Microsoft 365 business customers are running out of places to hide from Copilot

People, Files, and Calendar companion apps gain an auto-installed dose of AI

Just when you thought Microsoft had run out of Windows apps to stuff with Copilot, it's cramming the AI into your taskbar companions - People, Files, and Calendar are next.

The Microsoft 365 companion apps - lightweight, always-on taskbar tools for browsing your People, Files, and Calendar data - are the latest to get the Copilot treatment, says Redmond. 

Microsoft in August said it would begin automatically installing the companion apps on Windows 11 devices with Microsoft 365 subscriptions in late October as part of the regular Microsoft 365 Apps update process. They're available only to commercial tenants - Enterprise and Business customers - so don't expect to find them on a personal Microsoft 365 setup.

The latest update injects Copilot into the mix, letting the AI draw on your organization's people, files, and meetings to offer context-aware prompts and summaries.

"With Copilot, each companion app will be grounded in your work data - people, files, meetings - making them the fastest and easiest way to prompt for relevant questions," Microsoft 365 companion apps team principal product manager Yash Kamalanath said in the company's announcement. 

The People app, for example, "surfaces recent communications, highlights key responsibilities, and suggests tailored prompts to help you connect and collaborate," because nothing says genuine interaction like AI-generated fluff. 

Files will allow users to loop Copilot into work documents to get a summary, highlight recent changes, pick apart data, and "create action items without breaking your flow." The Copilot Calendar companion app integration, meanwhile, will let users get meeting summaries and suggestions on what material to prep for an upcoming discussion.

Both People and Files Copilot features are live now, with the Calendar integration coming soon, Microsoft said. 

The addition of Copilot to the Microsoft 365 companion apps is the latest in a line of Redmond sticking AI into every crevice of the company's software lineup that it can find. Other recent examples include Copilot showing up directly in Excel cells, and possibly soon to on-prem Exchange Server installations if Microsoft's exploration of the idea pans out. 

The company's Copilot endeavors haven't always been welcomed, we note, especially when it adds tools that allow managers to monitor Copilot usage among various teams to push more usage of its flagship AI product. 

Administrators can manage whether the Microsoft 365 companion apps are deployed in their environments, according to Microsoft's documentation, but there's no separate switch to strip Copilot out of the trio once they're installed.

Microsoft didn't respond to questions for this story. ®