An artificial intelligence (AI) aficionado has put together a chart featuring all the Copilot things that Microsoft has released since AI became the next big thing. At the latest count, Ty Bannerman notes that there are 80 different, separately marketed Copilot products and tools. Charting these Copilot things wasn’t a trivial task; even Microsoft doesn’t appear to maintain a definitive list. When I first noticed this story, there were 78 Copilots in Bannerman’s charts, but now it has expanded to 80.
The AI strategy, design, and implementation expert says that the idea of charting the expanse of the Copilot universe came to him when someone asked what Microsoft Copilot is. He knew it meant at least 75 different things, in so many contexts, at the time. “Apps, features, platforms, a keyboard key, an entire category of laptops – and a tool for building more Copilots,” tallied Bannerman in his blog. “All named ‘Copilot’.” His chart contends this is “What happens when you name everything Copilot.”
Last week, the AI aficionado charted the number of Copilots as 78. However, since yesterday, I note the number has increased to a nice round 80. Thanks to the power of the internet / social media, Bannerman had learned of the existence of Gaming Copilot and Microsoft Dragon Copilot. The latter of those isn’t designed for residents of Westeros, but an AI clinical assistant.
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Copilot says there are ~95 to 120+ Copilots
So, we have a chart of 80 Copilots, and who knows what the final figure may be, and how many more Bannerman can uncover?
Since I’m typing on a laptop with a Copilot key, I prodded it and asked the thing itself. Who better to ask? The answer was that “the ecosystem is well north of 100,” if you include things like every app-embedded Copilot, enterprise, and Azure-adjacent tools, etc. I then asked it to add them all up, and it concluded there were “~95 to 120+ Copilots.”
Is that too many? Well, even on this PC, I was surprised to find two Copilot apps in my system tray a few weeks ago. One pops up the usual chatbot box, the other was actually Copilot 365, which, when clicked, asked me to sign in with my (non-existent) Microsoft 365 credentials before I could use it. It has been eliminated.
The corporation’s promise of major improvements to Windows 11 performance, reliability, and fewer Copilot interactions can’t come soon enough.
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