Microsoft is merging its consumer-facing Copilot app with the business-oriented Microsoft 365 Copilot app into a single experience. The change acknowledges that personal and professional AI use often overlaps and that the previous dual-app approach was too complicated to compete with ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. By August 18, 2026, consumers will lose Group Chats, AI-generated podcasts, Copilot Labs experimental features and Deep Research. Paying professional users will get Researcher as a replacement for Deep Research. Microsoft is also retiring Mico, the animated floating character often compared to Clippy. Files from the stand-alone Copilot app will move to OneDrive, and some features may be temporarily unavailable during the transition. The move follows similar consolidations at other AI providers and comes after an internal memo stressing that Copilot needed to earn the right to exist by dropping features that did not work.
Microsoft is merging its consumer-facing Copilot app with the business-oriented Microsoft 365 Copilot app into a single experience. The change acknowledges that personal and professional AI use often overlaps and that the previous dual-app approach was too complicated to compete with ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. By August 18, 2026, consumers will lose Group Chats, AI-generated podcasts, Copilot Labs experimental features and Deep Research. Paying professional users will get Researcher as a replacement for Deep Research. Microsoft is also retiring Mico, the animated floating character often compared to Clippy. Files from the stand-alone Copilot app will move to OneDrive, and some features may be temporarily unavailable during the transition. The move follows similar consolidations at other AI providers and comes after an internal memo stressing that Copilot needed to earn the right to exist by dropping features that did not work.