Microsoft Rebrands Chatbot To Boost Ai Adoption In The Workplace

Microsoft Copilot will become Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, the company said on Wednesday, the second rebranding since the AI assistant debuted in 2023 as Bing Chat Enterprise.

The chatbot, which is free to all buyers of Microsoft's main workplace software bundle, can synthesise data pulled from the web, analyse documents and suggest replies to customer service calls, among other things. But the assistant has taken a back seat to other Copilots embedded in individual productivity apps like Word and Excel, according to Jared Spataro, who oversees Microsoft's workplace AI tools.

"Most people don't know that they do have it and it's not something that we've done a lot of marketing around," he said. "We definitely wanted to raise the visibility."

The assistant, which can be accessed in a web browser or smartphone app, has some limitations. It can't transcribe a Microsoft Teams conference call or prioritise unread messages in an e-mail inbox. Those tasks and others that tap into Microsoft's ubiquitous workplace applications require a subscription to Microsoft 365 Copilot, which costs users US30/month.