Microsoft Copilot: using images, audio, and video for smarter workflows.

Microsoft Copilot has become a true multimedia-first assistant, integrating images, audio, and video into daily workstreams across Windows, Microsoft 365, and all major mobile platforms. Recent upgrades—such as Copilot Vision, in-app video summarization, voice-driven chat, and in-chat image Q&A—make it possible for users to interact with visual and auditory data in ways that are both productive and contextually aware. This guide offers a complete overview of the most up-to-date multimedia features, explaining what’s available, where to find it, how each element works, and how these capabilities can transform complex workflows into seamless, efficient routines.

Copilot Vision transforms live context into actionable insights.

Copilot Vision is a major step forward for Windows 11 users. Launched in public preview in July 2025, this feature allows anyone on a Copilot-ready NPU device to share a live view of an application window, specific app, or their entire desktop environment with Copilot. Once active, Copilot can instantly analyze everything visible on screen using advanced on-device optical character recognition (OCR). The assistant can then extract text, numbers, or even tables from the pixels—making it easy to summarize, search, or copy content that would otherwise be locked inside images, PDFs, or screenshots.

Privacy and security are foundational to Copilot Vision’s architecture. The processing happens locally on your device; no screenshots or vision data leave your system unless you explicitly send a request for help or analysis. This means confidential information shown on screen remains protected unless you choose to submit it for Copilot processing. Vision features can be quickly turned on or off in Windows Settings → Privacy → Copilot Vision, so users and administrators maintain control.

Typical use cases include summarizing long PDFs, extracting key points from meeting minutes shown in a browser, or collecting numbers from an unstructured report with zero manual copying or re-typing.

Semantic image and document search simplifies file discovery.

With the Semantic Search update, released to Windows Insider users on August 18, 2025, Copilot now supports natural-language search for files and images stored locally. Instead of typing file names or sifting through folders, you can now ask questions like “Show me all the receipts from my Tokyo trip” or “Find diagrams related to quarterly forecasts”, and Copilot will understand your request, then scan and rank relevant documents, images, or screenshots based on content rather than just filenames.

How it works: Copilot’s semantic models embed both text and image data so that search queries recognize meaning and context, not just literal terms. The index is built on Recent and Indexed folders; your private files are never uploaded to the cloud unless you make an explicit Copilot request to analyze or share something.

This new approach vastly accelerates project research, expense reporting, and historical data mining, especially when handling large, unorganized image libraries or folders full of scanned documents.

Image uploads unlock vision-powered answers inside Copilot Chat.

A major advance for both enterprise and personal users is Copilot’s new ability to handle image uploads across several interfaces: web browsers, mobile apps, and Copilot Studio agents.

Surface	Availability	Image Size Limit	Typical Use Cases
Copilot Chat (web)	Live as of August 2025	15 MB	Summarizing diagrams, extracting text from slides, or identifying schematic errors.
Copilot Chat (mobile)	Live	5 MB	Counting objects, scanning handwritten notes, or pulling structured data from receipts.
Copilot Studio agents	GA 6 Aug 2025	25 MB	Custom agents that use vision APIs to return JSON with detected entities, numbers, or tags.

Administrative controls are available: organization administrators can toggle image analysis capabilities on or off at the environment or tenant level using Copilot Studio admin tools.

The vision Q&A function enables users to upload an image and ask direct questions, such as “How many defects are present?” or “Summarize the key data in this slide.” Copilot processes the visual input, runs its vision models, and returns concise, actionable results—greatly reducing the manual labor of counting, summarizing, or copying from images.

Video summarization builds faster understanding from long recordings.

Microsoft has made major progress with video analysis in Copilot, specifically through its tight integration with Microsoft Stream. Users can upload or link any recorded meeting, presentation, or training session, and Copilot will automatically generate both a chapter list and a bullet-point summary of the video’s content.

• Works on videos up to 2 hours long or 4 GB in size, including files in non-English languages (which are automatically translated and transcribed).

• Summaries and chapter lists appear directly within the Microsoft 365 interface, making it simple to browse long content, jump to key points, or extract highlights for reports.

This is an enormous time-saver for teams managing many meetings or training sessions. It transforms video content from a passive archive into a searchable, actionable knowledge source. Users can then export summaries directly into Word, share as an email, or attach to a Teams conversation for instant collaboration.

Voice chat brings real-time audio interaction to Copilot.

Copilot’s new voice mode, available on both iOS and Android as of August 2025, turns the assistant into a two-way conversational partner.

• Speech-to-text happens locally on the device for privacy and low latency; spoken queries are transcribed almost instantly.

• Copilot replies using streaming text-to-speech, so users hear responses as they’re generated—without waiting for the full answer to finish processing.

• Sessions support up to 90 seconds per utterance, and can continue indefinitely across multiple turns for extended conversations.

• Transcripts can be enabled or disabled in settings; users have full control over whether voice session logs are stored or deleted.

• Support for nine major languages at launch makes it practical for international and multilingual teams.

Voice chat is especially valuable in mobile-first scenarios: hands-free research, asking Copilot to summarize news while driving, or dictating content for fast capture without typing.

Designer integration brings advanced image generation.

Copilot Designer gives users access to state-of-the-art generative AI models (including DALL·E 3 and GPT-5 image models) for creative visual work.

• Users can generate original images from text prompts (e.g., “Draw a workflow diagram for software onboarding”), with outputs ready for professional use.

• In-chat editing tools allow quick adjustments: resize images, remove or replace backgrounds, recolor elements, or add new annotations on the fly.

• Every user receives 15 free image generations per day, with additional usage available as a paid, pay-as-you-go add-on.

• Integration with PowerPoint Copilot makes it possible to embed generated visuals directly into slides for seamless, visually engaging presentations.

Designer is particularly valuable for marketing, training, or content creation teams needing fast, tailored visuals without design bottlenecks.

Stream-to-Slides automatically converts video into presentations.

With the Stream-to-Slides feature, currently in targeted preview for PowerPoint Copilot, users can quickly convert video recordings into draft slide decks.

• Simply paste a video link from Microsoft Stream into PowerPoint, and Copilot automatically extracts key frames, writes captions, and suggests talking points based on the video’s content.

• A maximum of 10 slides per draft is generated, giving a strong foundation for presentations, training recaps, or project summaries.

This feature is a major time-saver for anyone tasked with converting meetings or lectures into structured, shareable presentations. Instead of reviewing hours of footage, users receive an editable draft in minutes.

Privacy and compliance stay central to multimedia features.

Microsoft Copilot’s multimedia features are designed for enterprise-grade privacy and regulatory compliance.

Feature	How Data is Handled	Admin/Org Controls
Copilot Vision	All processing local; no screen data leaves device unless user requests.	User and admin toggle in Windows Settings.
Image uploads	Stored securely; retained for 30 days unless user deletes chat/image.	Tenant or environment-level enable/disable in Copilot Studio admin center.
Video summarization	All processing within M365 environment, subject to existing DLP/retention policies.	Governed by enterprise policy.
EU tenants	All multimedia data is processed in-region if tenant locale is set to EU.	Set in Microsoft 365 compliance portal.

Each multimedia tier—vision, audio, video, or generative image—can be individually enabled or restricted to match organizational risk tolerance or compliance requirements.

Bringing multimedia workflows together.

Microsoft Copilot’s layered multimedia capabilities are engineered to work together, letting users switch seamlessly between images, audio, and video throughout their workflow.

Workflow Example	Copilot Features Involved	Practical Outcome
Product defect detection	Chat image Q&A + Studio agent JSON analysis	Structured defect logs for QA reporting.
Board meeting recap	Stream video summarization + Stream-to-Slides	Ready-to-share deck with timestamps.
Research assistant	Semantic desktop search + Copilot Vision OCR	Summarized data from PDFs, scanned docs.
Marketing material creation	Designer + PowerPoint Copilot	Custom visuals in branded slide templates.

As these tools mature, Copilot is increasingly able to automate tasks that once required a patchwork of third-party apps or manual effort, all while maintaining compliance and security.

Microsoft Copilot now offers a fully integrated multimedia assistant experience—from live image and video analysis to voice-driven conversations and image generation—all governed by robust privacy, compliance, and admin controls. This combination is transforming the way teams and individuals capture, process, and present information across the entire Microsoft ecosystem.

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