AI Helpful Tips: Summarize documents with Copilot and Gemini

How can Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini help you save time? By summarizing documents! In higher education, we are often faced with reading overwhelming amounts of materials. Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini can quickly summarize lengthy articles and research papers into manageable summaries.

You can summarize information by pasting links, copying text, or uploading files to the bots. You can upload various file formats including: text files, Microsoft Word documents, PDF files, Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, and web pages. If you have a specific format or key points you want included in the summary, please include that information in the prompt. 

Let’s try it!

Let’s get the bot to summarize a recent article published in Inside Higher Education about FAFSA. 

1. Open the Google Gemini or Microsoft Copilot chatbot. 
2. Make sure you are signed in with your @charlotte credentials. 
3. Type this prompt: Summarize this article in three sentences or less: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2024/09/26/financial-aid-administrators-react-fafsa-investigation
4. Voila! Instead of taking 10 minutes to read the full article you have a quick summary. Does the summary have the color and detail of the full article? No, but it does pull out a few key points. 
5. Now find your own document and try it on your own.

Important to remember, these bots can help us save time but we still need to:

• Be aware of the data level we are inputting 
• Use a critical eye to evaluate the outputs

Need Assistance? For more information, visit OneIT’s AI page or contact the OneIT Service Desk with any questions or concerns.