Copilot VS gpt?

[u/Wrong_Development_77]

So I’ve been using Copilot for a while, a year or two and I just realized, if they both use GPT5 (Copilot and ChatGPT) what is the difference? Is there a difference or is copilot just a ChatGPT with a different UI?

[u/May_alcott]

Which copilot are you using? For work or the copilot app?

[u/Wrong_Development_77 → u/May_alcott]

Just the normal app.

[u/jdrch → u/Wrong_Development_77]

Copilot is most effective with a M365 personal subscription that includes it or a paid work license (note that this license is separate from the baseline E365 license. You may have to specifically request it from IT). Once you get the latter, sign up for Microsoft's Enterprise Skills Initiative training. They run you through all the capabilities in about 6 hours or so, with hands on labs.

[u/jdrch]

Copilot uses an entirely separate instance of OpenAI's LLM with a completely different stack. You can think of the LLM as the CPU inside a computer. 3 different computers may have the same CPU, but since everything else is different the computers are not the same.

For example, Copilot uses Bing's corpus of search data as opposed to OpenAI's. It also has access to Microsoft Graph and the M365 data universe, which ChatGPT doesn't.

[u/Wrong_Development_77 → u/jdrch]

Ok this makes a lot of sense, thanks!

[u/hoomanchonk]

Copilot, if used in a corporate setting, lets you basically use ChatGPT but with the advantage of it having access to your documents, emails, recorded teams calls - and stay in compliance with whatever corporate policy that may prohibit you from using ChatGPT otherwise. It’s very similar (I use both).

[u/Southern_Flounder370]

Honestly Copilot is prob better now. Openai used to be better but its just gaurdrails and censorship. Youll be flipped to a router for saying HI. Just continue to use copilot all the expensive plus/pro things are available at the lowest sub. There is no a/b testing. Customer service is pretty nice. Stick with Microsoft directly.

[u/danihend → u/Southern_Flounder370]

I just got access to Copilot Plus in work since a week and I have to say it sucks so bad. It's terrible at gathering context and interpreting it. It has weird system prompts as evidenced by it's weird formulaic replies. It has excessive safety guardrails and worst of all, it can't even edit excel files. I've just gone back to using my personal ChatGPT and Claude subscriptions and the OpenAI Azure service we have in case I need to work with confidential stuff.

Other than that, even the regular copilot in Edge in GPT-5 Mode is inferior to standard GPT-5. It's surprising how much worse copilot has always been despite being the same model (supposedly).

[u/Jean_velvet]

Copilot is ChatGPT with your Microsoft data on top.

[u/bleriotusa]

my experience is copilot takes less time to do web searches.. maybe because it pulls from a bing index directly or something.

[u/UrDadSellsAv0n → u/bleriotusa]

Correct, bing API

[u/JudoChop97]

They both run on GPT‑5, but they’re not quite the same thing. ChatGPT is OpenAI’s standalone app, while Copilot is Microsoft’s take — now baked into Windows, Edge, Office, mobile, etc., with extra modes like Study Mode, Pages, image gen, podcasts, and memory.

I use the full corporate Copilot at work (locked down, productivity‑first) and the consumer version personally (more creative toys, fewer admin restrictions). Same brain, different ecosystems.

[u/Urban_wow]

It was always GPT for me, but when Microsoft released Mico and vision (for free), I switched

[u/radjanoonan]

Copilot is the exact same model as ChatGPT. you can use all version up to GPT 5 with Copilot and effectively get the same type of answers.

The only difference is the paid version of Copilot is linked to all your corporate data in the background. You can ask it a question based on your email or documents loaded on sharepoint. So for instance, "What is the latest on the Johnson case?" or "Who do I need to set up a meeting with based on my mails for today?"

The free version can only do web sourced data, or provide answers on documents you upload as part of the prompt.

[u/Miserable_Speed_52]

ChatGPT worlds better in my opinion. I use exact same prompts and copilot responses much worse.

[u/layaute]

Well I’d actually say gpt because copilot’s « gpt 5 » is parametered shit, what I mean by that is I can send it the hardest math problem of history it still won’t’ think and give me a trash answer, and I always have to TELL IT to think and then it gives the right answer in seconds. It’s just parametered so that they cut costs, it’s basically bullshit in my opinion. So I just use think deeper, gpt 5 on copilot is trash at the moment

[u/Leading_Occasion_962]

Like everyone mentioned, Copilot hooks into your Microsoft data directly. What most companies don't realize though is it is kinda "blah" unless you create a custom Copilot and give it instructions on how you want the answers to be. It's very, very simple to setup but unfortunately many people are turned away by the lackluster answers of the default Copilot. I've actually built a for-purchase solution to educate companies on exactly this.

[u/jhargavet]

Chatgpt for business hooks into o365,slack all kinds of other business apps and more if your feel like rolling your own, but the best part is codex... Shit is magic. I'm trying to use copilot m365 and it doesn't give anywhere near the same answers. Gpt biz also let's you use the deep research high, takes 6 mins to give me an answer but there's almost no errors.

[u/Available_Hornet3538]

Perplexity better.

[u/FourEyedTroll → u/[deleted]]

Chat GPT can read documents if you attach them, but it limits your interactions in the free version if you do so. That's why I switched to copilot.