Microsoft's New Copilot Works Overnight While You Sleep

Microsoft officially unveiled its new Copilot 'super app' on September 25, merging three AI tools into one place: chat, coding, and 'agents' (AI that can take actions on its own). The company says this redesign will be as influential as Office — a big claim from the people who made Word and Excel. The app has three tabs: Home, Code, and Autopilot.

Home is your starting point, blending ordinary AI chat with a personalized dashboard showing important emails, meeting requests, and Teams threads. The surprise is the Code tab. It lets anyone — not just engineers — create a simple app, tracker, or dashboard and share it with colleagues as an internal tool. Microsoft says it runs on the same technology as GitHub Copilot, the coding assistant programmers already use.

Autopilot is the biggest new idea. Previously called Scout, it's now a cloud-based 'digital teammate' with its own memory, workspace, and even its own computer. It can watch Teams channels, run recurring tasks, and handle follow-ups overnight while you're asleep. You can @mention it in a chat like a coworker, and because it lives inside your company's private digital space, your employer controls what it can see and do. Microsoft is betting this corporate-grade security is what convinces businesses to finally buy in.

The catch is money. Microsoft is switching to usage-based billing for the Cowork, Code, and Autopilot features — meaning the more your AI teammate does, the more your company pays. Companies will need new tools just to track and cap that spending. Home and Code roll out to an early-access program in the coming weeks.