Microsoft is rebranding Copilot in the most Microsoft way possible

At one point in Microsoft’s nearly 50-year history, the software maker decided that “Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Professional Edition” was a good branding choice for the version of its mobile operating system that shipped on handheld devices with a stylus. Over the decades, Microsoft has formed a habit of picking bad marketing names for its products and has often had to reverse or change them after they’ve led to confusion or consumers just call them something else altogether. Windows Phone 7 originally shipped as Windows Phone 7 Series, the Windows Store is now the Microsoft Store, for some reason, and don’t get me started on the various Windows 10 update names. To me, it’s the Xbox Elite controller, but to Microsoft, it’s the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2. Copilot is now up next for a Microsoft rebrand. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell me that the main Microsoft Copilot brand name for the company’s AI business efforts is moving to Microsoft 365 Copilot in an effort to push the paid offering of its AI-powered tools. The actual paid version of the service — currently named “Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365” — is also changing its name to Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft currently uses simplified names to refer to Copilot inside of Office apps, such as “Copilot in Word,” but even that’s going to be more complicated soon. “Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word” is the new brand name that will start to appear next month, I’m told. The Copilots for Sales, Service, and Finance are all moving to the Microsoft 365 brand, too. So that results in “Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales” instead. I’m sure everyone will just continue to call it “Copilot for Sales,” though. Microsoft is also giving its graph and web-grounded chat experience in Microsoft 365 Copilot its own brand: Business Chat. News of the rebrand has been spreading internally in recent weeks, as teams grapple with how to use these new brand names in their various products. After speaking to a variety of sources, it’s clear that this rebrand is linked to the fact that nobody really owns Copilot inside Microsoft. In a Notepad issue last month, I wrote about how Microsoft had reshuffled some of its AI and cloud teams to focus on more Copilot opportunities, and the result has been different teams building different Copilots. That hasn’t yet resulted in the type of internal fights we’ve seen inside Microsoft in the past, but there’s a feeling among some employees that the Microsoft 365 team has always wanted to own the Copilot brand thanks to its hero experience inside Office apps. This rebranding effort makes it clear that Microsoft 365 is winning the brand battle. There’s still no single engineering owner of Copilot in Microsoft, though, and it’s unclear how Microsoft will brand any future business-focused Copilots that are outside of Microsoft 365. This Copilot rebrand will largely impact the business side of Microsoft’s AI efforts. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman still controls the consumer side, and I’m not aware of any changes to the main web Copilot brand and mobile apps that consumers can access. Microsoft just appears to be aligning around Microsoft 365 for its business Copilot efforts. I understand this Copilot rebrand will be unveiled publicly next month, as Microsoft prepares to make more updates to the Microsoft 365 Copilot in the fall. I asked Microsoft to comment on its Copilot rebrand, but the company didn’t provide a statement in time for publication. --- A busy week for Xbox at Gamescom There are a lot of Xbox employees in Germany this week for Gamescom. Xbox chief Phil Spencer is at the show, alongside Xbox president Sarah Bond, Xbox games marketing chief Aaron Greenberg, and head of Xbox gaming devices and ecosystem Jason Ronald. A variety of other Xbox staff have traveled to support Microsoft’s announcements this week, including employees from Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, and more. The biggest news of the week was Microsoft and Bethesda officially confirming that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will come to PS5 months after its Xbox debut. Bethesda says the PS5 release is expected in spring 2025, and I understand that the company has been targeting an April 2025 release. This date could naturally shift depending on development schedules. The confirmation of the game’s PS5 release comes months after I exclusively revealed Microsoft was working on the port. I wrote in February that Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game would have a rather short period of exclusivity, with Bethesda considering a PS5 launch months after the December 2024 launch on Xbox and PC. It’s all part of the larger Project Latitude effort inside Microsoft to bring select Xbox games over to PS5. I think we’ll hear about more games in the coming months, as Microsoft gets more comfortable with its release cadence. “We have to anticipate there’s going to be more change in some of the traditional ways that games are built and distributed,” said Spencer in a Gamescom appearance this week. “That’s going to change for all of us. But the end result has to be better games that more people can play.” While the response from Xbox fans to Microsoft’s games heading to PS5 has been largely negative, Windows Central reports that Sea of Thieves has racked up more than 1 million units sold on PS5 so far. That was a key test game for this new strategy, and the sales numbers are a clear indication that Microsoft has more opportunities to sell Xbox games to PlayStation owners. Beyond Xbox games, I was also stoked to see Microsoft announce a new Xbox accessibility controller at Gamescom. The Xbox Adaptive Joystick allows you to operate a controller without having to use both hands, making it ideal for players who might have difficulty using the thumbsticks on existing controllers. I love it when Microsoft makes a big deal about accessibility, something the company has increasingly focused on under CEO Satya Nadella. --- The pad: * Microsoft’s Recall AI feature won’t be available for Windows testers until October. The controversial Recall feature originally got delayed to address security concerns, but Microsoft had promised to deliver it to testers “in the coming weeks.” We’re now two months past that promise, and Microsoft clearly needs more time to test its security changes to Recall, as it’s not arriving until October for testers. That means we might not see it ship fully in Windows 11 until 2025. * Microsoft’s white Xbox Series X and 2TB special-edition model are launching in October. Sales of Xbox consoles haven’t been going well for Microsoft over the past year, but with a lot of Xbox Game Pass releases on the way, it’s hoping to capitalize on a busy holiday season with new Xbox console models. There’s the $449.99 white discless Xbox Series X, a 2TB “Galaxy Black” special-edition Xbox Series X priced at $599.99, and a $349.99 1TB Xbox Series S. All three models will be available in the US on October 15th, with other markets to follow on October 29th. * Microsoft’s latest security update has ruined dual-boot Windows and Linux PCs. Microsoft’s latest monthly security update is wreaking havoc on dual-boot Windows and Linux systems. Last week’s security patch wasn’t supposed to hit dual-boot machines, but it’s now preventing some Linux installs from booting. There’s no word from Microsoft yet on how it intends to fix this. * Windows on Arm now has one of the best Start menu apps. Stardock’s excellent Start11 app is making its way to Windows on Arm PCs this week. Version 2.1 brings native Arm64 support for customizing the Windows 11 Start menu to exactly how you want it to look and feel. Start11’s update comes just weeks after Microsoft launched its Qualcomm-powered Copilot PCs and ahead of the busy back-to-school season for laptops. * Microsoft Teams’ new single app for personal and work is now available. Microsoft is finally launching a single unified Microsoft Teams app that will allow you to switch between personal and work accounts. The new app has been in testing for most of the year, and Microsoft is now rolling it out for Windows and Mac users. This is a great change, especially if you switch between lots of Teams tenants regularly. * Microsoft’s new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier is now available to test for $1. We’re still waiting on a formal release date for Microsoft’s new Game Pass Standard tier, but Xbox Insiders can now try it out for $1. The new Game Pass Standard subscription includes the usual Game Pass library for Xbox but with online console multiplayer, too. Crucially, it doesn’t include immediate access to day-one game releases, though. Microsoft says day-one games won’t come to the Standard tier for up to 12 months or even more, and release dates will vary by title. * Microsoft Loop 2.0 is here. I’ve always been a big fan of Microsoft’s Loop efforts, its competitor to Notion. The online collaborative workspace has been upgraded with a better UI and easier access to notes, favorites, and recent workspaces. * MIcrosoft releases new Phi-3.5 models. Microsoft isn’t slowing down with its AI model efforts, with three new Phi-3.5 models appearing this week. Developers can download and fine-tune each model under an MIT License, and it looks like they all provide impressive performance up against Google’s Gemini 1.5 Flash, Meta’s Llama 3.1, and OpenAI’s GPT-4o. * Windows 11 is getting an advanced camera configuration tool. Microsoft is working on allowing you to enable your camera to work across multiple apps in Windows 11. The latest test builds of Windows 11 include a multiapp camera toggle that is “designed for the hard of hearing community, to allow multiple video apps to stream from this camera at the same time.” * Nvidia is linking Xbox accounts to GeForce Now so you can automatically sign in to games. Starting today, you can now link an Xbox account fully to Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service. This will enable automatic sign-in for games on PC Game Pass or titles you own through the Microsoft Store. It’s a “set it and forget it” feature, so you’ll no longer have to keep entering your password each time you want to play an Xbox PC game on GeForce Now. * The Windows Control Panel might be finally disappearing. While Microsoft has been gradually improving its Settings interface in both Windows 10 and 11, the company has never really said when the Control Panel is going away. Now, Microsoft says “the Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app,” but there’s still no timeline on when the Control Panel will disappear. --- Thanks for subscribing and reading to the very end. What do you think about Microsoft’s strategy to put Xbox games on PS5? You can reach me via email at notepad@theverge.com. If you’ve heard about any of Microsoft’s other secret projects, you can also speak to me confidentially on the Signal messaging app, where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m also tomwarren on Telegram if you’d prefer to chat there.

Microsoft is rebranding Copilot in the most Microsoft way possible

Microsoft is rebranding Copilot in the most Microsoft way possible

The marketing teams are at it again, so prepare for some confounding Copilot changes.

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Microsoft is rebranding Copilot in the most Microsoft way possible

Microsoft is rebranding Copilot in the most Microsoft way possible

The marketing teams are at it again, so prepare for some confounding Copilot changes.

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Boeing’s Starliner started making a repeating ‘pulsing’ sound yesterday

The headphones that replaced my AirPods

How Star Wars walked away from the world’s first self-retracting lightsaber toy

The EV evolution is going to take longer than we thought

AnandTech shuts down after 27 years

More from Microsoft

AMD says Microsoft’s next big Windows 11 update will improve Zen 5 CPU performance

Microsoft’s Recall AI feature won’t be available for Windows testers until October

Microsoft’s new Xbox Adaptive Joystick puts accessibility at the center

Microsoft’s white Xbox Series X and 2TB special-edition model launching in October