Microsoft Copilot is the new Internet Explorer

Nobody is using Copilot

I’ve talked to a lot of Windows users over the past few years—casual users, power users, gamers, office workers. I haven’t heard passion for Copilot from any of them. Even among the ones who use AI tools all the time, Microsoft’s Copilot is rarely their tool of choice.

Microsoft doesn’t publicly share how many users Copilot has. Meanwhile, competitors like OpenAI are trumpeting their usage numbers. (Indeed, over 800 million users every week for ChatGPT.) If Microsoft was proud of their own usage numbers, you can bet they’d be loud about it.

A recent report from SimilarWeb claims that Copilot website usage is at 1.1% of AI market share, behind ChatGPT at 64.5% and Gemini at 21%. Of course, that’s just the website and doesn’t include the Windows app.

Chris Hoffman / Foundry

The situation is similarly dire in the mobile space. On Apple’s App Store charts, the top three productivity apps are ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok. Claude is the 12th most popular productivity app, while Microsoft Copilot is down at 14th most popular. That means Microsoft’s AI chatbot is in 5th place—behind OpenAI, Google, xAI, and Anthropic.

We can’t know exactly how popular the Windows Copilot app is. But it’s unlikely that people would be hot on Copilot all day on their PCs while ignoring it altogether on their phones.

Just as power users once skipped Internet Explorer in favor of Firefox and Chrome, AI-passionate users are unpinning Copilot from their taskbars and replacing it with their AI chatbots of choice.

Microsoft Copilot isn’t as good as non-Microsoft alternatives

Copilot just isn’t as flexible or reliable or useful as other AI chatbots. Under the hood, Microsoft is routing requests to OpenAI’s GPT models… but ChatGPT is a much more mature platform with more configurability and control over what AI model you’re using.

Copilot’s desktop vision feature is a bright spot, though, and Copilot has other strengths, too. For example, it’s the only AI tool that’s integrated into Word and Excel, which should give it a leg up in professional environments. And there are Microsoft’s efforts to turn Copilot into a “companion,” complete with a face.

Microsoft

But it’s still not catching on. It’s not enough to sway consumers over from those competing AI tools that don’t have virtual faces. I see a lot of enthusiasm for ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude in AI communities, meanwhile Copilot is rarely mentioned (unless in a bad light).

I spoke to an avid Claude user the other day. He told me that he recently used Copilot in Microsoft Word as it was the only option for making obscure charts—and he came away from it thinking that Claude is much smarter. Sure, Copilot was able to make the chart he needed, but the experience didn’t sell him on Copilot.

Microsoft

And it’s not just users who think this. A recent internal email from Microsoft CEO Sayta Nadella to Microsoft staff said that Copilot’s connections to Gmail and Outlook “for [the] most part don’t really work” and are “not smart,” according to The Information. That mirrors what I’ve seen when using Copilot over the years—other AI tools just seem to be more competent in most situations.

Copilot’s biggest strengths rest in GitHub Copilot for coding and Microsoft 365 Copilot for deep integration with organization data. These benefits aren’t felt by standard Copilot users. And not only that, but according to The Verge’s Tom Warren, Anthropic’s Claude Code is increasingly favored internally at Microsoft. If Microsoft doesn’t even prefer Copilot, then why should anyone else?

Copilot is being forced upon PC users

Like Internet Explorer, the worst thing about Copilot is that it’s the “default option” presented to you on Windows.

If you start using Copilot, it’s likely because the Copilot icon appeared on your taskbar or you pressed the Copilot key on your keyboard. Copilot is being shoved into everything… and that just reeks of desperation. It’s not something you use because you want to; it’s something you use because Microsoft wants you to use it. Meanwhile, if you end up using ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or any other AI tool, it’s because you explicitly made the choice to explore, find, and start using that particular tool.

IDG / Mark Hachman

Windows is soaked in Copilot messaging. There’s a Copilot key on the keyboard. New Windows PCs are branded as “Copilot+ PCs” with extra AI features. Apps like Word, Excel, Edge, and even Notepad now have Copilot icons all over the place. It’s annoying. No wonder why users are clamoring for ways to disable AI in Windows.

You don’t hear people complain about Claude because Windows doesn’t bundle Claude everywhere in its interface. If that started happening, you know you’d start hearing about it. In fact, Google is now heading down this road with baking Gemini into Chrome and AI Mode for Search, it’s starting to annoy those users, too. It’s more evidence that people just don’t like having things shoved down their throats.

Windows PC users will keep complaining about Copilot as long as Microsoft keeps doing this, just as they once complained about Internet Explorer (and Edge) being thrust upon them at every turn.

Is Copilot going the way of Bing?

Microsoft was early to AI with its first chatbot, named “Bing Chat.” Microsoft later renamed it to Copilot. But despite the branding change, Copilot and Bing still share a lot in common.

Both Bing and Copilot are perfectly fine tools that can get the job done, but very few prefer Bing as their primary search engine and the same can be said about Copilot. Bing has been struggling with user adoption for years, and Copilot clearly isn’t taking off among curious AI users or regular PC users. Copilot needs to be more than “just another AI chatbot” if it’s going to succeed, and simply being bundled with Windows isn’t going to be enough to get it where it needs to go.

After all, being bundled with Windows didn’t save Internet Explorer. In fact, this kind of move is only going to alienate people further away from Copilot. Microsoft needs to learn from its past ASAP.

Further reading: Did Microsoft do anything right in 2025? A look back at their wins, fails, and WTF moments