AI is Our Copilot (Premium)

You’re going to hear the word “copilot” today a lot. You’re going to wonder, repeatedly, why Microsoft is pushing this term so hard. But don’t get distracted by the branding. What we’re witnessing right now is history in the making.

And it’s fair to say that in writing about Microsoft and the technology industry in which it competes for almost 30 years, I have witnessed a lot of history. But what’s happening with AI at the software giant right now threatens to eclipse anything it has accomplished to date. This transformation will result in a new Microsoft and a new technology industry, neither of which will much resemble that which came before.

Previous eras are well understood in hindsight. There was the early Microsoft, with its focus on software development tools. The scrappy young Microsoft that answered IBM’s call and entered the operating system market with MS-DOS. The dominant Microsoft that ruled the industry with Windows and Office. The also-ran Microsoft, handcuffed with antitrust woes when Amazon, Apple, and Google expanded personal computing well beyond the PC. And the resurgent Microsoft that rode its cloud computing pivot to new levels of success.

It’s too early in this new era to fully appreciate or even understand how much is about to change. But it is indeed a new era for Microsoft, and for us all: With its aggressive embrace of AI, Microsoft is reimagining not just its products and services, but itself, and it is doing so proactively, voluntarily, and with purpose. This isn’t something it fell into, or something that was forced on it from the outside. This company saw an opportunity and decided to bet the farm.

There are, of course, parallels with the past. Microsoft’s use of the term copilot everywhere and anywhere today reminds me of the beginning of its .NET push over 20 years ago, when it planned to rebrand all its core products and services with the .NET name. And the technical sophistication of AI is as impressive in this day as was the original Azure push or quantum computing, a computer science problem that Microsoft still hasn’t cracked. Indeed, these technologies—.NET, Azure, quantum computing, and now AI—all share a personal similarity in that I found understanding each to be daunting, just beyond my reach, in the beginning.

But AI is unique in Microsoft’s history too. The speed at which this era suddenly unfolded still astonishes, and looking back at all the milestones and new products that appeared between February’s Bing event and this month’s Ignite, it feels like years have passed. But it’s the speed combined with the rapid pace of change that really rattles the brain: AI has already transformed the way we create and consume information, and it’s only been a few months. What will next year look like? And the next?

AI is still controversial in some circles, and it will remain so. As a writer, a creator of content, I understand the fears. But AI is nothing less than the democratization of technology writ large, and the goal is for the benefits it brings to outweigh the abuses and transitional issues, like job losses. No one who has driven in a car or flown in a plane has ever mourned the loss of the stagecoach industry: In fact, most probably think of that era as quaint and primitive. That is how we will view the pre-AI era as well.

For Microsoft, AI is all upside, an enormous opportunity. And it does have a rich history of using its past successes as stepping-stones for the future that it can lean on. MS-DOS led to Windows, which led to Office and then the small business market and Windows Server. Which led to the enterprise, which led to cloud computing, which led to AI. In each case, the experiences of the past informed the push forward and provided a foundation on which to build. And with Azure and its cloud computing infrastructure, Microsoft finds itself with an almost suspiciously strong hand. It has more capacity, more capability, more cash, and more history with the relevant audiences than any of its competitors.

Even from the outside, one can sense that Microsoft knows this and is leaping at the chance to be heard again. The quiet, careful days of the past are behind it. This Microsoft is bold and loud, not afraid to fight multiple antitrust battles on different continents so it can secure its biggest-ever acquisition, a fight the Microsoft of 10 or 15 years ago would have never even considered. This Microsoft is comfortable on the world stage, comfortable defending its actions in court, and comfortable taking a leadership role. The sleeping giant has awoken. Again.

But here’s my favorite aspect of this transformation.

As I’ve noted so many times, the Microsoft of the previous era was not especially interesting to me. That Microsoft was all about cloud computing, and about making its various businesses make sense in that world. Some products, like Server and Office, made that transition successfully, even naturally. But others, like Windows, did not. And I got the sense that Microsoft was not particularly interested in those products and services that couldn’t transition to the cloud. That it would ignore them or, worse, even abuse them. I grew to resent that Microsoft as the abuses piled up.

But AI is a wave that lifts all boats.

As with cloud computing, this Microsoft expects its various businesses to make sense in this new world, too: Satya Nadella literally sent out a company-wide email to that effect late last year. But where the nature of Windows made it difficult or impossible for it to adapt to the cloud computing era, the nature of AI is what makes Windows ideal for this era. Many of the greatest benefits that we will collectively realize from AI will come from what are essentially productivity enhancements, tools that help users create content more easily or better than before. And Windows is all about productivity and creation. This time, Windows is not getting left behind.

Here, too, the speed at which these things occur is incredible. Most probably still remember the silliness of the “Creator Update” years of Windows 10, when we were given ridiculous tools like Paint 3D that no one wanted or used in a vain bid to make each new version seem interesting. But in just a few months, Windows 11 has already received several truly useful AI-based innovations, from the truly terrific background removal feature in Paint to the equally amazing background blur feature in Photos to the AI generation capabilities in Copilot. These kinds of things are going to just keep on happening, and unlike Paint 3D, none of what I just mentioned is going to end up being quietly removed from Windows and dumped in the Microsoft Store where it can be forgotten forever.

So I am cautiously optimistic. And while I know many of you will roll your eyes every time that Microsoft uses the Copilot brand yet again, let’s see this for what it is: An AI reimagining of Microsoft, of Windows, and of the world of productivity. It’s a leap forward, and one that wonderfully aligns directly with my motto, my tagline for Thurrott.com: “Personal technology, with a focus on productivity, mostly Microsoft.” It’s perfect.