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- Microsoft Edge can now present a summary of your open tabs.
- This feature uses CoPilot to analyze details across all tabs.
- You can use it to research hotels, restaurants, products, and more.
Microsoft Edge has long been able to summarize information on your current web page, courtesy of Copilot AI. I’ve used this option many times to get a summary of a long article or other page. But now Edge has refined that skill to an even more useful level.
As Spotted by PC WorldA relatively new Copilot mode can analyze all your open tabs at the same time. Open two or more tabs and ask Edge to summarize the information across all of them. In turn, the browser displays a summary that summarizes the details in one fell swoop.
As an example, you might open different tabs with different reviews of a restaurant or hotel or a product you’re thinking about purchasing. Instead of reading each page individually, Edge will aggregate all the information and present it to you in a more digestible format. I’ve tried this several times when trying to compare reviews on different items, and it’s been a real time saver.
How does this work? Here’s how I use it.
First, you need to enable the necessary Copilot settings in Edge. For this, I clicked on the ellipsis icon at the top right and selected Settings. On the Settings screen, I selected AI Innovations. Initially, Copilot settings didn’t appear, so I had to click the button for Explore Copilot mode.
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On the resulting tab, I toggled the switch for Turn on Copilot mode. Then I read the tutorial to find out what Copilot mode is capable of doing for me. When finished, I returned to the Settings screen.
Next I had to make sure the correct three controls were enabled. I confirmed that the switches for both Copilot mode and Copilot new tab page were on. Clicking on the settings for Copilot Mode preferences showed me that the option to focus on the new tab page was also enabled.
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After this I opened a new tab and then closed the previously opened tabs. I then went to a web page that included some things I needed to research. Case in point, my wife and I are traveling to Birmingham, UK in a few months, so I was looking at restaurant reviews in the area. Using Bing, I searched for restaurants in Birmingham UK. I then right-clicked on several resulting links and opened each in a new tab.
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After closing the tab with the search results, I opened a new tab showing the prompt for Copilot. When prompted, I typed the following and submitted: “Compare open tabs and summarize reviews to give me the best restaurants in Birmingham.”
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In response, Edge compared and summarized the information. The summary showed me the top restaurants recommended in each review, as well as the restaurants that appeared in all reviews. Now when we get to Birmingham I can surprise my wife by taking her to a top restaurant (shh, don’t tell her).
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I have also used this option to compare and contrast articles and other pages and have found it to be a useful research tool. The next time you need a summary for a whole bunch of web pages, think about CoPilot mode in Edge.
