Microsoft folds Office into Copilot, turning the assistant into a work platform

Microsoft is turning Copilot from an AI add-on inside Office into the entry point that carries Office itself.

Last week, at a closed-door event for large enterprise customers, Satya Nadella positioned Copilot as the "OS for work." Coding, agent capabilities and the full power of Office will go directly into Copilot, where users can create and edit documents in an interface that resembles the web version of Office. The Verge reported the event's contents on October 1.

The product moves have already happened: the desktop Scout agent announced at Build in June has been put into maintenance mode, with the cloud version rebranded to Autopilot. The Verge, citing sources, reports the rebrand was driven in part by trademark concerns around Yahoo Scout, and that the Copilot reorganization involved internal tensions; Microsoft has not confirmed either point.

Copilot chief Jacob Andreou admitted that agents have been "almost impossible to bring into the enterprise" because of the autonomy they need; Microsoft says the new architecture keeps organizations in control. On the consumer side, roughly 90 million people pay for Microsoft 365 out of their own pocket, which is why Microsoft is not giving up on consumers.