Microsoft renames Bing Chat to Copilot as it competes with ChatGPT

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Microsoft renames Bing Chat to Copilot as it competes with ChatGPT | TechCrunch
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So they now have two separate AI chatbots named Copilot now? Obviously GitHub Copilot is focused on coding, but this one seems like it is not. Both are owned by Microsoft. Both are called Copilot. Both are AI chatbots.

Coming from the Company that brought you "Visual Studio" and "Visual Studio Code" and called the followup of ".NET Framework" just ".NET". Sometimes I think they want their products to be hard to search.

Or the Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One X/S, Xbox Series X/S.

Or Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11.

Someone at Microsoft just really wants people to know that naming is hard. I am pretty sure they're intentionally confusing customers so they only know what the current product is.

Windows subsystem for Linux (WSL) which is Linux as a subsystem of Windows.

I still mess up launching it on my work Mac. Apparently "Code" works but "VSCode" doesn't, and everybody calls it "VSCode" where I work.

I'm usually a ViM person, but I gave it a go when helping out with an unfamiliar project.

Oh there's more. There's also 365 Copilot and Windows Copilot.

Not confusing at all.

Soon they will just rename everything to Copilot.

I think they do this intentionally because their users are so bad at computers, they will want "copilot" everywhere, and think of it as intellisense (microsofts word for auto completion).

I've seen in corporations that clueless managers even go as far as thinking Microsoft stuff is reliable and trustable and other alternatives are not. Marketing works.

How does it compete with chat gpt? It is chat gpt.

Just like how edge competes with chrome, I suppose.

Common marketing strategy.

If you can pit your products against each other, it gives the illusion of choice. The many flavors of toothpaste for example, while being owned by one company.

My favorites are Google Maps and Waze, and PayPal and Venmo.

They also locked it behind Edge or the official "Bing app" on mobile. You can no longer just try out Bing Chat from the browser.

Last time I hit that wall on Firefox, changing my user agent worked wonders. Don’t tell anyone I told you this. ;)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Not to cause confusion, Microsoft swears — despite the fact that the company now has roughly a dozen products that share the Copilot brand.

“Renaming ‘Bing Chat Enterprise’ to ‘Copilot’ reflects our vision to create a unified Copilot experience for consumer and commercial customers,” Caitlin Roulston, director of communications at Microsoft, told TechCrunch via email.

Starting December 1, users who sign into Bing with a corporate account — a Microsoft Entra ID, to be precise — will receive the benefit of “commercial data protection” while using Copilot in Bing.

“Copilot will update the commercial terms and conditions on December 1 to reflect that it’s a generally available product from Microsoft,” she added.

“As part of this, it will inherit Microsoft’s universal license terms for online services … Over time, Microsoft will expand eligibility of Copilot with commercial data protection to even more Entra ID users at no additional cost.”

Copilot is now accessible in Windows in addition to Copilot.Microsoft.com and Bing, shipping in range of Microsoft’s enterprise subscription plans — Microsoft 365 E, E5, Business Premium and Business Standard — at no additional cost.


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Microsoft Entra ID

These fuckers rebranded the Azure ID and the Microsoft account and the Microsoft/Office 365 account into this.

It's okay if you release a new product to call it something else but for the love of god stop renaming things for no reason.