If you’ve successfully avoided installing Microsoft’s 365 Copilot app on your Windows computer thus far, your window of peace and serenity is rapidly closing. Unless you’re a member of the EEA (European Economic Area), in which case you’re safe from having Copilot thrust upon you for a while longer.
Everyone else can expect to have the company’s AI app installed on their machines, provided they’re running Microsoft’s 365 desktop client apps on their machines. According to the company, from October this year, it will “begin automatically installing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows devices that have Microsoft 365 desktop client apps.”
Activate the 365 Copilot
“This app provides a centralized entry point for accessing Copilot experiences and AI-powered capabilities across Microsoft 365. This change simplifies access to Copilot and ensures users can easily discover and engage with productivity-enhancing features,” Microsoft continued.
The company assumes that this is a good thing, but it must realise that not everybody will feel that way. There’s a way for users to opt out of the installation, which will add Copilot to the Start Menu and enable it on startup, provided they have access to a Microsoft 365 Admin account.
Microsoft has a brief explainer here, but it’s simple enough that we’re able to reproduce the steps in full. Head to the Microsoft 365 Admin apps center, hit up Customization, Device Configuration, and finally Modern App Settings. Here, you locate the Microsoft 365 Copilot app entry and untick the Enable automatic installation of Microsoft 365 Copilot app box.
It’d be far simpler to have an opt-in pop-up for all affected users, but that won’t bump Redmond’s Copilot install numbers quite as much as doing it this way will. Of course, it’s always possible that you’ve already got the app lurking on your Windows install, in which case you’ll get a new Start Menu icon and nothing else.
