- Bing Chat has undergone a rebranding and is now officially known as Copilot.
- This means that Bing and Copilot are now two separate products.
- Microsoft will continue to offer Bing search with the Copilot integration on the web.
- The company has also simplified the names of its AI technologies for enterprise offerings.
Microsoft has rebranded its “Bing Chat” technology to simply “Copilot” in a not-too-surprising move. Originally, the software giant launched its chatbot AI as part of the search experience on Bing on February 7, 2023, before integrating it into Microsoft Edge and then on Windows 11 with the release of version 23H2 and now, less than a year later, the name is now changing to “Copilot” for simplicity and to align the branding with the other AI products, according to the company’s announcement.
However, there is another side to the story. During the early days of Bing Chat, the software giant main goal was to offer something different and innovative to compete with Google in the search space, but it appears that the approach has failed to lure users into the Bing search engine. As a result, Microsoft seems to be shifting focus to compete with ChatGPT, despite Copilot being partly powered by ChatGPT and Bing technologies and Microsoft having a partnership with OpenAI worth billions of dollars.
The reason is that the company sees an opportunity as many more people continue to look for AI assistants in the consumer and business market. Furthermore, the software giant has also announced support for OpenAI GPTs. These new “GTPs” are a new method that allows developers to create task-specific versions of Copilot, which, when combined with the OpenAI schema plugins, opens the doors to new AI experiences.
Moving forward, Microsoft will continue to offer “Copilot” (formerly Bing Chat) as the free AI assistant for Bing, Microsoft Edge, and Copilot for Windows 11, and there are paid offerings for businesses that are also undergoing a rebranding. For example, Bing Chat Enterprise is now known as “Copilot Pro,” and Microsoft 365 Copilot has been rebranded to “Copilot for Microsoft 365.” In addition, the company will also offer “Copilot for Sales” (formerly Microsoft Sales Copilot), and “Copilot for Service” is a new offering.
The company is also moving the chatbot AI to its own standalone “copilot.microsoft.com” web app.
On the other hand, business users will have to sign in with their Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure ID) to access the paid version of the service. Remember that Microsoft 365 is a paid subscription with different tiers for businesses, and it is not the same as the Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription.
Also, for enterprise customers, Copilot will be available starting on December 1, 2023, as part of some of the Microsoft 365 licenses, including E3, E5, F3, A3, A5 (Faculty only), Business Standard, and Premium.
All this means that Bing and Copilot are now two different products, even though Microsoft will continue to offer AI for search and chat experience as we have seen until now.
Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].