| EU AI Act simplified – what UK businesses need to know |
| On 7 May, the EU reached a provisional political agreement on the “AI Omnibus” – a package designed to streamline parts of the EU AI Act ahead of key compliance deadlines. The changes extend deadlines for high-risk AI systems, reduce regulatory duplication for AI embedded in industrial products, and introduce tailored accommodations for SMEs. Formal adoption is expected before August 2026. |
| Insights: If you sell into EU markets or work with EU clients, this is worth flagging to your legal or compliance team. For UK-only small businesses, the direct impact is limited for now, but the direction of travel is clear: AI regulation is tightening, and understanding what your AI tools do with data is no longer optional. |
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| ChatGPT updates its default model |
| On 5 May, OpenAI made GPT-5.5 Instant the default model for every ChatGPT user – replacing GPT-5.3 Instant. The headline claim: 52.5% fewer hallucinated answers on high-stakes prompts in medicine, law and finance, plus responses that are around 30% more concise (and noticeably fewer emojis). |
| Insights: You didn’t have to do anything to get the benefits – if you use ChatGPT, you’re already using the new model. The tighter, less waffly answers are a real day-to-day improvement. But note that for anything that genuinely matters, still ask it to cite sources and check sources. You should also ask for an evidence table in all research type responses. Want to set this up once for all responses? Hit reply and ask me for my Custom Instructions Template for either Copilot or ChatGPT. |
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| Microsoft shipped 53 Copilot updates in one month |
| May was enormous for Microsoft 365 Copilot. The five that matter most: |
| Federated MCP Connectors – Some serious jargon there! It means Copilot can now pull live data from external tools like Canva and HubSpot at the moment you ask, rather than a stale snapshot. Plan Mode in Excel – Copilot shows you exactly what it’s about to change before it touches your workbook. Call Delegation in Teams – Copilot can now answer your incoming Teams calls, gather context and offer to book a follow-up. Notebooks get smarter – a favourite Copilot feature, Notebooks have been significantly enhanced with project-based organisation, Teams meeting references, and the ability to generate Excel spreadsheets, mind-maps and infographics. New, cleaner Copilot design – Copilot Chat was redesigned twice last month! It now has a cleaner, faster “buttoned-up” redesign and is now more consistent across the M365 apps. The icons are mainly still Copilot and not 365 Copilot though. |
| Copilot also got the new GPT-5.5 models, Claude 4.7 and then 3 days ago on the same day as Anthropic’s launch (more on this below, especially for Copilot users), Claude 4.8. And in a genuinely useful move; Copilot is now available in Apple CarPlay, so you can stay on top of work hands-free while driving. |
| Insights: Plan Mode is the one I’d try first – it’s the guardrail that finally makes Copilot safe to trust on multi-step spreadsheet work. If you’re a regulated business (legal, financial, healthcare), pause and think before switching on Call Delegation; your industry rules, not Microsoft’s, should decide whether AI handles your calls. |
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| Claude Opus 4.8 – and Anthropic becomes the world’s most valuable AI start-up |
| Anthropic has had a landmark month. On 28 May it released Claude Opus 4.8, an upgrade to its most capable model, with stronger performance in coding, agentic tasks, and a new Dynamic Workflows tool for coordinating multiple AI sub-agents working in parallel. The same day, Anthropic announced $65 billion in new funding, valuing the company at $900 billion and officially overtaking OpenAI’s $730 billion valuation to become the world’s most valuable AI start-up. |
| Insights: The speed of Claude’s improvement this year is remarkable – Opus 4.7 only arrived in April. For Microsoft 365 users, this matters directly: Claude is now embedded inside Copilot for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and Opus 4.8 is confirmed as available for advanced work scenarios in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. If you haven’t tried switching the model picker to Claude for long-form writing or complex documents, now is the time. |
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| Google I/O 2026: Gemini goes everywhere |
| Google’s annual developer conference in May was dominated by one theme: Gemini is no longer just a chatbot – it’s an agent woven into every Google product. The headline announcements were Gemini 3.5 Flash (a powerful new model excelling at agentic tasks and coding), Gemini Omni (a true multimodal model handling text, image, video, audio and code in one unified architecture), and Gemini Spark (a new 24/7 personal agent that can work in the background across Gmail, Docs, and your calendar – even when you close your laptop). Google also announced a Universal Cart, a cross-platform AI shopping experience that works across Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail. |
| Insights: This is Google’s most ambitious Gemini rollout yet. For most small businesses, Gemini Spark is the one to watch – a personal assistant that keeps working in the background is exactly the kind of productivity lever that compounds over time. If you’re a Google Workspace user, watch your app updates for this over the coming weeks. |
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| Copilot Notebooks become a proper workspace |
| Copilot Notebooks are getting smarter. They can now generate full Word documents and PowerPoint decks from your uploaded reference documents, pull in SharePoint content and OneNote Notebooks, build mind maps from a notebook’s contents, and be shared with a Microsoft 365 Group rather than just individuals. |
| Insights: Notebooks are the underrated feature in the Copilot family and have now moved ahead of ChatGPT’s equivalent Projects feature, that has remained static for some time. If you are working on anything multi-source – a tender response, a research piece, an event plan, a board paper – drop the relevant emails, files, and pages into a Notebook, then let Copilot generate the deliverable from there. It is a much better way of working than starting from a blank document and copy-pasting context in. |
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| New in Word, PowerPoint, and Teams |
| Several app-specific Copilot updates rolled out in May that are worth knowing about: |
| Word now surfaces consolidated file activity summaries and “Copilot memory”, personalising responses based on your past context and work style. Writing suggestions now appear inline within the composition flow, not just in the sidebar. PowerPoint has new built-in skills including “Review this presentation,” “Visualise this slide,” and “Prepare for Questions.” Coming to PowerPoint Live is “Explain this” which lets attendees ask Copilot to explain specific slide text during live presentations. Teams gained AI-generated video recaps (highlight reels from meetings), meeting watermarks to deter unauthorised screen captures, and the ability for organisers to permanently delete meeting recap artefacts. |
| Insights: The Word memory and inline writing suggestions are the standout updates for anyone producing regular content – proposals, reports, newsletters. Copilot getting to know your style over time is where the real productivity gain lies. On PowerPoint, the “Explain this” feature is clever in theory, but worth knowing it only works inside PowerPoint Live in Teams, not screen sharing, so I doubt I’ll be using it. If you regularly switch between apps during a presentation or webinar, like me, it’s not going to work. The Teams video recap feature is one to try – let Copilot generate a highlight reel from your next internal meeting and see if it saves you writing up notes. |
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| ChatGPT starts showing ads – and it’s coming to the UK |
| OpenAI confirmed in May that it is expanding its ChatGPT ads pilot to the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, and Japan, following an initial US rollout. Ads appear on the Free and lower-paid tiers, are clearly separated from ChatGPT’s answers, and OpenAI has opened a self-serve ads manager so businesses can buy placements directly. The stated position is that advertiser data and user conversations are kept separate. |
| Insights: This is a significant moment – the world’s most used AI tool is now ad-supported in the UK. For Free tier users, expect to start seeing sponsored content appearing. For businesses, it opens a new advertising channel to reach people in an active research mindset. For paid subscribers (Plus, Pro, Business), there are no ads. Worth reviewing which tier your team is on. |
