Microsoft slaps new coat of paint on Copilot, buries annoying button
Microsoft has redesigned its Copilot app for Microsoft 365, introducing a new user interface and improved performance. The update aims to enhance user experience by allowing longer prompts and faster response times. Despite a reported increase in usage, Microsoft cautions that these results may not reflect long-term trends.
- ▪The Copilot app now loads more than twice as fast and has improved response times for complex prompts by 10%.
- ▪Microsoft has replaced the simple text box with a task-aware workspace that shows appropriate options as users type.
- ▪User feedback led to the option of moving the floating Copilot button back to the ribbon after negative reactions.
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| Original publisher | The Register |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/ai-ml/2026/05/29/microsoft-slaps-new-coat-of-paint-on-copilot-buries-annoying-button/5248442 |
| Publication time | Fri, 29 May 2026 16:51:11 +0200 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-29T15:05:01.843Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-29T15:05:01.843Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | ogfyY0oAKBdP |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); AI + ML Microsoft Copilot Microsoft slaps new coat of paint on Copilot, buries annoying button Look, says Redmond, usage up 27-43% based on one week of data - admits it 'may not be indicative of long-term usage trends' Richard Speed Richard Speed Published fri 29 May 2026 // 15:51 UTC Microsoft has rearranged the Copilot deckchairs once more, with a redesign, user interface tweaks, and greater integration into its productivity suite.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Register.
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