Microsoft rebranded its office application suite to Microsoft 365 Copilot in January 2025 to highlight its AI integration, while the AI assistant Copilot ranks third in popularity behind Google Gemini and ChatGPT. Picture: Sebastien Bozon/AFP
Image: Sebastien Bozon/AFP
Tech giant Microsoft announced a bizarre name change last week, calling its office-based application Microsoft 365 Copilot.
It simply added the word Copilot to the name to emphasise the fact that it’s integrated with AI.
Copilot, of course, is the name of Microsoft’s AI assistant.
Explaining the reason for the name change, Microsoft said it was because of its integration with Copilot.
“The app icon and name, “Microsoft 365 Copilot,” began rollout on January 15th, 2025,” said Microsoft in a statement.
“The web URL has been updated to m365.cloud.microsoft to align with Microsoft’s broader unified cloud.microsoft domain for all Microsoft 365 apps. Both office.com and microsoft365.com URLs will automatically redirect.”
It’s not the first time Microsoft has altered the name of its office-based offering. In 2020, it rebranded from Microsoft to Microsoft 365.
The new Microsoft 365 Copilot offering has Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, plus OneNote, Loop, Whiteboard, Clipchamp, OneDrive, and SharePoint.
The product remains the most popular and dominant suite of productivity apps in the world. Even Apple acknowledges this, though not through formal statements, through its seamless integration with its operating systems on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Microsoft Copilot is ranked third most popular for AI apps, behind Google Gemini and ChatGPT.
According to web traffic analytics, ChatGPT still leads overall AI platform traffic worldwide, commanding roughly around 60–65% of shared visits as of early 2026. Gemini is listed as having between 13 and 20% market share, but this figure is constantly increasing.
Gemini, though, is rapidly rising and gaining substantial ground. This is down to the fact that Google now integrates Gemini into its search functionality, meaning users don’t actually have to download a separate app to access the AI-enabled ability.
Another big shift came last week, with the news that Apple will soon be ditching ChatGPT in favour of Google Gemini.