Microsoft Advanced the AI Trend with Copilot App

In AI trend news, Microsoft quietly slips the free Copilot app for Android devices into the Google Play Store.

• The app has been available for downloading for a week now.
• The company didn’t announce it or market it, just put it on there.
• The app separates the AI from the Bing search engine.

Microsoft has discreetly introduced a standalone Copilot app for Android devices to the Google Play Store.

Spotted by Neowin, the AI app has been available for download for the last week. Before this development, users had to go through the Bing app to access Copilot on Android devices. Considering they rebranded Bing Chat to Copilot, this move draws a clear separation between the two.

As for iOS, sorry iOS users, you are stuck with the Bing app until further notice as there isn’t an iOS-compatible version of the app.

Similar to ChatGPT, the free Copilot AI app for Android features chatbot capabilities, image generation through DALL-E 3, and the ability to draft text for emails and documents. Copilot even offers free access to OpenAI’s latest GPT iteration, GPT-4. Now, that is a weird move because otherwise, you would need to pay OpenAI about $20 per month for GPT-4 access.

I tested the application out. The developers don’t seem to have programmed it as Copilot as it kept introducing itself as Bing rather than Copilot. It even doubled down when corrected. So, my Copilot app review can be summarized with: it’s a little confused but has the right spirit. All they really did was change the packaging.

Anyway, this line in the sand aligns with Microsoft’s strategy to expand Copilot’s reach beyond the Bing search engine. After all, the Google search engine still dominates the market. I don’t know a single person who would willingly use Bing. Well, except my dad but that’s because he still uses Microsoft Edge (*cough* Internet Explorer *cough*). Plus, people are moving towards more privacy-focused engines like DuckDuckGo (Seriously, who names these engines?).

But something is not sitting well with me. An official announcement from Microsoft is nowhere to be found. You’d think after the massive investment and the company’s non-voting seat on OpenAI’s Board of Directors, they’d make a big deal out of it. Or at least some type of deal!

Decrypt even reached out to Microsoft for more information but all they got for their trouble was an automated email response stating that its media relations office is taking a “wellness break.”

Why so silent? Why aren’t they marketing Copilot? One could argue that it’s because of the recent “scandal” with Sam Altman’s firing and rehiring. OpenAI has been making headlines for the last couple of months for all the wrong things.

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