Microsoft 365 business customers are running out of places to hide from Copilot
- Reference: 1761851758
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/10/30/microsoft_365_companion_apps/
- Source link:
The Microsoft 365 companion [1]apps - lightweight, always-on taskbar tools for browsing your People, Files, and Calendar data - are the latest to get the Copilot treatment, [2]says Redmond.
Microsoft in August said it would begin automatically installing the companion apps on Windows 11 devices with Microsoft 365 subscriptions in late October as part of the regular Microsoft 365 Apps update process. They're available only to commercial tenants - Enterprise and Business customers - so don't expect to find them on a personal Microsoft 365 setup.
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The latest update injects Copilot into the mix, letting the AI draw on your organization's people, files, and meetings to offer context-aware prompts and summaries.
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"With Copilot, each companion app will be grounded in your work data - people, files, meetings - making them the fastest and easiest way to prompt for relevant questions," Microsoft 365 companion apps team principal product manager Yash Kamalanath said in the company's announcement.
The People app, for example, "surfaces recent communications, highlights key responsibilities, and suggests tailored prompts to help you connect and collaborate," because nothing says genuine interaction like AI-generated fluff.
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Files will allow users to loop Copilot into work documents to get a summary, highlight recent changes, pick apart data, and "create action items without breaking your flow." The Copilot Calendar companion app integration, meanwhile, will let users get meeting summaries and suggestions on what material to prep for an upcoming discussion.
Both People and Files Copilot features are live now, with the Calendar integration coming soon, Microsoft said.
[7]Clippy rises from the dead in major update to Copilot and its voice interface
[8]Feeling lonely? Microsoft Copilot can now listen to your every word, watch your screen
[9]The real insight behind measuring Copilot usage is Microsoft's desperation
[10]BBC probe finds AI chatbots mangle nearly half of news summaries
The addition of Copilot to the Microsoft 365 companion apps is the latest in a line of Redmond sticking AI into every crevice of the company's software lineup that it can find. Other recent examples include Copilot showing up [11]directly in Excel cells , and possibly soon to on-prem Exchange Server installations if Microsoft's [12]exploration of the idea pans out.
The company's Copilot endeavors haven't always [13]been welcomed , we note, especially when it adds tools that allow managers to [14]monitor Copilot usage among various teams to push more usage of its flagship AI product.
Administrators can manage whether the Microsoft 365 companion apps are deployed in their environments, according to Microsoft's documentation, but there's no separate switch to strip Copilot out of the trio once they're installed.
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Microsoft didn't respond to questions for this story. ®
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[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-microsoft-365-companions-a27df74a-cc41-4e74-8216-51091dc30194
[2] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft365insiderblog/work-smarter-with-copilot-in-the-people-files-and-calendar-apps/4462091
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aQPuEl3L8mit-q54wJgvyQAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQPuEl3L8mit-q54wJgvyQAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aQPuEl3L8mit-q54wJgvyQAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aQPuEl3L8mit-q54wJgvyQAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/24/microsoft_clippy_copilot_update/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/16/microsoft_copilot_updates/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/20/copilot_viva_insights_column/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/24/bbc_probe_ai_news/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/18/microsoft_adds_copilot_ai_formulas/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/23/copilot_exchange_server/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/18/microsoft_copilot_not_wanted/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/10/microsoft_copilot_viva_insights/
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aQPuEl3L8mit-q54wJgvyQAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
So bad it’s funny
“…and suggests tailored prompts to help you connect and collaborate”
Because you’re too thick to think for yourself!!
This shit is so …..shit? …. that it’s becoming a joke. MS release a feature nobody wants. All its customers say “fuck off”, MS hears “oooo — more please!!”. Thank goodness I don’t have the headache of dealing with this crap
Sounds familiar
All its customers say “fuck off”, MS hears “oooo — more please!!”.
Sounds like someone we may know who insists that grown men are coming up to him with tears in their eyes...
Did they get the same training?
Oh dear god
This is not going to end well.
We've seen this movie before.
> Just when you thought Microsoft had run out of Windows apps to stuff with Copilot, it's cramming the AI into your taskbar companions
I can definitely think of one place Microsoft can stuff and/or cram Copilot, and since I'm in a good mood, I'll even say they're allowed to use lube.
Definite shades of the old Penny Arcade comic-strip with pizza executives struggling to find new places to cram cheese.
Ah, [1]here it is .
[1] https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/10/06/the-visionary
Clippy on steroids
I tend to think that this will not end well, for either MS, or its users. IMHO at this time, AI tools are not quite good enough yet.
Time to give MS the big finger
And sue them in the meantime for interfering with your computers without authorisation.
Stop using Orifice 365. Firewall MS off your network. Stop answering calls from MS especially salesmen.
Re: And sue them in the meantime...
Or at least sue after the inevitable hack of copilot gets all of your data stolen. But will it be direct from your org or through MS that your data is stolen?
I can remember when one of Micros~1 security rules was "When you let someone else run a program on your computer, it's not your computer any more." Now they're running all the programs on 'your' computer. They install what they want, when they want, snoop, spy, process and digest (if they so choose) everything you try to do with 'your' computer.
The alleged uptake in Copilot use statistics will not be solely because users are making a choice to use it, but because the users are having it force fed to them.
I stopped having Micros~1 stuff at home years ago and now I've retired, I don't have to put up with their shit at work any more.
I've already seen stories where some organisations are seriously considering a future without Miicros~1 products and given the recent outages at both Azure and AWS, they'd do well to review their use of 'someone else's computer'.
I have to use this shit at work...
...and I don't need Copilot ading to the shit I already have to deal with. I don't need "xxx said in Teams", "did you miss this in sharepoint?" and all the other unwanted shit I get every day. I REALLY don't need "reminder" of people in our organisation who some AI thinks I might want to contact, or tell me what they are doing. I avoid Copilot as best i can anyway because all the security training we do tells us to be careful how and where we share data. And then the company gives us (or can't block) access to Copilot where we have no idea what is happening to the possibly confidential data it's being fed. We have company policies telling us not to put confidential data into ChatGPT to create summaries or answer emails etc, and yet Copilit is constantly in our faces trying to get us to do exactly that. There seems to be no awareness of the cognitive dissonance this creates up in management and C levels.
What ever happened to being in charge of the hardware that you actually own? You know, "my computer, my rules".
It makes my Linux smugometer go off the scale whenever I read about this Microsoft AI shit being forced on people.
I see the headlines
Microsoft: Shareholders, look everyone is loving our AI. Look at all the users. Please make line go up.
Users: How do i fucking turn this fucking bag of wankstain shit off? No fuck off, I don't need a fucking summary of my single calendar entry you fucking bag of shit. Die bitch!
"so don't expect to find them on a personal "
Should have been "so don't fear to find them on a personal..."