In perhaps one of the most significant updates since Microsoft launched Copilot as Bing AI in 2023, the Windows company is rolling out a dozen Copilot (and Edge) updates, a handful of which are sure to transform your experience with the AI platform.
The updates, which include a new face for Copilot and Journeys to help you digest your online activities and proactively recommend next steps, range from the Edge Browser and Windows experiences to the mobile app. They’re all free and available today on Windows 11 (and Windows 10) installations.
AI together
The first and arguably biggest change, and arguably signals a fundamental shift in how we work with generative AI systems, concerns groups.
As the name suggests, Groups lets you invite other people into your Copilot session, then you can start creating prompts together, each asking your own questions, and “collaborate in real time with friends, with classmates, with your family,” Andreou explained.
Think of it like a Zoom or FaceTime group call, but supercharged with generative AI. The group could brainstorm with Copilot, create drafts, and perhaps even create a study group.
This can also be useful in situations where, for example, you are planning a family trip and want to get input from everyone in the family. Then you all use Copilot to add ideas and research destinations, hotels, and routes. At TechRadar, we’ve found that AI can be very useful for planning group vacations.
Andreou, who has had access to the new features for some time, said he used it with his wife to figure out how to transition kittens to more adult cat foods.
“I was working with Copilot and coming up with the plan, and I just added her directly to the chat, and she was able to request the follow-up, so we were able to do it together.”
As for how this affects chat history and who can see what, Andreou told me that people invited to the chat will see prompts and responses related to that chat, but nothing else about your co-pilot’s interactions.
“The system stops using memory, for example, as soon as you bring someone else in, because we want to make sure that, you know, your personal data remains confidential,” he added.
AI Personality
Microsoft is also adding more personality to Copilot in the form of “Mico” (a mashup of “Microsoft” and “Copilot”). It’s similar to the original Copilot app blob, but now it has a face.
Andreou called it a “warm, expressive and customizable visual appearance.” His expressions will somehow match your mood. If you enter a sad prompt, Mico may look sad. “It’s incredibly capable,” Andreou told me, “but all the technology fades into the background.”
It’s been a while since Microsoft had an incredibly useful digital character. I was wondering if Mico’s face wasn’t a little Clippy-esque. Andreou laughed and told me, “We have a little Easter egg hidden in the product for the people who end up playing with Miko the most, where we’re going to follow in the footsteps of what came before.”
The next update, Real Talk, appears to counter concerns about the overly synchronous nature of some AI chatbot models. Microsoft calls it its first “personality-driven” model.
Andreou told me that it was more spiritual, that he added his own perspective and that it could be more stimulating.
“She’s not just someone who’s there to just be a cheerleader…she’s a role model who might really push you away and who might both help you think, but also spark deeper conversations.”
Unlike OpenAI, which imposed the stricter GPT-5 model on everyone, Microsoft offers Real Talk as an option. Andreou admitted that this kind of “conversation” isn’t for everyone, but some might enjoy it.
“I think it’s going to lead to some incredible conversations and a ton of learnings, attributes and personality that we’ll feed back into the overall product over time,” he added.
Copilot’s memory is also getting an upgrade to better align with the competition, remembering details you share about yourself and your activities. If, for example, you mention a family member’s birthday in a prompt, Copilot will remember it. “It will make interactions and responses much more natural and much more connected,” Andreou told me.
Check after check
One of the things Microsoft has learned from Copilot is that 40% of users ask questions related to AI health within the first few weeks of using the platform. Other studies have found that one in six adults under 30 turn to ChatGPT for health advice.
With these statistics in mind, Microsoft promises to base all health-related answers in Copilot on “clinical sources.” Andreou cited Harvard Health among them. Copilot users will see details about clinically reliable sources for each health-related answer.
The AI platform will go further, however, by connecting you with competent doctors who are nearby and, if possible, within your coverage network.
“We will never try to be the end all be all of these kinds of conversations,” Andreou said. “As soon as we deem it appropriate, we will direct you to clinicians who can help you talk to someone in the real world who can help you.”
Of course, Copilot can’t recommend an in-network healthcare provider unless you share your insurer at some point during the chat. It’s unclear how many people will be comfortable with this.
The latest AI browser
Copilot has been part of the Edge browser for a while, but just in time for OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas browser, Microsoft is fully launching Copilot mode in Edge, which the company first revealed last July.
There’s quite a bit of agent activity in the browser, like checking your email and scrolling through your social feeds, but Andreou points out that local actions are among the most powerful new features, including Journeys.
“Journeys looks at your browsing history and basically helps you pick up where you left off.” he explained.
Edge and Copilot modes make sense of what you’ve done, and when you return, you’re ready to take the next step.
Andreou told me he uses Journeys to source new candidates during the job interview process.
“Copilot often goes in the background and tries to give me more information and help me get back to it,” he added.
Microsoft seems to be banking on the vigilant digital assistant (with your permission, of course, and despite the unfortunate recall history). Andreou described a redesigned home page that showcases recent apps, files and conversations. It almost looks like a new Windows home screen and, in a way, it is.
“You can kind of imagine the new Copilot home page becoming the starting point for computing on your Windows computer.”
A question of models
While much of Copilot has historically been built on OpenAI models like GPT-5, Andreou confirmed that they still use a collection of OpenAI models. However, he wasn’t ready to list all the models at work in this major Copilot update.
“At every stage of our stack, whether it’s the core text response model, the reasoning models that we use under the hood, the image generation models that we use, we’re constantly evaluating all of the available options that we have to serve our community. And so, that means that in many parts of the product, we continue, through our partnership with OpenAI, to serve their cutting-edge models.”
Andreou, however, also echoed other AI-focused tech companies I spoke with, telling me, “It also means we want to maintain the flexibility to, in certain parts of our product, use the best model for the job.” »
Microsoft later clarified Andreou’s comments with this statement:
“OpenAI continues to be our partner on frontier models, and our mainstream AI model strategy remains unchanged. We will continue to use the best models from our team, our partners, and the latest innovations from the open source community to power our products. This gives us the greatest flexibility to create AI that performs best across millions of unique interactions every day.
As for where you’ll find these features, all of which are available today (October 23), browser actions won’t appear in the mobile app, but the app will get Mico.
Microsoft’s Copilot experiences differ in another way from Google’s and OpenAI’s: Most of them are free, and in some cases you don’t even need a Microsoft account. Andreou reminded me that they support Google and Apple accounts. “No feature of the twelve is locked behind a subscription,” Andreou said.
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