No, Microsoft Office didn’t just get renamed to Microsoft 365 Copilot

You may have seen posts on social media claiming that Microsoft just changed the name of its Office suite to “Microsoft 365 Copilot.” However, this name change probably isn’t the “Office” you’re thinking of, and it’s certainly nothing new.

Many social media posts on Twitter/X, Bluesky and other platforms are discussing the rebranding of Microsoft Office to Microsoft 365 Copilot, with some posts calling it “breaking news”, including the official Perplexity AI account. You see, we I told you AI is not a good source of information.

First, the Microsoft 365 Copilot name change is not a new development. The screenshots in most posts are from the Office.com home page, which the Internet Archive says has read “Microsoft 365 Copilot (formerly Office) app” since at least February 14, 2025. Earlier backups of the home page simply said Microsoft 365.

There is also some confusion over what exactly was renamed, in part because Microsoft made a atrocious work in branding over the last few years. Word, Excel and PowerPoint are always called Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

There is less three things now called Microsoft 365 Copilot:

1. Microsoft 365 Copilot for iPhone, iPad, and Android – This is the mobile app you use to browse and edit files. Before that, it was called “Microsoft 365” and “Office”.
2. Microsoft 365 Copilot for Windows – This is the desktop app that acts as a hub for your Office documents, OneDrive files, and other data. It comes preinstalled on most Windows PCs and was formerly called “Office.”
3. Microsoft 365 Copilot website – This is a web app with shortcuts to cloud versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other apps, and also has a Copilot chat box and OneDrive files. This is what you see today when you click “Sign in” on the Office.com site or go directly to m365.cloud.microsoft.

The current subscription service that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive and other Microsoft apps is still called Microsoft 365. Before that, it was called Office 365. The non-subscription versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are still called Office, with the latest version being Microsoft Office 2024.

It’s true that Microsoft’s repeated rebrandings are stupid, and the endless array of Copilot features in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are largely useless. However, your Word taskbar shortcut isn’t about to be renamed. This is just a change for Microsoft’s hub apps, and an old change at that.