{"id":7646,"date":"2026-09-25T12:38:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=7646"},"modified":"2026-09-25T12:38:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:38:30","slug":"microsoft-copilot-super-app-chat-coding-autopilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=7646","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft thinks its new Copilot \u2018super app\u2019 will be as influential as Office"},"content":{"rendered":"


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After teasing its new Copilot \u201csuper app\u201d last month<\/a>, Microsoft is officially unveiling it today. The redesigned Copilot app bundles three AI capabilities into a single interface of chat, coding, and agents. As part of the launch, Microsoft is also rebranding Scout, the AI personal assistant<\/a> it unveiled at Build earlier this year, as Autopilot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This new Copilot app will have three tabs for Home, Code, and Autopilot, with Home combining Copilot Chat and Cowork together. It\u2019s the default landing experience for Copilot users, and Microsoft is also planning to include a Today feature inside it that works as personalized dashboard for important emails, meeting requests, Teams threads, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cHome is where you get your bearings, keeping you grounded and moving forward: review recent activity, get suggestions on what Copilot can help with, and pick up work right where you left off,\u201d explains Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer of AI at work at Microsoft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Code<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Code is a surprise addition to a Copilot app focused on knowledge workers.<\/em><\/figcaption>Image: Microsoft<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Code tab is the surprise addition to this so-called \u201csuper app,\u201d and not one you\u2019d typically associate with an app designed for knowledge workers. It will let anyone create an app, tracker, dashboard, or automation and share the results with colleagues as cloud-hosted internal apps. \u201cPowered by the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot, Code runs in a sandboxed environment and can be hosted securely within your tenant,\u201d says Spataro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Autopilot is a new addition to the Copilot experience, and one that Spataro describes as a \u201cdigital teammate.\u201d Previously called Scout and available initially as a desktop app, Autopilot is the cloud equivalent that enables a personal AI assistant to keep running while you\u2019re asleep. Like many other AI agents, Autopilot has its own cloud computer instance that can be tasked to do things like watch Teams channels, run recurring work tasks, or handle follow-ups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The real difference against some other AI agents is that Microsoft has made Autopilot enterprise grade, appealing to businesses that rely on its Office and identity management suites. \u201cAutopilot lives in your tenant with its own identity, memory, computer, and workspace, and it\u2019s built on Microsoft IQ so it understands how your organization actually works,\u201d says Spataro. \u201cIt shows up where people already work \u2014 Teams, Outlook, chats, channels, and documents \u2014 so you can @mention it like a colleague, with permissions, audit, and governance behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"You<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

You can give Autopilot a name and an appearance.<\/em><\/figcaption>Image: Microsoft<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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All of this focus on enterprise security and control is a big part of Microsoft trying to sell businesses on Copilot once again. The difference this time around is that how much a business pays for Copilot will depend on what their employees are doing. Microsoft is using usage-based billing for the Cowork, Code, and Autopilot parts of this new Copilot app, so any long-running agentic capabilities or usage of models like Astra and Fable will be billed based on usage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The regular Copilot license, known as a user subscription license, will give you Copilot in Chat, and in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. Microsoft is using an auto model picker to match the model for each task, but IT admins will need to use Microsoft\u2019s new FinOps for AI to manage AI spend and ensure any agentic usage doesn\u2019t get out of control.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With this new Copilot app it feels like Microsoft has finally settled on a formula for its AI assistant. The company has redesigned Copilot plenty of times since its introduction as a chatbot inside Bing, and this latest three-tab design builds on the combination of its two separate consumer and commercial Copilot<\/a> apps last month. That\u2019s a long-overdue change, alongside some big AI leadership shapeups<\/a> that helped finally appoint a single Copilot boss<\/a> for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The new Home and Code tabs will start rolling out to Microsoft\u2019s Frontier program for early access AI features \u201cin the coming weeks,\u201d and Autopilot will go into private preview later this month. Code will also be in preview for Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers later this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s fair to say that Copilot has failed in the consumer space compared to Claude or ChatGPT, but Microsoft\u2019s core commercial customers are slowly showing interest. This new Copilot app isn\u2019t really designed to compete with things like Muse, and Microsoft is now calling it \u201cthe AI built for work.\u201d It\u2019s even comparing it to how influential Office was on productivity. \u201cJust as Office defined work for the PC era, the new Copilot is built to define it for the AI era,\u201d says Spataro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That might well be Microsoft\u2019s goal, but there\u2019s a lot more competition in this AI era than there ever was in the PC era. Microsoft has certainly fallen behind the likes of Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and now Meta, and it\u2019ll be interesting to see if \u201cthe AI built for work\u201d is enough to help it catch up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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