Microsoft Copilot App is Now Automatically Installed on Some LG TVs

If you own a recent LG smart TV, you may have noticed that a new Copilot app is available on your home dashboard, whether you want it or not. Over the weekend, a Reddit post (via Tom’s Hardware) pointing out that the app was automatically installed on some LG TVs blew up, especially because it doesn’t seem possible to fully uninstall it.

I own a 3-year-old LG OLED TV and was recently invited to install the latest version of LG’s webOS software on it. I personally barely use webOS, which I find inferior to tvOS on my Apple TV 4K, but I do have this new Copilot on the app gallery now. I just didn’t notice it before.

LG announced its plans to bring Microsoft’s Copilot AI to its recent smart TVs back at CES 2025 in January. At the time, the company said that Copilot would help users to “efficiently find and organize complex information using contextual cues.” The company added that “for an even smoother and more engaging experience, the AI Chatbot proactively identifies potential user challenges and offers timely, effective solutions.”

In my own experience, Copilot on my LG TV doesn’t seem capable of doing any of that. What I’m seeing is just a shortcut to the Copilot web app, which is supposed to let me have voice conversations with it, but I’m unable to make it work. I’m just seeing the new “Mico” AI character with a talk icon that keeps spinning indefinitely instead of letting me talk to the chatbot.

So yes, this Copilot “app” on my LG TV is quite useless at the moment, and I can only hide it from the webOS app gallery, not uninstall it. It probably doesn’t deserve the outrage that I’m seeing on Reddit, though. Many smartphones from Samsung and other manufacturers come with Office and other Microsoft apps preinstalled, and most smart TVs these days integrate Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, and the latter will soon be replaced by Google’s Gemini AI. However, Microsoft doesn’t have a foothold on the smart TV market, and this Copilot experience on LG smart TVs looks wholly unfinished at the moment.