Microsoft unveils the new Copilot: Home, Code and Autopilot arrive in phased rollout

Three major features of the new Copilot

According to Microsoft's official blog, the new Copilot app adds three features: Home, Code and Autopilot. Home is a new starting screen that puts Chat and Cowork in one place. Chat is a real-time conversational mode suited to quick questions, looking things up and drafting content; Cowork is for "delegating" work: users define a task and Copilot completes it from start to finish and hands back the result, such as a proposal response or a customer briefing. Users can also see recent activity in Home and pick up unfinished work. Microsoft says that in the future users won't need to choose a mode themselves; they just describe what they want done, and Copilot will route the work to Chat, Cowork or Code.

Code means building solutions is no longer just a job for developers. Users describe the app, tracker, dashboard, automation or workflow they want in natural language, and Copilot chooses an approach and builds it, ranging from always-on desktop widgets and interactive dashboards for exploring data to cloud-based internal apps that can be shared with a team. Code uses the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot, runs in a sandbox (a protected environment isolated from other systems), and can be hosted securely within an organization's Microsoft 365 tenant. A tenant is each organization's dedicated environment in Microsoft 365.

Read the full description

Sources are collected, independently checked, then reviewed by Jev.

Autopilot was previously called Scout. Microsoft positions it as an always-on, proactive and personalized agent, that is, an AI assistant that can carry out tasks on its own. Once users give it a name, a role and goals, it doesn't wait for instructions: it keeps watching channels, follows up on threads, performs routine work and can even resume earlier projects days later. It runs in the cloud with its own identity, memory, computer and workspace. It is built on Microsoft IQ, Microsoft's unified intelligence platform, so it understands how the organization actually works. Users can @mention it in Teams, Outlook, chats, channels and documents just like tagging a colleague, with permissions, auditing and governance in place behind it.

Office in Copilot and enterprise data integration

Microsoft also launched Office in Copilot, bringing the full capabilities of Word, Excel and PowerPoint into Copilot. In Home, users can ask Copilot to draft a product launch brief, build a budget model, create a presentation or take over a file the team is editing, and Copilot will generate or update a genuinely editable document, spreadsheet or presentation that the whole team can see in real time. Microsoft says this avoids broken formatting and version confusion, and users don't have to switch to another app and re-explain the context.

On the enterprise data side, Copilot is built on Microsoft IQ, which brings together how a business operates and the knowledge it holds. Within it, Fabric IQ brings the data context from more than 20 million semantic models (organized data models ready for analysis) in Power BI into Copilot. It is now generally available in Chat and Cowork, and integration with Code is coming soon through the Frontier program. In addition, Microsoft says that within the next month it will let Copilot use Dynamics 365 and Power Platform data and workflows as a public preview. For example, when a salesperson prepares a proposal, Copilot can put data such as deal history and support cases straight into the document.

Rollout timeline, code hosting and plugin registry

Microsoft says Home and Code will begin rolling out through the Frontier program in the coming weeks. Code will launch in Frontier at the end of September, expand over the following weeks, and be offered as a preview to Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers later this year. Autopilot will expand to private preview at the end of September. A preview is a trial stage before a feature's general release.

Because writing code in Copilot is becoming easier, Microsoft is also introducing Copilot Managed Runtime. This is managed infrastructure that lets code run securely directly within an organization's own Microsoft 365 environment, governed by IT, while everyday users can easily share apps with colleagues, connect to live data and use them from anywhere. Apps built with Cowork, Code and Copilot Studio are all based on it, and Microsoft is also opening it to third parties and professional developers. Copilot Managed Runtime is currently in preview and will later be available in Code as well.

Plugins extend what Copilot can do. Microsoft is rolling out a new plugin registry that brings plugins from Microsoft, partners and organizations' own builds into a single catalog, reviewed and managed centrally by IT, with general availability across Copilot surfaces expected in the coming weeks. Microsoft also announced new FinOps for AI capabilities to help organizations manage spending on Copilot and agents and get the most value from it.

What it means for everyday users and businesses

For everyday users, the new Copilot tries to bring conversation, document collaboration and simple app building into a single interface, reducing switching between apps. For enterprise IT, the focus is on management tools such as Copilot Managed Runtime, the centrally IT-managed plugin registry and FinOps for AI, so organizations can keep control of security, governance and spending as they expand their use of AI agents.

Conclusion

With this announcement, Microsoft repositions Copilot as a unified work interface spanning conversation, documents, app building and autonomous agents. However, most of the new features are still rolling out in stages or in preview, and the actual experience and availability remain to be seen after general release.

Browse the latest news in this topic

• Tech news