Microsoft is merging its separate Copilot apps and cutting underperforming AI tools to prepare for an upcoming “Super App” launch.
Two years after declaring artificial intelligence a generational shift
in technology, Microsoft is overhauling its consumer software strategy. The company is actively combining its distinct consumer and business Copilot applications into a single, unified interface. The technical transition lays the groundwork for a planned “Super App” rollout championed by Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella for developers and investors.
The unification addresses a fragmented product lineup that struggled to compete with rivals like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. It also acknowledges the reality that many users rely on the same artificial intelligence tools for both personal and professional tasks.
Feature Cuts and the Retirement of Mico
Streamlining the platform means abandoning several experimental and underused capabilities. Consumers will lose access to Group Chats, AI-generated podcasts, Copilot Labs experimental features, and Deep Research by August 18, 2026. Furthermore, Microsoft is ditching Mico, the expressive animated blob introduced less than a year ago to accompany the consumer app’s voice mode, though the character may survive in some education features.
The retirement of Deep Research marks a notable shift for consumer researchers. While the tool is disappearing for everyday users, a similar replacement called Researcher will be available exclusively to subscribers of Microsoft 365 Premium. Personal and Family plan subscribers can still open historical reports from their chat history and save them to Word, but they cannot generate new ones.
Other utilities, such as Shopping and Copilot Health, may be temporarily unavailable while the broader updates roll out. Chat history and image creations will automatically migrate to the new app, and files shared or generated by Copilot will move to OneDrive.
Leadership Shifts and the Push to Earn the Right to Exist
The product consolidation follows a significant leadership shakeup. In March, Microsoft shifted Mustafa Suleyman—the DeepMind and Inflection co-founder who ran consumer AI efforts starting in 2024—to a narrower role focused on developing new models. Jacob Andreou, a former Snap executive, took charge of the Copilot product line.
In an internal memo sent to his 11,000-person organization in July, Andreou noted that the application needed to earn the right to exist
in customer lives, which required moving on from features that failed to gain traction.
The internal reckoning matches a stark usage gap. While Microsoft reported last month that Microsoft 365 Copilot surpassed 30 million paid seats—up from 20 million in April—the consumer app commands a much smaller footprint. Sensor Tower estimated the consumer application had 38.5 million monthly users in July, compared to ChatGPT’s one billion monthly users.
How the Unified App Handles Accounts and Security
For commercial users, the changes are largely cosmetic. The Microsoft 365 Copilot application will be renamed simply as Microsoft Copilot, accompanied by a refreshed icon and a new commercial web address moving from m365.cloud.microsoft to copilot.cloud.microsoft.
Microsoft emphasizes that professional and personal boundaries remain intact within the single interface. Users can sign in with a personal Microsoft account, a work or school account (Microsoft Entra ID), or both, switching between them seamlessly.
Microsoft says that work and personal accounts will stay separate, and that enterprise security, compliance and administrative controls will remain unchanged.
Employers cannot view personal user activity, and data does not flow between the distinct account types inside the application.
Global Rollout Timeline
The transition is deploying in stages across platforms and regions. A small group of Windows Insiders began seeing changes this week, with mobile and web updates rolling out globally in mid-August. Windows and Mac desktop applications are scheduled to follow in mid-September. Mobile users will need to manually download an updated app to complete the migration.
As the rollout progresses through the current quarter, the unified app sets the stage for the broader “Super App” initiative.
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