Microsoft Copilot uses their own model that is originally based on GPT-4 if I’m not mistaken.
But, it’s mostly a RAG tool, “grounded in web” as they say. When you give Copilot a query, it uses the model to reword your query into an optimal Bing search query, fetches the results, and then crafts output using the model.
I commend their attempt to use Bing as a source of data to keep up to date and reduce hallucinations, especially in an enterprise setting where users may be more sensitive to false information, however as a result some of the answers it gives can only be as good as the Bing search results.
Seems like with their own resources, and also owning part of GPT, they should be able to pivot and at least make a programming tool equal to Chat GPT.
Bing isn't terrible though, is it? DuckDuckGo uses it, or at least used to, and that trade off was fine most of the time.