On Thursday, Microsoft declare Bing Chat—the once-famous AI chatbot—has officially been renamed “Microsoft Copilot.” The company also announced that it will support OpenAI’s recently released GPTs, which are custom effects for its ChatGPT AI assistant.
The move merges Bing Chat into the somewhat confusing Microsoft “Copilot” AI assistant naming scheme, which has a family that starts with GitHub Manager in 2021. In March this year, Microsoft announced Rotation 365 Copilot, Copilot in Windows, Microsoft Security Developerwe had Microsoft 365 Copilot. Now Bing Chat is “Microsoft Copilot” – its sixth pilot so far. Soon, Microsoft will need a Branding Copilot to keep them all straight.
Regarding the naming scheme, Microsoft customer Amit Malik took to X and wrote“I love Microsoft, but the whole controller thing is becoming more confusing than it should be. Microsoft Copilot, Windows Copilot, M365 Copilot, then all the m365 apps, D365 copilot etc. AI should to simplify, not otherwise.” Note that Malik wrote that in September – almost two months before the recent announcement.
Microsoft
Apparently, Copilot’s branding is an effort to unify rather than disrupt, according to a Microsoft blog postAt Microsoft Ignite 2023, we announced new innovations across Microsoft Copilot — a pilot experience that runs across all our sites, understands your context on the web, on your PC, and works to improve the skills you come to you when you need them across work and life. Microsoft is a Copilot company. And soon there will be a President for everyone and for everything he does.”
But is he really a copilot? Each one performs different functions in different places, and even if Microsoft unifies the function in all applications, those who remember the history of different crews may still be confused.
Alongside the renewal of Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise, Microsoft has unveiled a dedicated website for Copilot, copilot.microsoft.com, which provides a special chat interface—though it requires the Microsoft Edge browser to run. Bing.com (the search engine) will also offer an integrated search and chat experience for users similar to that previously offered with Bing Tablet.
But that’s not all. Microsoft is also embracing OpenAI’s recent move towards agent-like AI models called GPT as well Microsoft Copilot Studio (Yet another Builder, though this one is for making new Crews). “GPTs are a new way for anyone to create a customized version of Copilot for specific tasks,” Microsoft writes. “Combined with already announced The support of OpenAI programming plugins, GPTs and plugins will open up a new world across civilian and professional developers, and provide users with experiences and interactions tailored to meet their needs.”
Microsoft says that Microsoft Copilot (the Bing Chat one) will be available all the time on December 1. We’ll keep you updated if any new Copilots suddenly appear.