

ChatGPT-Assistant is another free add-on from the same manufacturer, the German company SmartTools. It provides Word with a sidebar on the right-hand side and allows you to transfer an entire document or a selected section of text directly to ChatGPT.

To do this, it uses the ChatGPT API, an interface that you have to register with ChatGPT to use free of charge. You then generate an API key on the AI system’s website, which you copy into a field in ChatGPT Assistant. The tool then uses this information to automatically establish a connection to the AI.

Note: Registration for the ChatGPT-API is free, but you have to pay to use it. You are charged for the amount of text that ChatGPT receives from you via the interface. However, the costs are very low. According to the author of ChatGPT-Assistant, 23,000 characters cost around 2 cents, and shorter texts are charged at an even lower rate.

In addition, every user receives a credit of 5 US dollars after registering with ChatGPT, which you can use to try out ChatGPT-Assistant, for example. However, if it is not used, this credit expires after a certain period of time.

The add-on tool GPT for Excel Word also requires an API key, the use of which is then billed to ChatGPT. Similar to the ChatGPT Assistant, it adds a new sidebar to Word and Excel.

As soon as you have generated the key code and entered it in the add-on, you can send the entire document or selected parts of it to the AI for editing. The add-on supports you by displaying some standard commands such as “Translate” or “Summarize” as buttons.

Further reading: 9 free AI tools that run locally on your PC

ChatGPT for Excel

The Copilot for Excel still looks rather unfinished. But even the support for using ChatGPT with the spreadsheet is not a convincing alternative.

On the one hand, there are practical reasons for this: Since Excel and the free ChatGPT only exchange their data via clipboard, direct control of the spreadsheet by the AI is not possible. However, you can ask ChatGPT questions about Excel, for example about a specific function. However, this is also possible with Google and is faster and easier, at least in some cases.

The AI also accepts complete tables, in the paid version even as CSV or XLSX files, and searches for specific information. Some online tools such as AskCSV, ChatCSV, or Chat2CSV also offer the same service.

However, they also work with subscription models and therefore offer no real advantage over the original ChatGPT, especially as the typical errors of generative AI are often even more serious when dealing with tables than with texts.

ChatGPT for Excel is available as an add-on, which takes a completely different approach to the add-ons already presented. Instead of forwarding the user’s questions and commands to the AI and returning the answers, it offers seven of its own Excel AI functions that you can use to edit your spreadsheet.

For example, you can use AI.Translate to translate table texts into other languages, AI.Format to implement standardized formatting, or AI.List to create output lists for multiple rows. The first 50 calls of the AI are free, after that you have to subscribe to the tool.

The add-on is helpful when it comes to quickly analyzing a table. However, although the seven functions provided are sufficient in many cases, they do not come close to the range of functions of Copilot or the original ChatGPT.

Create presentations with AI power

ChatGPT for PowerPoint is also available from the same company that wrote ChatGPT for Excel. The add-on opens a new sidebar in which you specify a topic, a text, or a YouTube video, and the software creates a presentation from it. It can also add speaker notes; however, this function is still in the beta stage.

In the free version, the presentation can contain up to seven slides and you can create a maximum of five presentations. In the Pro version for 9 dollars per month, you get up to 15 slides and an unlimited number of presentations.

As the slides are designed directly in PowerPoint, the result is a clean presentation in PPTX format. The next AI presentation program is different: although Gamma lets you save the finished slides in PDF or PPTX format, it adds a watermark to them in the free version.

Gamma is an online service with which you can create presentations, websites, or documents. You can specify your own texts or a topic or upload a finished presentation for editing. If you decide on a topic, Gamma suggests an outline that you can edit.

You can then select one of the design templates on offer or instruct the software to create a completely new one. Fonts, colors, and images can also be changed or adapted afterwards. Finally, the free version provides you with a presentation that can contain up to 10 slides.

As the use of the AI is also limited, the user can only create a limited number of presentations. In the Plus version for 8 dollars per month, this limitation no longer applies and no watermark is visible on the up to 15 slides.

A Pro version for 15 dollars per month allows up to 30 slides. The results are consistently better designed than with ChatGPT for PowerPoint. The texts are also more informative.

While ChatGPT for PowerPoint and Gamma focus their presentations on a user who wants to find out more about a topic, the online AI tool Sendsteps provides presentations that are designed to be given in front of an audience. In line with classic presentation rules, they primarily contain key points that the speaker fills with life.

The first presentation is free of charge, but the second presentation can contain a maximum of three slides. In both cases, Sendsteps adds branding to the slides, which is no longer included in the commercial subscription version.

This article originally appeared in the German publication PC-Welt.