Microsoft overhauls Copilot with new coding, document editing features

Microsoft has pushed Copilot beyond plain chat. The new version, announced today, adds a Code section aimed at people who are not developers but still want to build something useful, like a simple app or dashboard from a prompt. Microsoft’s example: a business analyst creating a store-sales tracker. Those apps can live as a desktop widget or run in the cloud, which matters because cloud-hosted versions can be shared with coworkers.

To make that less of a science project, Microsoft is also shipping Copilot Managed Runtime. The company says it handles cloud deployment without manual setup or maintenance, and it comes with an SDK and a command-line tool so engineers can take a nontechnical colleague’s Copilot app and refine it. That opens the door to a mixed workflow: one person sketches the app, another connects it to outside services, and the current version stays live while a new one is being tested.

The revamped homepage also splits Copilot into Chat and Code, and Chat is wired into Office. Workers can ask it to generate a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file from a description, then edit the result right inside Copilot. That inline editing matters more than it sounds like it should. It keeps the document in view instead of bouncing people between tools, which is often where productivity quietly goes to die.

Then there’s Autopilot, the third section, which is Microsoft’s push into AI agents without code. The company says these agents can automate recurring tasks, react to business events, and handle multi-step work without ultra-detailed prompts. Copilot also now leans on more company data through Microsoft IQ, which can pull from Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Microsoft says more updates are coming, including a Today section for important tasks and some automatic completion, plus a future way to stop users from switching manually between Chat and Code.