- Microsoft rolls an update to the Copilot app
- It changes the website to be more like the start menu
- The rolling is up and running but it may take some time to reach all Windows 11 users
Microsoft changes the COPILOT app in Windows 11 to present the user with an experience more like the Start menu rather than the current chat-based website.
Windows latest reports that a new update to the Copilot app, which is currently being rolled out to all Windows 11 users via Microsoft Store, uses a significant makeover on the website of the AI assistant (as seen in testing earlier).
Currently, there is a chat-style interface where your entered query is central, as is the web version of Copilot (as shown in the picture above), but the new app transforms the website into something more related to the start menu (see image below).
As Windows latest points out, you still get the greeting from Copilot and Box Key Query (chat), but there are now four new panels that adorn the screen that deliver different extras.
These include links to jump right back into files you have recently used, as well as copilot conversations you have had in the past that you can revive if you wish.
A further panel offers the opportunity to ‘work on Copilot pages’ that allow you to work on writing and coding projects (which requires ample editing and audits), and a fourth panel provides guided help with apps. The latter starts a copilot vision session with that app, giving you tips and advice on using the application.
Windows latest also revealed references suggesting that Copilot’s Chatgpt-powered agent will come to the AI app in Windows 11. Agent offers the opportunity to perform certain tasks for you, such as booking travel tickets, and the tech site believes it can arrive in the next update to the Copilot app (add spices appropriately).
Analysis: The start of a major change?
As noted, all this is previously seen in tests, but is apparently now rolled out fully. That said, the rollout is an ongoing process and not everyone will see the new Home of the Copilot app right now – it will take a while to filter through for all Windows 11 PCs.
The broad idea here is to connect the Copilot app tentacles in several of Windows 11. In other words, Microsoft goes over simple AI queries with the app and integrates more of what you might need to do in the operating system. So, for example, you can click on a document marked in the recently used files in the Copilot app, and it shoots it up in Word on the desktop.
Granted, the new app’s website is not all That as the start menu, but you can see it taking signals from the central part of Windows 11 interface and it raises an interesting view. Right now we are looking at a starting menu-style design in the Copilot app; But in the future, will this idea be turned around? By which one I mean: Will we look at a start menu that is fully based on Copilot AI?
If we take the infusion of AI in Windows 11 – which obviously happens – to its logical conclusion, copilot comes everywhere and the start menu may end up seeing such this new roof on the Copilot app. It will center on queries (including local searches) powered by AI, and not only offers quick access to your apps, but help with them – and without a doubt we can expect copilot to power recommendations as well. (Maybe it will make the latter more useful; or maybe not, and they will continue to be a vehicle for Microsoft’s nudges boundary-on-ads).
This feels like an obvious way forward for Microsoft, so maybe with this Copilot App Redesign, we’ve just got our first glimpse of the future of the start menu in Windows 12 (or whatever the next Gen-OS ends up being called). Or maybe this AI -thing will all blow up (but you don’t think that more than I do, do you?).
