Microsoft kills off unsuccessful AI features while merging its separate Copilot apps
TechCrunch Sarah Perez ● Covered by 3 sources
Microsoft is merging its consumer and business Copilot apps. It’s also cutting features that didn’t catch on, from Group Chats to AI podcasts.
Based on reporting by TechCrunch, Sarah Perez — read the original for the full story.
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Microsoft is folding its consumer Copilot app and its Microsoft 365 Copilot app into one experience, and it’s taking a chainsaw to a few bits that never found a real audience. The change was first reported by GeekWire and lines up with Microsoft’s own support docs.
The company says the goal is a simpler, more cohesive Copilot. That’s corporate-speak, but the underlying message is clearer: the split between personal and work AI wasn’t helping much, and Microsoft’s earlier setup was too messy to make Copilot feel like a serious rival to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
Some features are on the way out for consumers by August 18, 2026. That list includes Group Chats, AI-generated podcasts, Copilot Labs experiments, and Deep Research. For paying professional users, Researcher will stand in for Deep Research, at least for now. Microsoft is also dropping Mico, the floating animated character that gave Copilot a slightly off-brand Clippy energy.
There will be rough edges during the transition. Microsoft says some features may vanish temporarily, and files created in the standalone Copilot app will be moved into OneDrive. The bigger story, though, is not the cleanup itself. It’s that Microsoft is admitting Copilot had become harder to explain than it should have been, and the company is now trimming away the parts that didn’t stick.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is what happens when a company tries to make one AI app be everything for everyone and ends up with a drawer full of odd extras. Microsoft is right to simplify, because users do not want a museum of failed experiments; they want one thing that works. The merger also says something blunt about the AI race: the winners will probably be the products that feel boring in the best possible way.
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