What you need to know
- Microsoft is reportedly planning to rebrand Copilot into a personalized AI news presenter.
- This could be part of the company's broader plan to compete on an even playing field on mobile with OpenAI's widely adopted ChatGPT.
- The news comes after Microsoft just shipped Copilot Pages and Copilot agents, months after it halted shipping new experiences to improve and enhance existing ones.
For the better part of this year, things have been fairly quiet on the Microsoft Copilot front, especially after the Redmond giant announced its plan to stop shipping new experiences to improve and enhance existing ones. It's only recently that the company resumed shipping new Copilot experiences at its just-concluded special Copilot experience, including Copilot agents and Copilot Pages.
Before the event, The Verge's Tom Warren indicated that Microsoft had plans to rebrand its Copilot AI assistant in "the most Microsoft way possible." It's unclear if the rebrand referred to the new Copilot agents and Copilot Pages. And now, a new report by Warren suggests Microsoft could turn Copilot into an AI presenter that can read you the news.
The reported rebrand is centered on Microsoft's Copilot mobile app, which will ship with a new feature that transforms the AI assistant into a virtual news presenter. According to Warren's sources, Microsoft has been testing the refreshed Copilot app for weeks, which is tangent to other Microsoft apps.
Just like Microsoft News (MSN) or Google Discover, users can select topics they'd like featured in the redesigned Copilot's newsfeed. The suggested topics will be based on your interests and Copilot history. Warren further suggests, "The AI assistant might offer to generate a story for you one day, ask if you to do a workout the next, or simply surface the latest sports scores without you having to ask for them."
Microsoft is playing chess with OpenAI's ChatGPT
Admittedly, OpenAI's ChatGPT has had the upper hand on Microsoft Copilot, considering it was launched a few months earlier and is backed by a powerful company focused on developing and improving AI-based technology. This trend continues to be the case, even though both chatbots share similar capabilities.
A recent report by Appfigures indicates OpenAI's GPT-4o launch led to ChatGPT's "biggest spike ever" in revenue and downloads on mobile. Incidentally, the chatbot recently surpassed 200 million weekly active users. Market analysts and experts attributed Copilot AI's slow adoption to Microsoft's poor marketing practices.
Elsewhere, Microsoft insiders claim the top complaint about Copilot is that it doesn't work as well as ChatGPT. The tech giant countered these claims by indicating that this isn't the case, further indicating that users aren't using Copilot as intended, coupled with poor prompt engineering practices. Consequently, Microsoft recently launched Copilot Academy to help address some of the highlighted issues.
The reported Copilot rebrand could drive users to the AI chatbot with its unique "card-based interface" and AI-generated images. This means that users could interact with Copilot beyond generating images and queries. "You can scroll through a list of topics and suggestions without ever having to type to Copilot," added Warren.
This is a developing story, we'll keep tabs on any new developments and keep you posted.
