Microsoft Is Removing Copilot Buttons From These Windows 11 Apps
Last month, Microsoft announced that it planned to remove “unnecessary” Copilot features from Windows 11. The news was shocking, to say the least: Microsoft has been one of the biggest proponents of generative AI, pushing the technology into as many corners of its apps and operating system as possible, despite negative user feedback. Now, it seems the company is paying attention and keeping its word.
As spotted by The Verge’s Tom Warren, Microsoft has already started removing some “unnecessary” Copilot buttons from some Windows apps. Warren notes that the latest Windows Insider build of the Notepad app lacks the Copilot button. In its place, Microsoft added a “writing tools” menu. The Screenshot tool also has a similar situation: when you select an area to take a snapshot, you will no longer find the Copilot button.
It’s a small start, but at least the company East start the removal process. In his announcement last month, Pavan Davuluri (Microsoft’s President of Windows and Devices) revealed that the company would remove Copilot from both Notepad and the Snipping tool, but also Photos and Widgets. If the trend continues, expect to see these apps lose their Copilot buttons next.
The key word here really is “buttons”. As Warren points out for The Verge, Microsoft appears to be largely keeping the AI features themselves. The “Writing Tools” in Notepad still has Microsoft’s AI writing tools, in case users still want access to those options. But by removing the big Copilot option, users who want nothing to do with AI in apps like Notepad can easily avoid them. In fact, it proves that Microsoft’s in-your-face approach to AI integration has really backfired. The fact that, until last week, Microsoft’s official terms of service stated that Copilot was “for entertainment purposes only” doesn’t help the company’s arguments.
What do you think of it so far?
It’s quite simple to remove the Copilot buttons from the software; it’s a completely different matter to manage the Copilot button on the new “PC Copilot+”. Microsoft has been asking manufacturers to add this button as part of its commitment to this new technology, but now that it’s backing off a bit, it leaves these PCs in a strange place. It always seemed like an odd choice to put a Copilot stick on a laptop when it wasn’t clear how many users actually wanted to use Copilot’s features in the first place. At least you can remap it to do something more useful if you don’t care about Microsoft’s AI.
