Last month, Microsoft announced that it planned to remove “unnecessary” CoPilot features in Windows 11. The news was a little surprising to say the least: Microsoft has been one of the biggest supporters of generative AI, pushing the technology into more and more corners of its apps and OS despite negative feedback from users. Now, it seems the company is paying attention, and is actually sticking to its word.
As seen by The Verge’s Tom WarrenMicrosoft has already started removing some “unnecessary” Copilot buttons from some Windows apps. Warren notes that the CoPilot button is missing from the latest Windows Insider version of the Notepad app. In its place, Microsoft has added a “Writing Tools” menu. The situation is similar with the Snipping Tool: when you select an area to take a snapshot, you won’t find the CoPilot button.
It’s a small start, but at least the company’s Is The removal process begins. In its announcement last month, Pavan Davuluri (Microsoft’s President of Windows and Devices) revealed that the company will remove CoPilot from both Notepad and the Snipping Tool, but will also remove Photos and widgets. If the trend continues, expect these apps to lose their CoPilot buttons going forward.
However the keyword here is actually “button”. As Warren highlights for The Verge, it looks like Microsoft is largely retaining AI features. Notepad still has Microsoft’s AI writing tools in the “Writing Tools” section, if users still want to access those options. But by removing the big Copilot option, users who don’t want anything to do with AI in apps like Notepad can easily avoid them. In fact, it’s proof that the “in your face” approach Microsoft has taken to AI integration has actually backfired. It doesn’t help the company’s case that, until last week, Microsoft’s official terms of service stated that Copilot was “for entertainment purposes only.”
What do you think so far?
Removing the CoPilot button from the software is quite simple; Dealing with the CoPilot button associated with the new “CoPilot+ PC” is a completely different matter. Microsoft had required manufacturers to add this button as part of its dedication to this new technology, but now that it’s backing off a bit, it leaves these PCs in a weird place. Putting CoPilot keys on a laptop always seemed like an odd choice, when it wasn’t clear how many users would actually want to use CoPilot features. If you don’t care about Microsoft’s AI you can at least remap it to do something more useful.
