Every few months, someone digs through Microsoft’s sprawling product universe and discovers a new Copilot hiding under a rock. This time it was Tey Bannerman, who tallied roughly eighty Copilot branded projects scattered across Microsoft’s documentation and marketing. Kevin Okemwa over at Windows Central picked up the thread and laid out the scale of the sprawl, and it is the kind of number that makes you blink twice. Eighty. As in eight zero. As in more Copilots than most companies have employees.
The funny part is that none of this feels surprising anymore. We have reached the point where slapping an AI label on something is easier than explaining what it actually does. Companies are racing to look futuristic, but the work under the hood is often the same old algorithms that have been quietly running for years. The only difference is that now they get a shiny new name and a press release. It is the tech equivalent of reheating leftovers and calling it a tasting menu.
There’s (brace yourselves) …
Microsoft Copilot,
Microsoft 365 Copilot,
Microsoft Security Copilot,
Azure Copilot,
Copilot Mode in Edge,
Copilot for Dynamics 365,
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat,
Microsoft 365 Copilot app,
Copilot in Microsoft Fabric,
GitHub Copilot,
GitHub Copilot Chat,
Microsoft 365 Copilot for SMB,
GitHub Copilot Enterprise,
Copilot in Power Apps,
Copilot key (a physical key on keyboards),
Copilot+ (entire laptops).
And my favourite: Microsoft Copilot Studio… where you can build more copilots 😅
Microsoft is hardly alone in this, but it is the most visible example because it has gone all in on the Copilot identity. The brand is everywhere. It is in Windows. It is in Office. It is in Azure. It is in gaming. It is in hardware. It is in places where no one asked for it and in places where no one will ever use it. When everything is Copilot, nothing is Copilot. It becomes background noise, and users tune it out.
That tuning out is the real story here. The industry keeps insisting that AI is transformative, but the average user sees something that is only slightly faster than what they already had. A feature that autofills a sentence a bit more confidently. A search box that guesses what you meant with marginally better accuracy. A chatbot that summarizes what you already wrote. These are conveniences, not revolutions, and people can tell the difference.
This is why the reception to the AI wave feels apathetic. Not hostile, not enthusiastic, just a collective shrug. When companies rebrand everything as AI without delivering experiences that feel meaningfully new, users stop believing the hype. They start assuming that every AI announcement is just another coat of paint on the same machinery. And honestly, they are not wrong.
The irony is that Microsoft’s Copilot strategy could have been compelling if it had been focused. A handful of well executed, clearly defined assistants might have helped people understand the value. Instead, the company now has so many Copilots that even insiders joke about losing track. Bannerman’s tally reads like a scavenger hunt, not a product strategy. Okemwa’s reporting captures that sense of chaos well, and it is hard not to sympathize with anyone trying to make sense of it all.
The broader problem is that AI branding has become a shortcut. It is easier to rename than to rethink. Easier to announce than to innovate. Easier to claim transformation than to deliver it. And as long as that remains the norm, the AI boom will keep drifting toward the same fate as every overhyped tech cycle before it. Lots of noise, lots of logos, and not nearly enough substance.
Maybe one day AI will live up to the marketing. For now, it mostly lives up to the label that users have quietly assigned it. Slightly faster. Slightly smarter. Slightly helpful. And very easy to ignore.
