Microsoft is known for making poor rebranding decisions, and its recent move is no exception. As Windows Report recently reported, Microsoft has rebranded “Microsoft 365 Office” as “Microsoft 365 Copilot,” retiring the household name of the most popular productivity suite, Microsoft Office.

With this rebranding, Microsoft integrated Copilot chat into the productivity suite along with making minor tweakings to the UI. But this rebranding effort has drawn more criticism than praise for various reasons.

For example, Windows 11 already has a Copilot app, and this rebranding has just left users wondering what’s the difference between both apps.

Microsoft, in the support document that covers this rebranding information, has attempted to clarify the difference between both apps, stating:

“The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is your everyday productivity app for work and life that helps you find and edit files, scan documents, and create content on the go with access to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat*, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs, and more all in one app. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is available to users with Entra accounts (work or school) and personal Microsoft accounts.

The Microsoft Copilot app is the AI companion for everyday life. Its conversational chat experience is an easy way to learn, grow and gain confidence, all with the help of the latest large language models. The Microsoft Copilot app is only available to users with a personal Microsoft account.”

Microsoft is basically saying that the 365 Copilot app is aimed to help users with productivity tasks when using apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or other Micrsofoft 365 apps. Whereas Copilot is a conversational chatbot that uses LLMs, much like ChatGPT or Gemini.

It’s quite understandable what Microsoft wants to clarify here. But there is a very big issue. There is already a standalone Copilot app on Windows 11. And after this rebranding, both Microsoft 365 and the standalone Copilot app now share nearly identical logos. This is quite confusing and frustrating at the same time.

See, how both the apps look very identical on the taskbar.

Some users are also confused how come Microsoft added Copilot app to their PCs when they had removed it previously. However, later, users realize that it’s not Copilot, but their favourite Office app, which has now been rebranded to Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Insane stuff, right? That’s what happens when rebrandings are stupid and do not align with people’s goals. It’s quite obvious that Microsoft wants all of us to get used to Copilot branding, so Copilot could replace ChatGPT as a synonym for AI, and also position itself as the only productivity tool.

The worst part, the all-new Copilot Chat feature, which is the core of this rebranding, isn’t currently available to most users. Microsoft has made it available for Microsoft 365 work accounts only at the moment.

This rebranding effort from Microsoft feels premature, considering the majority of Microsoft 365 users, including me, are unable to experience this new functionality due to its unavailability.

Microsoft positioning Copilot as its AI Brand

Microsoft is quite clear on its stand to make AI an integral part of its ecosystem. They have already brought AI into MS Paint, PowerShell, and even Windows Search. With Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs and this Office suite rebranding, it seems Microsoft aims to make Copilot a household name for all its AI offerings.

While the ambition to make Copilot a household name is understandable, Microsoft has to be very cautious with its approach. For example, Office 365 was a well-established office productivity suite, and its name “Office” was highly reflective of the tools it provided.

With this rebranding, the two-decade-long legacy of Office is gone now, and the new name, Microsoft 365 Copilot, doesn’t even align with the scope of the suite.

Instead of this, Microsoft could have just integrated the generative AI functionality into the Office suite and announced that as an add-on feature. Google has already done this with its productivity suite, and its users have appreciated it.

But in Microsoft’s case, it just makes me wonder whether this rebranding is actually an innovation or just a marketing stunt.

However, those are my views. What do you think about this rebranding? Let us know in the comments below.

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