Two years after calling artificial intelligence a “generational shift,” Microsoft is consolidating its Copilot offerings by merging the consumer Copilot app with the business-focused Microsoft 365 Copilot and discontinuing a number of underperforming AI features.
What’s changing
According to initial reporting by GeekWire and Microsoft’s support documentation, the company will combine the functionality of the consumer-facing Copilot app and the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Microsoft said the move reflects that personal and professional uses of AI often overlap and that its prior approach made Copilot too complex to compete effectively with services such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
The company announced that the following consumer features will be removed by August 18, 2026:
- Group Chats
- AI-generated podcasts in Copilot
- Copilot Labs experimental features
- Deep Research
For paying professional users, Microsoft said Researcher will serve as a replacement for Deep Research, at least.
Transition details
Microsoft will also retire the Copilot animated character named Mico, a floating blob many compared to an AI-ified version of Clippy. The company warned that other features could temporarily disappear during the transition, and that files created by the standalone Copilot app will be migrated to OneDrive.
Wider industry consolidation
The change follows broader consolidation in the AI app space: Claude merged Cowork into Chat, OpenAI integrated its agentic feature Operator into ChatGPT, and Google added specialized capabilities—such as combining deep research and web browsing—to its Gemini app.
Why it matters
Microsoft framed the consolidation as an effort to produce a simpler, more cohesive Copilot experience, but the move also signals that Copilot’s prior strategy had lost focus. The Information reported in July that Jacob Andreou, Microsoft EVP overseeing Copilot, wrote in an internal memo that the app needed to earn “the right to exist” in customers’ lives, which required abandoning features that didn’t work.
The announced deadline for the consumer feature removals is August 18, 2026; users should expect those capabilities to be phased out and their Copilot-generated files to be transferred to OneDrive during the migration.
