Almost 3 years later, it's time to admit that Microsoft Copilot was a mistake

Time to pull the plug, Microsoft

27 Dec 2025, 16:30 · TechRadar

Opinion By Christian Guyton published 27 December 2025

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Yunus Praditya / Microsoft) Share Share by:

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Look, Microsoft: sometimes we all make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes are small, and sometimes they’re huge, multi-year debacles that annoy millions of people and fundamentally damage the functionality of your flagship product.

I am, of course, referring to the elephant in the room that is Microsoft Copilot, the AI-powered assistant that is now heavily baked into multiple aspects of not just Windows 11, but the broader range of Microsoft products as a whole. Microsoft Word, Outlook, the Edge browser, the 365 suite, and even the File Explorer (where Microsoft recently gave users the option to remove it entirely, because it was still hanging around even if you disabled AI actions in the Windows Settings menu).

Now, I’m not going to make such a bold claim as ‘Copilot is wildly unpopular’, but the AI tool has clearly proved divisive at best among users. I have no doubt there are some people who love Copilot and use it daily; I’m not one of those people, but I’m sure they do exist somewhere other than the slideshows in Microsoft’s quarterly earnings calls.

But for all the tech giant’s pandering to AI-obsessed investors, Copilot has had a rocky journey, and even three years since its original launch, has largely failed to prove itself as a tool that the majority of people want or need to use. Even AI fans prefer ChatGPT, and Microsoft’s own ‘AI CEO’ Mustafa Suleyman recently admitted that Google’s competing Gemini AI outperforms Copilot in some key areas. Frankly, things aren’t looking great.

Locked in

It doesn’t help that Copilot is largely contained within the Windows ecosystem (especially after Meta recently took steps to boot other AI tools from its platforms, though Microsoft has plans to annoy LG TV owners with it too), and Windows itself has seen no shortage of troubles lately.

This sort of parent platform focus shouldn’t be a problem in itself, but when even your own former staff are criticising your biggest product, it should be a sign that something isn’t right.

There are many reasons why Windows 10 remains very popular, with the TPM 2.0 hardware requirement for Windows 11 being a significant factor in blocking adoption, but it’s undeniable that some people - myself included - aren’t upgrading because of how bloated Windows 11 is now.

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