Microsoft merges Copilot apps to focus on enterprise AI

Microsoft has merged its consumer and workplace Copilot assistants into a single application focused on corporate users. According to Bloomberg, the decision ends a two-year effort to develop a personal AI companion, stepping back from the consumer chatbot market dominated by OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Meta's Muse.

The redesigned application integrates the user interface of the retired consumer version and structures the enterprise experience around three main features: Home, which includes conversational Chat, Cowork task delegation, and in-app editing of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint through Office in Copilot; Code, which uses GitHub Copilot technology to let non-technical staff build apps, dashboards, and workflows; and Autopilot, previously codenamed Scout, a persistent cloud agent that runs multi-step background tasks autonomously.

To support the autonomous tools, Microsoft introduced a split pricing structure. The model combines a fixed-rate subscription for everyday Chat with pay-as-you-go Usage-Based Billing for agentic tasks in Code and Autopilot, managed via new FinOps for AI governance tools.

The strategic change aligns with expanding adoption in the workplace. Microsoft reported more than 30 million paid Copilot enterprise subscriptions as of June, accounting for about one-third of its commercial M365 user base.