Microsoft Releases Edge 111 with AI-Powered Copilot

Microsoft Edge version 111 is now available with a new AI-powered Copilot feature that adds a prominent Bing icon to its toolbar. Perhaps too prominent.

“Edge Copilot is a powerful tool that helps users boost their productivity and efficiency,” Microsoft explains in the Edge 111 release notes. “It provides intelligent suggestions and insights based on the context of the web page and the user’s goals. As the new Bing icon in the Toolbar, Edge Copilot helps users compose better emails, search the web faster, [and] learn new skills, all done more conveniently.”

Edge Copilot replaces the old Discover view in the Edge sidebar, and it integrates with Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing chatbot. It’s a lot of new user interface, but that integration should prove interesting to some.

In addition, Edge 111 offers two other new sidebar features—auto-hide, which is long overdue, and the ability to display the sidebar when you hover over that new Bing toolbar icon—a new feed on the New Tab page for enterprise users, enhanced security mode on macOS and Linux, and a new policy for managed environments for controlling whether browsing history is deleted from Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer mode every time Microsoft Edge is closed.