UVA provides access to CoPilot Chat Pro through an enterprise edition and ensures that the tool meets the privacy and security requirements set by the University.
As stated on the ITS website, the "enterprise version operates within UVA’s secure environment, using data only to generate responses. Your account can only access information for which you have permissions. Data is not retained or used for training AI models." View Microsoft’s Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 documentation.
Microsoft Copilot is a LLM chatbot similar to ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude that allows you to engage with the AI through natural language prompts to do a wide range of tasks. Read more about Copilot Chat.
The first point of confusion of all of Microsoft's AI tools is there are a lot of copilots. Microsoft currently (as of August 2024), has 116 different copilot AI tools available that are tailored to different needs and applications. For instance, there are Copilots integrated into Microsoft Office applications like Word, and Excel, helping you write and analyze data. There’s also Copilot for GitHub, which assists developers by suggesting code snippets and helping with debugging.
To log into Copilot Chat using your UVA credentials, use the UVA ITS page for Generative AI Tools.
This page also has a useful FAQ if you run into any problems.
The easiest way to know that you're using the Pro and protected version of Copilot Chat is to check the upper right-hand corner of the page. It should feature your UVA email and a green shield icon that shares that you're using the protected version of Copilot Chat.
ITS has reported some hiccups with logging into the UVA licensed Copilot Chat. If you find after signing in, that you don't see your email or the green protected icon, here are our best tips:
We did find that logging in worked consistently in Microsoft Edge if you want to use that browser.