Microsoft thinks its new Copilot 'super app' will be as influential as Office

Microsoft officially launched its redesigned Copilot "super app," which combines three AI capabilities—chat, coding, and agents—into a single interface with three tabs: Home, Code, and Autopilot. The Home tab merges Copilot Chat and Cowork into a default landing experience with a personalized dashboard for emails, meetings, and Teams threads. The Code tab, powered by GitHub Copilot technology, lets users create apps, trackers, dashboards, or automations and share them as cloud-hosted internal apps. Autopilot, formerly known as Scout, is a cloud-based "digital teammate" with its own identity, memory, and workspace that operates within an organization's tenant, capable of monitoring Teams channels and handling recurring tasks.

Microsoft is emphasizing enterprise-grade security and governance for Autopilot, positioning it as a key differentiator against competitors. The company has also adopted usage-based billing for the Cowork, Code, and Autopilot components, meaning costs depend on actual employee usage. The regular Copilot license still covers Chat and core Office apps, while IT admins can use Microsoft's new FinOps for AI tool to manage spending. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called Copilot "a new OS for work," and Spataro compared it to Office's influence, saying it is "built to define work for the AI era." The app will roll out to the Frontier program in coming weeks, with Autopilot entering private preview later this month and Code previewing for Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers later this year. While Copilot has struggled in the consumer space against ChatGPT and Claude, Microsoft is targeting its core commercial customers with this "AI built for work," though it faces significant competition from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta.

(Source：The Verge)