Simon Carter
Workplace AI

Microsoft merges its consumer and business Copilot apps into one product

From 13 August 2026, Microsoft is rolling out a single unified Copilot app: with three consumer features deleted on 18 August.

Microsoft Copilot unified app interface showing the new icon and combined personal and work account experience

For the past two years, Microsoft shipped two separate Copilot apps that could sit side by side on the same taskbar. That era ended on 13 August 2026, when Microsoft began rolling out a single unified “Microsoft Copilot” app that folds both the consumer version and the business-oriented Microsoft 365 Copilot into one product. If you use either app, or both, here is what is changing and what you need to do before 18 August 2026.

What is actually changing

The unified app keeps the “Microsoft Copilot” name but ships with a new icon and a fresh architecture. Personal and work accounts coexist inside the same application, separated by a colour-coded cue so you always know which account you are acting under. Your organisation’s security, compliance, and administrative controls carry over unchanged when you switch to your work account. The two accounts do not share data.

On the web side, the commercial address moves from m365.cloud.microsoft to copilot.cloud.microsoft. Automatic redirects begin in late August 2026, so bookmarks will not break immediately, but it is worth updating them.

Three features are being deleted on 18 August 2026

This is the part that needs your attention before the deadline.

Group Chat is being retired entirely. Threads, messages, and images will not carry forward. If there is anything in a group chat you want to keep, you need to copy or download it manually before 18 August 2026.

Podcasts is also going away. You can still download individual podcast files before the feature disappears, but after 18 August 2026 you will not be able to create or access podcasts inside Copilot.

Deep Research (consumer) is being retired for anyone on a free or Microsoft 365 Personal or Family plan. Existing reports will remain accessible in your chat history and you will be able to save them to Word, but you will not be able to run new ones. A replacement called Researcher will be available, though only to Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers, which is a higher-tier plan than Personal or Family.

Also disappearing is Mico, the expressive animated character introduced to accompany Copilot’s voice mode. Microsoft has said it expects Mico to survive in some education features, but it will not be part of the unified app experience.

What this means for you, depending on how you use Copilot

If you only used the consumer Copilot app: the transition is largely automatic. Your chat history and files move across, and files generated through the old app will land in OneDrive. You will need to download an updated mobile app. The core experience, including chat, image generation, and file uploads, stays free, with usage limits that remain the same as before.

If you used the Microsoft 365 Copilot app for work: Microsoft describes most of the changes as cosmetic. You will notice some navigation and appearance updates, and you will get access to Copilot Chat at no additional cost. Nothing changes underneath in terms of security or compliance controls.

If you used both apps: Microsoft merges your content into the unified app. Personal and work data remain completely separate inside it. The practical upside is that you can now move from a Copilot conversation directly into Word, Excel, or Outlook without switching applications, something the standalone consumer app could not previously do.

A small caveat: Microsoft has flagged that Shopping and Copilot Health features may be temporarily unavailable during the rollout period.

When will the new app arrive on your device

The rollout is phased:

  • Mid-August 2026: Mobile and web apps update worldwide; early-access opt-in opens for Windows and macOS.
  • Late August 2026: The URL redirect from m365.cloud.microsoft to copilot.cloud.microsoft begins rolling out to standard tenants.
  • Mid-September 2026: Windows and macOS apps update worldwide.
  • Late September 2026: The URL redirect begins deferred rollout for the web app.

The bigger picture

This consolidation is not just tidying up the app drawer. Microsoft appointed a single executive to oversee both the consumer and commercial sides of Copilot earlier in 2026, and CEO Satya Nadella confirmed during the company’s fiscal Q4 2026 earnings call that a broader Copilot “super app” is planned for around October 2026. That product is expected to bring together the chat function, GitHub Copilot, the Copilot Cowork research tool, and autonomous agent capabilities under one roof.

The pattern is familiar. Microsoft did something similar when it collapsed two separate Teams apps on Windows 11 into a single app supporting personal, work, and school accounts. OpenAI took a comparable step by merging ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex into a single experience. The direction of travel across the industry is consolidation, and Microsoft is following it.

With 30 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats reported in the most recent earnings call, the commercial business gives Microsoft a strong base to build from. The unified app is the structural step that makes the super app possible. For most users, the day-to-day experience will be smoother, not disruptive. The one thing that is genuinely time-sensitive is downloading anything you have stored in Group Chat or Podcasts before 18 August 2026.