The Microsoft Copilot app merger is now official: the company has announced it is folding its consumer Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot into a single unified app, and three existing features will not be making the journey across.
If Copilot has always felt slightly baffling, that is because it has genuinely been two different products wearing the same name. One sits alongside ChatGPT and Gemini as a general-purpose AI assistant for personal use. The other lives inside Microsoft’s work suite, helping people draft documents, crunch spreadsheets and generally look more productive in meetings. Running both simultaneously has meant two separate apps open at once, not exactly the slick AI future anyone promised.
What changes with the Microsoft Copilot app merger
The new unified app is intended to cover both use cases. Whether you use Copilot for personal tasks or lean on it through Word and Excel at work, this becomes the one app. Microsoft says Microsoft 365 Copilot users should only need to update their existing app, with minor navigational changes to expect on the other side. There is also a new app icon and direct access to Copilot chat built into the interface.
Personal account users face rather more adjustment. Desktop users will move to the new app outright, while mobile users can switch via an app update. Microsoft says all chats and content will carry over, tied to whichever account they were originally created under. If you use both versions, everything merges into the new app but remains sorted by account.
On timing: according to ZDNet, the rollout for mobile and web apps is set to begin in mid-August, with the Windows and Mac desktop apps following in mid-September. So if you are waiting to see this on your laptop, you may have a few extra weeks yet.
Three features disappearing on 18 August
The headline news buried in the small print is what is not coming with the Microsoft Copilot app merger. Microsoft is retiring three features as part of the transition: Podcasts, Deep Research, and Group Chat messages. All three are being discontinued on 18 August.
Group Chat users should back up any messages or images before that date, as nothing will be accessible afterwards. The same urgency applies to Podcasts: no new ones can be generated, and any you have already created will vanish after the deadline unless you export them first. Deep Research sits in a slightly different position. Reports already generated will remain accessible after 18 August, but ZDNet reports that only Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers will be able to continue generating new in-depth reports using the tool going forward.
Alternatives exist for all three, if you need them. Google’s Gemini Notebook can produce AI-generated audio summaries, and most major AI platforms have their own version of a deep research tool. Group Chat, it is fair to say, will not be mourned by many.
Microsoft is not alone in quietly shelving AI features it once made a fuss about. OpenAI has already shut down its AI video generator Sora and ChatGPT Atlas, a short-lived AI browser. Microsoft itself has separately been removing features it considers unnecessary from Copilot’s integration with Windows. The pattern across the industry right now is consolidation rather than expansion: fewer products, fewer tabs open, less explaining to do to users who found the whole thing confusing in the first place.
The Verge noted the immediate practical benefit for anyone bouncing between the two Copilot apps daily. The Verge framed it as a straightforward quality-of-life improvement, and it is hard to argue. Two apps with almost identical names doing overlapping things was never a great look, however sophisticated the AI underneath them.
If you rely on Podcasts, Deep Research without a Premium subscription, or Group Chat, the clock is running. 18 August is the hard cutoff, so export what you need before Microsoft makes the decision for you.
