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Microsoft Launches Copilot 'Super App' to Rival OpenAI and Anthropic
Confirmed
In Short: Microsoft unveiled a new version of its Copilot app, integrating chat, coding, and AI agents to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic.
The new Copilot app features three sections: Home, which combines chat with Microsoft’s Cowork agent; Code, which allows users to build their own apps and tools by describing them; and Autopilot, where users can set up their own always-on AI agents.
Microsoft executives highlighted the app’s ability to run sensitive files locally, contrasting it with Anthropic’s Claude Cowork, which requires files to be processed on a user’s computer.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized the app’s flexibility, allowing companies to test and switch between different AI models from various providers.
Microsoft also announced usage-based billing for Cowork, Code, and other new features for consumer Microsoft 365 subscriptions later this year.
The redesigned Copilot app is part of Microsoft’s strategy to offer a comprehensive AI solution that rivals OpenAI and Anthropic, targeting corporate IT departments that prioritize security and compliance.
Microsoft plans to roll out the new Home and Code tabs to its Frontier program for early access AI features in the coming weeks, with Autopilot going into private preview later this month.
What this adds
Microsoft’s approach to AI integration differs from competitors by emphasizing local processing of sensitive files.
The new Copilot app aims to provide a seamless experience for knowledge workers by combining multiple AI functionalities into one interface.
What's confirmed
- The new Copilot app features three sections: Home, which combines chat with Microsoft’s Cowork agent; Code, which allows users to build their own apps and tools by describing them; and Autopilot, where users can set up their own always-on AI agents.
- Microsoft executives highlighted the app’s ability to run sensitive files locally, contrasting it with Anthropic’s Claude Cowork, which requires files to be processed on a user’s computer.
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized the app’s flexibility, allowing companies to test and switch between different AI models from various providers.
- Microsoft also announced usage-based billing for Cowork, Code, and other new features for consumer Microsoft 365 subscriptions later this year.
- The redesigned Copilot app is part of Microsoft’s strategy to offer a comprehensive AI solution that rivals OpenAI and Anthropic, targeting corporate IT departments that prioritize security and compliance.
- Microsoft plans to roll out the new Home and Code tabs to its Frontier program for early access AI features in the coming weeks, with Autopilot going into private preview later this month.
What's still developing
- The announcement is Microsoft’s answer to OpenAI and Anthropic, which have been combining chat, coding and agents in their own apps and selling them directly to businesses that have long been Microsoft’s core customers.
- Partners and rivals: Microsoft executives contrasted the company’s approach with OpenAI and Anthropic during an event Wednesday, according to a transcript provided by Microsoft.
- Jacob Andreou, the executive vice president who leads Copilot, said Microsoft knew that “unlike a lot of our competition, sending your most sensitive files down to a local machine into a VM was a complete nonstarter” — an apparent reference to Anthropic’s Claude Cowork, which runs in a virtual machine on the user’s computer.
- Microsoft also showed its own MAI models alongside OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI on one of Nadella’s slides, although they weren’t listed in the menu shown during the demo.
- On Microsoft’s July 29 earnings call, he told investors it would arrive “this quarter,” which ends Sept. 30.
- Co-workers can edit the same files at the same time from the regular Office apps, according to Microsoft.
- “Our view is that there are two kinds of AI at work,” said Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer for AI at Work, in a recorded briefing for media.
- By June, Microsoft had introduced Scout, an always-on personal agent for work that it called the first of its Autopilots.
- It also brings full versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint inside Copilot, so people can create and edit documents with AI and their co-workers without switching apps.
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pitched Copilot as a hedge against relying on any one AI lab, saying companies should be able to test models against their own benchmarks and swap one out for another.
- A company that can’t do those things, he added, has effectively handed the knowledge it builds with AI “to somebody else.” Model choice: Microsoft also emphasized the ability to switch between AI models from different companies.
- The Code tab is the surprise addition to this so-called “super app,” and not one you’d typically associate with an app designed for knowledge workers.