What to expect from Microsoft's Copilot ‘super app’

Microsoft is building an AI "super app" that folds Copilot's chat, coding and autonomous agent capabilities into a single product. During Wednesday's earnings call, chief executive Satya Nadella confirmed the app will serve "both consumer and commercial experiences" when it launches later this year.

Nadella described Copilot's rapid evolution "from chat to Cowork to Autopilot", Microsoft's term for autonomous agents capable of running long tasks independently.

"This quarter, we are bringing these Copilot experiences together, including code, in one super app," he told analysts, calling it "a major step forward" while declining to share a firm launch date beyond "this year".

The confirmation follows a Fortune report from May that first revealed Microsoft was quietly developing a unified app blending Copilot chat, GitHub Copilot, Copilot Cowork and its Autopilot agent system.

Nadella referenced the project again later in the call, describing it as a flagship app intended for daily use across different roles within a company.

Microsoft saw its earnings increase to $90 billion for the quarter, with growth in AI and cloud divisions. The Microsoft 365 Copilot itself has more than 30 million paid seats, providing Microsoft with an established user base that would be immediately impacted by any consolidation of its AI apps.

Currently, for those using Copilot for writing, GitHub Copilot for coding, and dedicated agents for mundane tasks, consolidating all apps into one provides an opportunity to avoid switching from one application to another.

The company now finds itself in competition for the role of the default AI app for both daily usage and software development.