Updated: April 29, 2025 (April 25, 2025)
BlogThe Revamped Microsoft 365 Copilot App: It’s All About the Agents
Microsoft is continuing to rebrand and redefine its AI strategy and products, with “agents” as the newest centerpiece. Going forward, even the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, in spite of its name, is going to be all about agents.
In September 2024, Microsoft made a number of announcements around Microsoft 365, agents and Copilot Pages, describing the collection of features as “Copilot Wave 2.” On April 23, Microsoft announced a further set of coming Copilot and agent deliverables as “Copilot Wave 2 Spring” release.
Microsoft’s biggest Spring Wave announcement is its plan to revamp the Microsoft 365 Copilot app sometime in May 2025. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is what used to be known as the Microsoft 365 app or Office app. It is available on the web, on desktop (Windows and Mac), and on mobile (Android and iOS), and is the hub for commercial customers who want to interact with their Office apps and documents. Confusingly, the Microsoft 365 Copilot app does not require a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription; it also is available to work and school customers with Entra accounts and consumers with personal accounts.
Microsoft 365 Copilot App To Become An Agent Showcase
The updated Microsoft 365 Copilot app will bear a strong resemblance to Microsoft Teams. The centerpiece is the Chat module (previously known as the BizChat and, on mobile, the Copilot module), which will give users access to chat history, Copilot Pages, and agents through the left navigation pane on the desktop and web versions. (Currently in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, the Microsoft Search box is the centerpiece of the site.)
The updated Microsoft 365 Copilot app left navigation bar (or bottom bar on mobile) also will feature the “Create” button, as it does now, but with the revamp, Create will point to a new image generator based on OpenAI’s GPT-4o.
The revamped Microsoft 365 Copilot app will add some features already included in – or at least in the works for – the consumer version, such as the aforementioned image generation, personalization/memory and Copilot Search integration.
Copilot Search is based on Bing search but includes generative and large language model integration. Microsoft is touting that Microsoft 365 Copilot Search will work across both first- and third-party apps (like Google Drive, Slack, ServiceNow, Confluence, Jira, etc.). Microsoft Search already can do this via Microsoft Graph connectors. Update (April 29): According to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, the Microsoft 365 Copilot search preview will begin in June, with general availability kicking off in August 2025.
The revamped Microsoft 365 Copilot app will include an Agent Store. This store will include agents from Microsoft and third-party developers. We have asked Microsoft whether the Agent Store is a rebrand of the App Store, but no word back so far.
Update (April 29): Microsoft officials said the Agent Store is completely separate from the App Store. The Agent Store will be generally available in May within Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and M365Copilot.com, Microsoft officials said.
Microsoft’s previously announced Researcher and Analyst reasoning agents will be in this Store and marked as “Frontier,” which is the new way Microsoft will refer to agents in early-access/preview that are available to those with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license while still in development.
Update (April 29): Many of the new features announced as part of the Wave 2 Spring release are not going to be available to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat customers, Microsoft acknowledged. “Features like Copilot Notebooks, Create, and Skills agent are limited to customers with a M365 Copilot license,” a spokesperson said when we asked.
Copilot = The Browser for the AI World (?)
With agents becoming the newest AI darlings, Microsoft has been experimenting with various ways to talk about the relationship between agents and Copilots. One Microsoft exec said this week that Copilot acts “as the browser for the AI world.” Another Microsoft official said “Copilot is now your window into the world of agents.”
Jon Friedman, corporate vice president of design and research at Microsoft, made it clear Microsoft is still trying to position Copilot as a single entity, even though there are tens of different Microsoft Copilots which work and act very differently and draw from different data sources.
In explaining how and why Microsoft is revamping the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, Friedman told The Verge: “In my mind Copilot can be one branded experience, and it goes from warm and personal to performant and professional, and that’s what we’ve been working on together.”
I doubt I’m the only one who thinks this sounds a lot like the strategy Microsoft is continuing to try to land – not so successfully – with Free (consumer) Teams and commercial Teams.
Microsoft’s Copilot Wave 2 Spring Announcements
