- Perspectives on Power Platform
- Posts
- Weekly perspectives: why AI chatbots can't replace search
Weekly perspectives: why AI chatbots can't replace search
Roles of Copilot vs. Search in a Microsoft 365 tenant. The enshittification of Google search and the rise of alternative search engines.
Jukka Niiranen
December 05, 2024
A warm welcome to the new Perspectives Plus subscribers! Here’s the exclusive weekly perspectives issue of my newsletter that will provide a look inside the mind of a maniac person endlessly intrigued by Power Platform. 😁
This time, as it recently has often been the case, my attention is on generative AI. As we’re being told that AI agents will soon be autonomously working for us, taking care of tasks we used to manually perform, it’s easy to think that they must already be good at the basic stuff. Like searching for information.
My “agents” in action
Personally, I pay for both ChatGPT Plus and Microsoft 365 Copilot. I use the former a lot, the latter not that much. However, I’m far from a typical customer, since as of right now I’m the only active user in my M365 tenant. Then again, I do have years & years worth of documents on my OneDrive for Copilot to chew on. As well as Outlook emails from having been on the Microsoft MVP mailing lists for quite some time.
Based on my experience, having historical data with a decade’s worth of Microsoft CRM and Power Platform related information available for MS Graph does not make Copilot smart. On the contrary, in my case it has so much data (files, documents) yet so few interactions that prioritizing relevant information seems impossible for it. The answers to my prompts will too often hit one random email or slide deck from a few years ago.
While technically valid suggestions, these are usually far from ideal picks. With the knowledge that I have built inside my head, I’m practically always able to outperform M365 Copilot via just using MS Search. I have a recollection that a piece of information exists somewhere in my tenant, then I just need the IT tools to help me narrow down the specific name and location of the item.
When I know what I’m looking for, Microsoft Search is better than Copilot.
GenAI is not a replacement for search, in the way that experienced information workers utilize search tools. Instead of having the AI agent pick out some matching item that it thinks might be the one, I want to see the process a step before this. I don’t trust the machine to have everything needed to make the right choice. If I’m able to browse and filter a list of possible hits, this is a far better UX for me to retrieve information.
