Copilot Kudos and Confusion (Premium)

The biggest and best surprise at today's Microsoft Special Event was the firm's total shift to the Copilot branding. I rarely get to compliment Microsoft's branding and marketing, but Copilot isn't just perfect, it's inspired. And it solves the problem it introduced in February when it went public with its AI efforts using its most horrible brand, Bing.

But it's better than that. Between March and May this year, Microsoft announced several new "copilot" products, each with its own brand, including the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Windows Copilot. What changed today is that Microsoft revealed that each of these previously separate copilots is being unified into a single AI experience that will be used across multiple products and service. It's called Microsoft Copilot, or just Copilot, and … yep. Perfect.

Well, nearly perfect. Microsoft Copilot will be added to Windows 11 (what used to be called Windows Copilot), Bing, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. That last one is confusing. Is it a typo? Don't we really mean "Microsoft 365," as in the Microsoft Copilot being integrated into Microsoft 365? It's not clear: Microsoft's documentation is either wrong or they are literally keeping the old Microsoft 365 Copilot branding. Here's my theory: Because Microsoft 365 Copilot is a paid offering on top of (also paid) Microsoft 365 subscription tiers, that name is in some way concise. If true, I still find it confusing.

And this raises more questions: I was delighted to hear that a consumer version of Microsoft 365 Copilot is on the way, and that a select few are testing it now in a private preview. Microsoft never said during the event when it would be made more broadly available, but they told us privately that will happen in early 2024. So … will it be free, like the Copilot capabilities in Bing and Edge? Or will it be paid, like Microsoft 365 Copilot for businesses? Microsoft isn't saying. But I'm guessing it will cost us.

Copilot---sorry, Microsoft Copilot---also has a colorful new icon that will be used across the board, meaning in Bing, Edge, Windows, and in Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams (which are all part of Microsoft 365). This is great on a number of levels---this more appropriate icon will replace the horrific blue Bing icon that desecrates Edge now---and I love it. De-emphasizing Bing was always the right decision.

So let's look at the individual products and see what's changed with Microsoft Copilot.

Windows 11 version 23H2---available in preview form on September 26, see my other post about the confusion around this reveal---will have several AI-based and non-AI features.

On the AI front, we have a preview version of Copilot with its own Taskbar button (and WINKEY + C shortcut), a new version of the Paint app with background removal capabilities (and, intriguingly, "a preview of Cocreator that brings the power of generative AI to the Paint app," something that was not mentioned in the present...