Restructuring at Microsoft's Copilot division; forced Copilot app installation halted

[German]At Microsoft, the restructuring and reorganization of its AI division continues. Mustafa Suleyman is no longer directly responsible for the Copilot division. And Microsoft has apparently put a temporary halt to its attempt to roll out Copilot across all areas by hook or by crook. The company is now focusing on paying Copilot customers and reducing the forced integration of Copilot in other areas. Below is an overview of the current situation.

I reported two days ago in my German blog post Gerücht: Microsoft will KI-Bloatware (Copilot) sparsamer in Windows 11 einsetzen on Microsoft's initial efforts to reduce the forced integration of Copilot in Windows 11. Now it appears that Redmond's previous AI strategy is likely collapsing, and there will be significant changes.

Major Copilot Overhaul at Microsoft

In a memo to Microsoft employees, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and Mustafa Suleyman, Executive Vice President and CEO of Microsoft AI, announced significant changes regarding Copilot.

Copilot is being reorganized

Copilot is set to be consolidated into a unified initiative for both business and consumer customers. This initiative comprises four interconnected pillars: Copilot Experience, the Copilot Platform, Microsoft 365 apps, and AI models. According to the announcement, the previous "collection" of various products will be transformed into a truly integrated system.

Suleyman Steps Down from Copilot Leadership

The second major change concerns responsibilities at Microsoft Copilot. Until now, Mustafa Suleyman was also responsible for Copilot development. Suleyman is now handing this responsibility over to Jacob Andreou. As EVP Copilot, Andreou will lead the Copilot experience in the consumer and enterprise sectors under Suleyman's supervision, driving forward the areas of design, product, growth, and development.

Jacob Andreou was previously SVP at Snap and, as "CVP of Product and Growth" at Microsoft, was responsible for the user-centric, AI-first product development and growth framework. CNBC describes this in this article as Microsoft shaking up the Copilot AI leadership team. The restructuring gives Suleyman the freedom to develop new models.

Microsoft 365 Copilot App Installation Temporarily Suspended

On March 16, 2026, Microsoft announced in the Microsoft 365 Message Center, in post MC1152323 – Microsoft 365 Copilot Apps installation on devices with Microsoft 365 Apps, that they temporarily suspended the automatic installation of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows systems where the Microsoft 365 desktop client apps are installed (as noted by our colleagues at Bleeping Computer in this article).

To provide some context: The Microsoft 365 Copilot app integrates the AI-powered Copilot assistant into the applications of the Microsoft 365 suite. This includes Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as additional features such as AI agents and AI notebooks. In December 2025, Microsoft began rolling out the Microsoft 365 Copilot app to all Windows 11 systems (with the exception of the European Economic Area, EEA).

The entire process has been (temporarily) put on hold, though the article above does not provide an explanation for this change (I believe the aforementioned development regarding the restructuring of the Copilot project is the reason for the halt). Where the app has already been rolled out, everything remains the same—there simply won't be a new rollout for the time being.

Is Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat disappearing in some cases?

I still have some questions regarding another announcement from Microsoft about "Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat." In this German comment, a reader points out that, starting April 15, 2026, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat will be removed from the Microsoft 365 apps for all users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license—this is also discussed in this German comment. Here is an excerpt from the user's initial comment, quoted from the Admin Center:

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat – Updates to Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote

This post describes changes we're making for Copilot Chat users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. There are no changes for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Starting April 15, 2026, Copilot will no longer be available in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for Copilot Chat users. To ensure a high-quality experience, we are reserving the full Copilot experience in these apps-with advanced reasoning and model choice for users with a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot license. If you would like users to access these experiences, you can provide a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

There are no other changes for users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Copilot Chat still offers secure, Al web chat and the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint agents for chat first content creation within the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Additionally, users still get Copilot in Outlook with inbox and calendar grounding.

We are also adding in-product labels to help end users and admins identify their user experience. We are labeling the experience for users without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license as "Copilot Chat (Basic)" and labeling the experience for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license as "M365 Copilot (Premium)".
If you would like to further discuss this change, please work with your Microsoft sales representative or Microsoft reseller to learn more.

When will this happen: These changes will go into effect starting April 15, 2026.

Since I don't have a Microsoft 365 account, I can't access the Message Center, and I can't find the quote above in the sources available to me either (the Message ID MC1253863 isn't listed in my Microsoft 365 Message Center). On March 11, 2026, Microsoft even announced an expansion of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat for Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint under MC1187671.

But I'm apparently not the only one who's "in the dark." The news seems to have unsettled other users as well, as I saw in this discussion in the Microsoft Tech Community (see the following screenshot).

Some commenters have mentioned that they can't find messages MC1253858 and MC1253863 (and have linked to this LinkedIn post containing the statements).