Microsoft Copilot

What it is

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's AI chatbot and assistant. It began in February 2023 as Bing Chat inside a redesigned Bing and Edge. Over time the name came to cover a single "everyday AI companion" across Windows, Edge, Bing and Microsoft 365, and later a standalone site.^[1][4]

Origins

Microsoft launched its chat feature on 7 February 2023 as Bing Chat. It ran on a next-generation OpenAI model adapted for search through Microsoft's "Prometheus" technique.^[1]

The launch drew a million people to the waitlist within 48 hours. After reports of erratic behaviour in long sessions, and the leak of its codename "Sydney", Microsoft limited chats to 5 turns per session and 50 per day in February 2023.^[2] On 14 March 2023 Microsoft confirmed that the new Bing ran on OpenAI's GPT-4. The waitlist was removed on 4 May 2023.^[2]

On 21 September 2023 Microsoft introduced Microsoft Copilot as a single "everyday AI companion" and began rolling an early version into Windows 11 on 26 September 2023.^[4]

On 15 November 2023 Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise were renamed Copilot, with a standalone site at copilot.microsoft.com. The business version with commercial data protection became generally available on 1 December 2023, based on GPT-4 and DALL·E 3.^[3]

Main features

Copilot Pro launched on 15 January 2024 at $20 per month. GPT-4o was integrated in May 2024.^[2]

On 1 October 2024 Mustafa Suleyman's Microsoft AI relaunched consumer Copilot with Copilot Voice, Copilot Vision, Think Deeper and Copilot Daily.^[5]

On 23 October 2025 Microsoft introduced Mico, an animated assistant character. Support on WhatsApp ended on 15 January 2026.^[2]

Position in development

From August 2025 Microsoft's in-house models joined Copilot. MAI-Voice-1 powers Copilot Daily and Podcasts, MAI-1-preview was rolled into some text use cases, and MAI-Image-1 was used in Copilot's Story Mode.^[6][7]

In March 2026 consumer and commercial Copilot were brought into one organisation under EVP Jacob Andreou. In August 2026 Microsoft announced it would merge consumer Copilot with Microsoft 365 Copilot.^[8][2]

Relationship to Microsoft 365 Copilot

The Copilot name is used in two main families. The consumer family, which began as Bing Chat, is aimed at individuals and works across Windows, Edge and the web. The business family is built into Microsoft 365 applications and works with organisational data under the company's data protection terms. The two families share a name and some underlying models, but they are sold and managed differently, which is why the 2026 reorganisation and the planned merger in this entry matter for both users and administrators.^[1][2][8]

Why the name kept changing

The product changed names several times in its first two years, from Bing Chat to Microsoft Copilot and then into a standalone site. Each step was an attempt to make one assistant recognisable across the company's products. Readers who see older screenshots, articles or documentation may therefore find the same assistant described under different names, and the timeline above gives the order of these changes.^[1][3][4]

Reading the timeline

The entry tracks a product that moved from a waitlisted search preview to a general consumer assistant, and then into a mix of consumer, enterprise and in-house model work.^[2][6][7]