An AI copilot is an AI assistant embedded in an application or workflow to help a person do their job. It suggests, drafts, summarises or finds information, but the person remains the decision-maker.
The copilot has access to the context of the tool it sits in, such as a document, a sales report or a customer record. It responds to requests in plain language, for example "summarise last week's sales by store", and may take small actions on approval. The term is also used as a product name by some vendors, so check what a specific product really does.
Managers might use a copilot to summarise reports, draft rosters, write product descriptions, answer policy questions or prepare supplier emails. Front-line staff may use one to look up product details or procedures during a shift.
Quality depends on the data and access it has. A copilot may produce confident but wrong answers, and it can expose information to people who should not see it if permissions are loose. Check what data it can read, whether prompts are used to train other models, and train staff to verify outputs.
It matters because copilots are often the easiest first step into AI: they need little change to how a team works and keep a person in charge.