Microsoft Is Auto-Installing the Copilot App on Your Work PCs Again — Here's What IT Admins Need to Do Now

Microsoft has quietly restarted something that caused a fair amount of frustration earlier this year. The automatic installation of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on commercial Windows PCs is back, rolling out in phased waves that began on June 4 and run through July 1. If you manage Microsoft 365 for your organisation and haven’t looked at your admin settings recently, now is the time.

What happened last time, and why this matters

Back in December 2025, Microsoft began automatically pushing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app onto Windows devices that already had Microsoft 365 desktop apps installed. Word, Excel, PowerPoint — if those were on the machine, Copilot was coming along for the ride. The backlash from IT teams was swift. Admins found a new app appearing on managed devices before any testing had been done, raising concerns about change control, compliance workflows, and the basic principle that software doesn’t get to install itself on managed corporate machines without someone signing off first.

Microsoft paused the rollout in March 2026 due to a technical issue and said it would communicate when the process resumed. That communication has now arrived, via the Microsoft 365 Message Center, and the phased rollout is already underway.

What’s rolling out and when

Microsoft is using a feature-flag approach this time, splitting the deployment into three waves:

• Feature Flag 1: Started June 4, expected to complete around June 10
• Feature Flag 2: Starts approximately June 11, expected to complete around June 17
• Feature Flag 3: Starts approximately June 25, expected to complete by July 1

That’s a tight window, and depending on when you’re reading this, one or more waves may already have passed through your tenant.

The app itself is a unified access point for Microsoft 365 Copilot features — chat, search, AI agents, Notebooks, and integration with the familiar Office apps. It appears as a new entry in the Start menu. The installation happens in the background and doesn’t interrupt users, but it will show up in Installed Apps. On devices where the Copilot app is already present, nothing visible changes.

A few important carve-outs: devices on the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel are not affected. Tenants in the European Economic Area (EEA) are excluded entirely, and notably, EEA status is determined by the tenant’s home region, not the physical location of the device. A US-based company with laptops in France is still eligible. A French company with devices in the US is not.

The technical requirements

For the auto-install to trigger, devices need to be running Microsoft 365 Apps version 2511 or later, on either the Current Channel or Monthly Enterprise Channel. Version 2511 reached the Current Channel in early December 2025 and the Monthly Enterprise Channel in January 2026, so most managed fleets running regular updates will already meet this threshold.

Once the version requirement is met, the install can take up to seven days to occur. Microsoft also asks that administrators allow access to *.office.net on their network, as this is the CDN used to deliver the app and its subsequent updates. The app can update itself via the Microsoft Store or its own built-in updater if the Store is unavailable.

One thing worth noting for those who prefer scripting their admin tasks: there is currently no PowerShell method to disable this setting. It has to be done through the admin centre UI.

How to opt out before the wave hits your tenant

If you want to block the installation, Microsoft’s documentation lays out the steps clearly. The key thing to note is that this setting lives in the Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center, not the main Microsoft 365 Admin Center. They are different portals, and it’s easy to end up in the wrong one.

Here’s the path:

1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center
2. In the left navigation, select Customization
3. Under Customization, select Device Configuration
4. On the Deployment configurations page, open the Modern Apps settings tab
5. Select Microsoft 365 Copilot app from the list
6. In the pane that opens, uncheck “Enable automatic installation of Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

That’s it. Devices in your tenant will no longer receive the automatic install.

For organisations that prefer managing deployments through their existing tooling, the Copilot app can also be deployed (or blocked) via Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Configuration Manager (as a Package or Application), or Group Policy. If you want the app but on your own terms and schedule, these are your levers.

Microsoft has also encouraged admins to give users advance notice so they aren’t caught off guard by a new app appearing in their Start menu with no explanation.

What does this mean for you?

If you’re an end user on a company-managed PC with Microsoft 365 apps installed, there’s a reasonable chance the Copilot app will appear on your machine sometime between now and the end of June, assuming your IT team hasn’t opted out. It won’t disrupt anything you’re doing, and it’s not making decisions on your behalf just by being installed.

If you’re an IT admin, this is the moment that requires action. The rollout is live. The opt-out window is narrow. Microsoft’s broader pattern here, auto-installing AI features with an opt-out model rather than an opt-in one, follows the same playbook used with the new Outlook for Windows and the Teams classic-to-new transition. Those rollouts generated significant IT friction, and this one has already been through one contentious round.

The controls exist. The documentation is solid. The timeline is the pressure point. If blocking or controlling this deployment is part of your responsibilities, the Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center is where you need to be today.