Microsoft hopes Android users will ditch Chrome for Edge by enabling Copilot
The Android app version of Microsoft’s web browser Edge has received an optional upgrade that includes better Copilot support for images.
Windows Copilot, which Microsoft is marketing as a revolutionary general-purpose digital assistant powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has been integrated into the Edge browser for some time now, on both desktop and Android smartphones and tablets. Copilot and the Edge browser in Windows 11 recently received another image-related upgrade, with users now able to take a screenshot of their screen and talk to Copilot or Edge about it.
The Edge app on Android now also has new optional Copilot capabilities: you can “Ask Copilot” for an image while using the browser and Copilot can “Generate AI images.” Microsoft has tentatively named this development of new features “Mobile Copilot Chat with Images”.
Reinforce edge
The availability of Copilot in the Edge browser is not only limited to Android devices, but is also available on iOS devices. However, on Android, Edge can summarize videos in quick mode and summarize PDF files. It also supports chat plugins that can be used to create songs, and can perform most of the functions that the desktop version of Copilot can do.
You can ask Copilot to summarize articles and stories and generate unique images, as it is equipped with OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 image generation technology. You can talk to Copilot and ask for an image by uploading an image and clicking the “Add an Image” button at the bottom of the right Copilot panel. You can also copy and paste an image or image link directly into Copilot in Edge on the desktop and discuss it with Copilot. We have word that this level of versatility is coming to Android as well.
A word of caution, though: I wasn’t able to get this feature working on a freshly downloaded version of Edge, but it may work for you. This is also an experimental feature that may lose your browsing data and compromise your security or privacy. You will be warned about this when you go to edge://flags.
If you have Edge for Android downloaded, you may be able to enable this feature as follows:
- Launch Edge for Android and make sure you have the latest version.
- Go to edge://flags (this is the desired folder page).
- Search or search for “Mobile Copilot” and enable the Mobile Copilot Chat with image flag
- Restart the Edge app.
- Go to a web page with an image, select and hold the image (“right-click” on Android devices) to display the right-click menu of actions for the image.
- Select Ask Copilot or Generate AI images.
- This should show the image you selected in a Copilot chat window. You can then ask Copilot for the image or ask Copilot to generate the AI version of the image you selected.
We may be about to see “Generate AI Images” as a separate and simpler feature in the future (without having to ask for or open Copilot separately), but that will have to come in an Edge for Android update that will come at a later date. .
It offers yet another way to take advantage of Copilot and GPT technology while using your Android device, helping Copilot deliver on Microsoft’s big promises piece by piece. It makes Copilot more versatile, accessible, and convenient to use, and I could see myself using this in the future if it’s included in an Edge for Android update, while hopefully making it a little less risky (at least for my taste).
Microsoft also certainly hopes that these new Copilot features for the Edge mobile app will help more people switch from Google Chrome, the default web browser for Android devices.
Through MSPowerUser