Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has laid out his most direct pitch yet for what Copilot is supposed to become, calling it a "new OS for work that spans every model, every form factor, and every task." The comment came alongside Microsoft's biggest Copilot overhaul to date, which merges four pieces into one app: Autopilot (a long-running enterprise agent), Code (an in-app builder that hosts apps inside a company's own tenant), Home (which combines Chat and Cowork), and Office, with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint now built directly into Copilot. Nadella also mentioned Copilot support inside Teams, plus a new feature called Today that pulls relevant information from across Microsoft 365 without the user having to ask. It looks like Microsoft wants Copilot to work more like a proactive layer sitting across a person's entire workday instead of a chat window they open on demand (or by accident).

Interestingly, Microsoft avoided calling Copilot part of the Windows 11 operating system this time, a year after its "agentic OS" framing for Windows drew a fairly rough reception from users. This is not even the first time Microsoft has thought about expanding Copilot in this way. Microsoft did explore a full Copilot-centered operating system internally, under the codename Project Aion, though that reportedly dates back to 2024 and there's no word on whether it's still active.

As for the new Copilot experience, Code expands within Frontier by the end of September, Autopilot enters private preview around the same time, and Office inside Copilot reaches consumers and Frontier customers in the coming weeks. Pricing is also changing, with the heavier agentic features, Cowork, Code, and Autopilot, moving to usage-based billing that's off by default. This move also comes as Microsoft has been pulling back Copilot+ branding from its newest Surface PCs, even as it pushes the Copilot app itself to do more.

Microsoft also confirmed it's retiring the Microsoft 365 Companion apps for Calendar, People, and Files, nudging users toward Copilot and its existing apps instead.