Microsoft abandons personal AI chatbot race with Copilot reboot

Microsoft is merging its consumer and workplace versions of Copilot, its AI assistant, into one product aimed at corporate customers. This move effectively cedes the market for personal chatbots to other companies, according to the Financial Post. The updated app combines chat, document editing, coding tools, and persistent AI agents in one place, with pricing shifting partly to usage-based billing, as reported by Quartz.

The new Copilot, described as a "super app" by The Verge, bundles AI chat, coding, and agents into a single interface. It also embeds Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, allowing users to work collaboratively on these apps without leaving the AI tool. Additionally, Microsoft is introducing a coding tool, Code, which lets users build apps, dashboards, and other software using natural language prompts, and Autopilot, a revamped AI agent previously known as Scout.

The revamped Copilot is geared towards organizations heavily invested in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, offering a secure environment for AI tools to work on company data. According to ZDNet, the new Copilot was engineered for enterprise customers, not consumers, with features centered on Outlook, Teams, and Microsoft 365 documents. This focus on enterprise customers marks a shift in Microsoft's approach to Copilot, as it competes with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude.

Brief written by urgent.news from Financial Post, Quartz, Techmeme, Investing.com, ZDNet — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.