Resources > Microsoft is Merging Copilot Apps

If you or your team use Microsoft Copilot, you have probably already noticed something looks a little different. Starting in mid-August 2026, Microsoft began rolling out a merged Copilot app that combines the consumer version of Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot into a single experience. At the same time, Microsoft is consolidating how organizations approve and manage AI agents across Teams, Outlook, and the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Neither change is dramatic on its own. But together, they represent a meaningful shift in how Microsoft wants businesses to think about AI: not as a scattered set of apps and features, but as one connected system that IT departments need to govern deliberately. For small and mid-sized businesses that have been adding Copilot licenses without a clear plan, this is a good moment to catch up.

This post walks through what is actually changing, why it matters, and what steps your business should take before the rollout finishes in mid-September.

What Is Actually Changing

Until recently, Microsoft ran two separate Copilot experiences. There was the consumer-facing Copilot app that anyone could use with a personal Microsoft account, and there was Microsoft 365 Copilot, built for organizations and tied to a work or school account. The two looked similar but were not the same product, which created confusion for employees who used both in different contexts.

Microsoft has now begun merging the two into a single app with one name, one icon, and one sign-in flow. Personal, work, and school accounts still stay separate once you are inside the app, so your organization’s data and permissions are not being blended with anyone’s personal account. What is changing is the front door: employees will open one app instead of two, and switch between account types rather than switching apps entirely.

For most users, this should simplify things once the transition settles. In the short term, though, expect some confusion. People who are used to a particular icon or menu layout may not immediately recognize the new version, and a few will assume something is broken when it is really just new.

Features Being Retired From Copilot

Alongside the app merger, Microsoft is retiring three specific Copilot features starting August 18, 2026: Group Chat, Podcasts, and Deep Research. Deep Research is not disappearing without a replacement. Microsoft is rolling out a new feature called Researcher in its place, which is expected to cover similar ground with an updated approach.

If your team has built habits or workflows around any of these three features, particularly Deep Research for pulling together longer, sourced answers, this is worth flagging internally now rather than waiting for someone to notice a missing button. A short internal notice explaining what changed and what to use instead tends to prevent a wave of confused support requests later.

Excel’s Experimental =COPILOT Function Is Also Going Away

Separately from the app merger, Microsoft confirmed that the experimental =COPILOT function in Excel will be retired starting September 14, 2026. This was a preview feature available through the Excel Insider and Frontier programs that let users call Copilot directly from inside a spreadsheet cell.

Because it was a preview feature, most organizations never turned it on. But previews have a way of finding their way into real work anyway. If someone on your finance or operations team experimented with =COPILOT and built even a small reporting tool around it, that formula will stop working next month. It is worth a quick check with anyone who has been experimenting with Copilot in Excel before the deadline arrives.

A Single Place to Approve Apps and AI Agents

The change with the biggest long-term impact for IT departments is not the app merger itself. It is Microsoft’s move to unify how organizations manage apps and AI agents across Teams, Outlook, the Microsoft 365 admin center, and the Copilot app. Microsoft has been working toward this for some time, and the installation phase began rolling out in late August 2026, with completion expected by mid-September.

In practice, this means the settings that control who can install an app, who can create or add an AI agent, and which agents are blocked or allowed are being brought together into fewer places rather than scattered across multiple admin surfaces. That sounds like a small technical detail, but it has real consequences. As AI agents become easier to build and deploy, the basic governance question of who is allowed to add one and where you can see the full list becomes more important, not less.

Any organization that has been managing app and agent permissions across multiple admin centers should confirm that existing allow and block lists carried over correctly during this consolidation. Settings that were correct last month are worth a second look now.

Why Microsoft Is Making These Changes Now

None of this is happening in isolation. Microsoft is simplifying Copilot at the same time AI agents are becoming a normal part of daily software use, not a novelty. As more employees start building or using agents that can take actions on their behalf, inside email, chat, and documents, a fragmented governance model becomes a real risk rather than an inconvenience. Centralizing approval and visibility is a reasonable response to that shift, and it lines up with a broader pattern this year of Microsoft tightening default security and management settings across its platform.

For businesses, the practical lesson is less about this specific change and more about the pace of change generally. Microsoft has been retiring old defaults, raising minimum requirements, and consolidating admin controls at a steady clip throughout 2026. Treating each change as an isolated event makes it easy to miss the pattern and fall behind.

What Your Business Should Do Before Mid-September

A few concrete steps will keep this transition uneventful rather than disruptive.

First, send a short note to staff explaining that the Copilot app will look different, and that Group Chat, Podcasts, and Deep Research are being retired in favor of Researcher. A little context goes a long way toward preventing confused support tickets.

Second, check with your finance and operations teams for any spreadsheets built around the experimental =COPILOT function, since those will stop working after September 14.

Third, have whoever manages your Microsoft 365 tenant review the current list of approved apps and AI agents to confirm it reflects what your organization actually wants allowed, especially now that management is consolidating into fewer admin surfaces.

Finally, treat this as a reasonable prompt to ask a broader question: does your organization have a clear policy for who can create or connect an AI agent to company data, and does someone actually check that list periodically? If the honest answer is no, this transition period is a natural moment to build one.