REDMOND, September 26 — Microsoft unveiled a reimagined Copilot on Friday, a redesign the company says is built to connect the tools people already rely on with next-generation capabilities for building, customizing and scaling AI across work. Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer for AI at Work, announced the changes on September 25. The redesigned app introduces three new capabilities: Home, Code and Autopilot.
Home is the new starting point, where Chat and Cowork come together in one place. Chat is described as instant and conversational — suited to quick questions, lookups and draft creation.
Cowork handles delegated work: the user defines a task and it runs end-to-end to return a completed result, such as an RFP response, a launch kit, a customer briefing or a financial close package. Microsoft says that coming soon users will not need to choose a mode. They can simply state what they need to accomplish, and Copilot will route the work to Chat, Cowork or Code.
Home also brings Office in Copilot, embedding the full power of Word, Excel and PowerPoint into the experience, so Copilot can create or update real, editable documents, workbooks and presentations that stay in sync with the Office apps. PowerPoint now keeps decks on-brand automatically and allows fine-tuning of slides and images or quick application of a custom template.
In Excel, users can see exactly what changed and why when Copilot or another collaborator makes edits, and Copilot recommends the best chart to visualize data. Across Microsoft 365, Skills bring specialized expertise into the apps, such as financial skills in Excel and legal skills in Word, and enable organizations to scale best practices through reusable, role-specific workflows.
Building beyond developers
Code moves solution-building beyond developers alone. Microsoft frames the file — document, spreadsheet, deck — as the traditional unit of knowledge work and positions Code as adding a fourth: small, purpose-built solutions anyone can create. Users describe an app, tracker, dashboard, automation or workflow in natural language and Copilot chooses an approach and builds it, from persistent desktop widgets and interactive dashboards to cloud-hosted internal apps shareable with a team.
Code is powered by the same underlying technology as GitHub Copilot, runs in a sandboxed environment and can be hosted securely within a tenant. With Microsoft IQ, everything created is grounded in the context of the user’s work, and plugins sync automatically.
Developers continue to use GitHub Copilot for day-to-day work with more connectivity into the Copilot platform. Code is rolling out to Frontier at the end of the month, with broad availability in the coming weeks, and will be in preview for Microsoft 365 Premium and Pro subscribers later this year.
An agent that keeps working
Autopilot, previously called Scout, is described as a persistent, proactive and personal agent that keeps working even when the user is not. Users give it a name, a role and a goal; it watches channels, follows up on threads, runs recurring work and can pick a project back up days later without waiting for a prompt. Microsoft cites an example of Autopilot setting up and managing a full supplier review process, building the schedule and workback plan and handling prep, meetings and follow-ups, including reaching out to stakeholders for updates.
Autopilot is cloud-hosted and keeps working while the user sleeps or is focused elsewhere. Microsoft also introduced Microsoft Copilot Managed Runtime, hosting infrastructure that lets code run safely inside a company’s Microsoft 365 environment.
It is governed by IT but designed to be easy for others: users can share an app with teammates, connect it to live data and access it from anywhere. The same foundation enables apps built in Cowork, Code and Copilot Studio, and Microsoft is opening it to third-party and pro-code developers. Copilot Managed Runtime is now in preview and will also be accessible inside Code.
On timing, Home and Code will start rolling out in the Frontier program in the coming weeks, and Autopilot is expanding to private preview at the end of the month. Microsoft also announced new FinOps for AI capabilities to help manage spend and get the most value from Copilot and agents.
What to watch next is how quickly the routing between Chat, Cowork and Code reaches everyday users, and whether the promise of building a working tool from a plain-language description holds up once Code leaves preview.
