Microsoft’s new Copilot AI will be inside Minecraft, and other Xbox, PC games

Earlier this year, it was reported that the company was struggling to make money with its Github Copilot iteration, the coding assistant marketed specifically to software developers. Despite its popularity early on, the tool was extremely expensive to run and wasn’t making back what the company was spending on it. Several months later, Github’s CEO Thomas Dohmke told Semafor that the company was actually “happy about the growing positive margins the product has” but was decidedly mum on the details. Microsoft has made a rather large emphasis on privacy at this event as well, claiming that data used via these new AI PCs will remain on-device, and won’t be uploaded to the cloud or used to train language models without consent. We’ll believe that one when we see it, but Microsoft has been criticized heavily across the board for its lackadaisical approach to privacy in Windows 10 and beyond, so it will be interesting to see how this news is received by gamers. When Microsoft announced Bing Chat earlier this year, the company described the chatbot as an “AI-powered copilot for the web,” and since then we’ve seen the company use the Copilot branding for a number of AI efforts after GitHub originally used the Copilot name last year.

Many major publishers have opted to block AI tools from trawling their websites not only out of fear their data will be used without permission, but also to prevent these tools from sending their server costs soaring. Microsoft said that Copilot Vision will respect sites’ “machine-readable controls on AI,” like rules that disallow bots from scraping data for AI training. However, the company hasn’t said precisely which controls Vision will respect; there are several in use. No doubt eager to avoid more bad press from AI privacy fumbles, Microsoft is stressing that Copilot Vision deletes data following every session. Processed audio, images or text aren’t stored or used to train models, the company says — at least not in this preview release.

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Microsoft has revealed its pricing for Microsoft 365 Copilot, launching Nov. 1, which integrates the large language model tech from OpenAI’s ChatGPT into Office applications, and it comes at a steep cost. Microsoft’s cautious approach is partly the product of legal disputes with news outlets. In one ongoing suit, The New York Times alleges that Microsoft let users get around its paywall by serving NY Times articles through the Copilot chatbot on Bing. For the time being, Microsoft’s blocking the feature from working on paywalled and “sensitive” content, limiting Vision to a pre-approved list of “popular” sites. “Balanced” mode refers to the middle category of results Copilot can produce. The implications of AI tools are absolutely huge, and nobody truly knows how much things will change.

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But I think we all know, fundamentally, that things will change immensely in the coming years. Many of the best upcoming Xbox games and best upcoming PC games will doubtless change too. Microsoft Copilot will be embedded directly in video games, starting with Minecraft. Players will be able to use natural language to ask questions like “How do I craft a sword?” and the Copilot will search your chests and inventories for the necessary materials, or guide you to them if you don’t have them. It will also explain how to craft the item, and so on, eliminating the need to alt tab and read a website for Minecraft guides like ours (RIP Windows Central). Bing will no longer be the main entry point for Microsoft’s AI ambitions with Copilot anymore, and it’s not clear if the push for AI search was ever successful for the software maker.

“Chat data is not saved, and Microsoft has no eyes-on access — which means no one can view your data,” Microsoft said in a blog post. The emphasis on targeting the entertainment industry is notable as well at a time when many actors, writers, performers, musicians, VFX artists and even game makers are openly resisting and calling for more protections against AI taking away their work opportunities. Microsoft’s add pretty clearly and cleanly brushes past these objections, in my view, positioning Copilot and AI more generally as a a creative tool for up-and-coming strivers. In a startling move, Microsoft today announced a redesigned look for its Copilot AI search and chatbot experience on the web (formerly known as Bing Chat), new built-in AI image creation and editing functionality, and a new AI model, Deucalion, that is powering one version of Copilot. Microsoft continues to churn out a steady stream of AI-infused products, but the financial success of those products has not always been assured.

Not to be outdone by Google, Microsoft is rolling out multimodal capabilities, bringing Visual Search to Bring Chat. Microsoft Word is about to get a lot smarter for enterprise users, and it’s launching tomorrow. Put your brand in front of 10,000+ tech and VC leaders across all three days of Disrupt 2025. Amplify your reach, spark real connections, and lead the innovation charge. Beyond answering questions, Copilot Vision can summarize and translate text, and handle tasks like spotlighting discounted products in a store catalog. It can also serve as a game assistant, for example offering pointers during matches on Chess.com.

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• Microsoft Copilot is currently officially supported only in Microsoft Edge or Chrome, and on Windows or macOS.
• The free version of Copilot will still be accessible in Bing and Windows, but it will also have its own dedicated domain over at copilot.microsoft.com — much like ChatGPT.
• Yusuf Medhi, Microsoft’s EVP and consumer chief marketing officer, said in a blog published Tuesday that the company had “begun testing” the integrations, and that the new features would be rolling out soon (the announcement says this will happen at some point “in the coming weeks”).
• Put your brand in front of 10,000+ tech and VC leaders across all three days of Disrupt 2025.
• In March, Microsoft brought its artificial intelligence-powered Bing into the Edge browser, calling it a “copilot” for the web.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called Google an 800-pound gorilla that he wanted to make dance earlier this year, but Google hasn’t rushed to integrate AI into its search results in quite the same way as Microsoft. And nearly 10 months after the Bing Chat launch, Google is still at over 91 percent market share according to StatCounter. This new rebranding means Copilot is becoming more of a standalone experience that you don’t have to navigate to Bing to access anymore. But the move away from Bing is an interesting one, given Microsoft put a lot of effort into launching its AI efforts inside its search engine and positioned it as a way to steal market share from Google. Microsoft initially talked up the Google search competition for its AI ambitions earlier this year, but it now looks like it has its sights set on ChatGPT instead.

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The virtual assistant will soon be integrated with OpenAI’s latest batch of tools, including the new and improved GPT-4 Turbo, which promises to make the app’s usefulness factor improve by a matter of degrees. “Bing remains a prominent brand and technology powering many Copilot experiences while continuing to be a leader in the search industry,” says Caitlin Roulston, director of communications at Microsoft, in a statement to The Verge. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. However, the “Creative” mode can be more effective for those seeking not specific facts but help with, as the name indicates, creative, open-ended projects such as fictional worldbuilding, writing, and designing. “As we set our sights on 2024, we’re committed to bringing more innovation and advanced capabilities to Copilot to provide you with the leading way to benefit from AI,” Medhi added.

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In  addition, Microsoft has been demonstrating new AI features for Microsoft Copilot, which is the firm’s answer to Google’s Gemini AI search and ChatGPT’s assistive apps. Business users will sign into Copilot with an Entra ID, while consumers will need a Microsoft Account to access the free Copilot service. Microsoft Copilot is currently officially supported only in Microsoft Edge or Chrome, and on Windows or macOS. Microsoft is now pitching Copilot as the free version of its AI chatbot, with Copilot for Microsoft 365 (which used to be Microsoft 365 Copilot) as the paid option. The free version of Copilot will still be accessible in Bing and Windows, but it will also have its own dedicated domain over at copilot.microsoft.com — much like ChatGPT. If the current trend holds, Copilot Vision may not work on some of the web’s top news sites.