- Microsoft is trying to promote its Copilot AI in the Edge browser
- When people visit ChatGPT or Perplexity, they can see the ‘Try Copilot’ button
- This turns on Copilot in Edge’s sidebar, and the idea is to poach traffic from these rival AI services
Microsoft’s latest idea to promote its services is an attempt to get people who use ChatGPT or Perplexity AI to try Copilot instead.
Windows Latest reports that this is happening to those using Microsoft Edge. When you visit either the ChatGPT or Perplexity websites in Microsoft’s browser, there is a button that appears on the far right of Edge’s URL bar that prompts you to ‘Try Copilot’ instead (with a small Copilot icon next to it).
It’s relatively subtle – by Microsoft’s standards – but visible enough, and if you click it, Edge will open Copilot in its sidebar. The hope, of course, is that you’ll use Microsoft’s AI rather than either ChatGPT or Perplexity, which is why Microsoft is trying to find traffic here.
I tried opening both of these rival AI sites in my Edge browser, and just like Windows Latest promised, this button appeared in the URL bar. Oddly, it didn’t show up the first time I went to the ChatGPT page, but it did on the second visit.
Analysis: Hi ChatGPT – How do I stop Copilot from bothering me?
This seems to be happening with ChatGPT and Perplexity (plus Deepseek, the Chinese AI), but notably not with Google’s Gemini AI – which seems odd since Microsoft has no qualms about trying to warn Edge users against downloading Chrome, as we’ve seen in the past, and it’s still true today.
In fact, navigate to the Chrome download page in Edge and you’ll get a full pop-up, not just a little icon trying to dissuade you from going to Google. It explains that Edge uses the same technology as Chrome – namely the Chromium engine – but with the “added trust of Microsoft”, whatever that means.
So that kind of push is quite common for Microsoft’s browser, and in fairness Google is actually up to the same kind of online cajoling in the opposite direction.
Anyway, this promotion of artificial intelligence is nothing new. We’ve seen this sort of thing before with Microsoft trying to hijack a Bing search for competing AI services and redirect people to Copilot AI in Edge. And given Microsoft’s overall big push with AI – which is now becoming very apparent with all the recent developments in Windows 11 – it’s really no surprise to see more of this type of activity.
That doesn’t make it any less disappointing, however, as Microsoft seems to be getting more and more heavy-handed with all its promotional tricks in Windows and Edge. It suggests that the company has proof that this kind of nudging works, but to me it’s just an annoyance, and one that makes me less likely to use a given product. Edge, Copilot, or other Microsoft services should stand on their own merits (and the irony is actually that Edge largely does, as it’s our current pick for best web browser).
Incidentally, I asked ChatGPT if it was aware of Microsoft Edge’s behavior while visiting its site, and as you might expect, AI acknowledged reports of this – although it remained implacably neutral about its overall tone. Interestingly, ChatGPT suggested turning off the Copilot button (right in the address bar) to get rid of this particular ‘Try Copilot’ nudge, and would you believe this worked for me. With the Copilot main button disabled, I no longer saw Microsoft’s nagging in the address bar (at least in my short test).
If you’re wondering how to turn off the Copilot button, type the following into the Edge address bar to access this section of the browser’s settings:
edge://settings/appearance/copilotAndSidebarAt the bottom of the ‘App specific settings’ panel, click on ‘Copilot’ and where it says ‘Show Copilot button on toolbar’, turn this off. You’ll no longer have a Copilot button, and hopefully you won’t see any Copilot-related suggestions in Edge’s address bar—or at least fewer of them.
