Microsoft Is Removing Copilot Buttons From These Windows 11 Apps.
Last month, Microsoft announced plans to remove “unnecessary” Copilot features from Windows 11. This news was shocking, to say the least: Microsoft had been a leading proponent of generative AI, embedding the technology into every corner of its apps and operating system—despite negative user feedback. Now, it appears the company has heeded this message and is actually keeping its word.
As Tom Warren of The Verge noted , Microsoft has already begun removing some “unnecessary” Copilot buttons from certain Windows apps. Warren notes that the latest version of the Notepad app for Windows Insiders is missing the Copilot button. Instead, Microsoft has added a “writing tools” menu. A similar issue is observed with the Snipping Tool: when selecting an area to take a screenshot, the Copilot button no longer appears.
It’s only a small step, but at least the company has begun the removal process. In a statement last month, Pavan Davuluri (Microsoft’s president of Windows and devices) announced that the company would remove Copilot from Notepad and the Snipping Tool, as well as from Photos and widgets. If this trend continues, expect Copilot buttons to disappear from these apps in the future.
The key word here is indeed “buttons.” As Warren notes in his article for The Verge, Microsoft appears to be largely preserving the AI features themselves. The “Writing Tools” section of Notepad still includes Microsoft’s AI-powered writing tools, should users want access to them. But by removing the larger Copilot option, users who want nothing to do with AI in apps like Notepad can easily avoid them. In fact, this suggests that Microsoft’s intrusive approach to AI integration has backfired. Complicating matters further, until last week, Microsoft’s official terms of service stated that Copilot was ” for entertainment purposes only .”
Removing Copilot buttons from software is fairly straightforward; dealing with the Copilot button installed on new PCs with Copilot+ technology is quite another matter. Microsoft forced manufacturers to add this button as part of its commitment to this new technology, but now that the company has backed away from it, these PCs have found themselves in a strange position. It always seemed odd to place a Copilot key on a laptop when it was unclear how many users actually wanted to use Copilot’s features. At least it can be remapped to something more useful if you don’t like Microsoft’s AI.