Microsoft Moves Word, Excel and PowerPoint Inside the Copilot App

The change reverses Microsoft's earlier direction, which added Copilot features to Word, Excel and PowerPoint rather than placing those applications inside Copilot. TechRadar describes the Copilot app as likely to become a central workspace, where users work with AI to produce a document and then keep adjusting it without opening a separate Office program.

Document generation itself is unchanged. Copilot can still build new documents from conversations in Copilot Chat or Copilot Cowork. The main addition is a Library inside the Copilot app, which keeps those files within reach in a single interface. Microsoft also confirmed that users will still be able to share, comment on and review documents within Copilot.

"Microsoft Office has defined productivity for the PC era," said Sumit Chauhan, who leads the Office Product Group. "As Copilot becomes a new way to work, we're bringing familiar Office creation and collaboration experiences directly into that environment," he added, describing a push toward what he called a more unified experience.

Chauhan is one of the executive vice presidents now reporting to Charles Lamanna, the EVP for Copilot, Agents and Platform, after the departure of M365's previous EVP, Ryan Roslansky. At the time of that change, the company said it was working out what Copilot, and the future of work, should look like as one ecosystem, and TechRadar treats the app changes as an early part of a larger shift for Microsoft 365.

The unified experience inside the Copilot app is available only to Frontier customers using Chat and Cowork. According to the report, it could reach more users within a few months. Microsoft has not disclosed rollout plans beyond the Frontier programme.