If you have been staring at two separate Copilot icons cluttering your taskbar, that annoyance is finally going away. Microsoft has started merging its consumer Copilot app with Microsoft 365 Copilot into a single unified experience, and this rollout is officially the first step toward the bigger “super app” the company plans to launch later this year.
What changes once the apps merge?
What you notice depends entirely on which app you were already using. If you only used the standalone consumer Copilot app, it gets moved to the updated version automatically, with your chats and content carried along. But if you only used Microsoft 365 Copilot, you will mostly notice minor navigation tweaks and a refreshed icon, while also gaining free access to Copilot chat for the first time.
In case you have been using both apps, Microsoft merges your chats and content into a single app, though your personal and work data stays completely separate. Microsoft says nothing changes with enterprise security, compliance, or government controls, and switching between personal and work accounts still works exactly the way it always has.
New features and a few losses along the way
The unified app lets you jump straight from a Copilot conversation into Word, Excel, or Outlook without leaving the app, something the standalone Copilot app could not previously do.
Rollout begins with mobile and web apps this month, followed by Windows and Mac apps in mid-September. However, not everything survives the transition. Podcasts and Deep Research are being retired entirely after August 18, and Group Chat threads and messages will not carry over past that date either.
Microsoft also warns that Shopping and Copilot Health may be temporarily unavailable while these updates roll out. It is unclear what happens to the dedicated Copilot key found on many Windows keyboards, though it will presumably open whichever unified app lands on your device.
Read the full article here
