Checked by Hanny Ramzy on 26 September 2026. Drafted with AI help, then checked against Microsoft's own documentation and tested on our own Microsoft 365 account.
If the app you use to open Word and Excel suddenly says Microsoft Copilot, nothing is wrong. In August 2026 Microsoft renamed the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which most people still think of as the Microsoft 365 app or the Office app, to Microsoft Copilot. It gave the app a new icon and started moving its web address from m365.cloud.microsoft to copilot.cloud.microsoft. Your account, your files and your licence did not change.
The confusing part is that “Microsoft Copilot” is now also the name Microsoft uses for its paid AI licence and for the free Copilot that anyone can use with a personal account. So the same two words can mean an app, a paid add-on or a consumer chatbot, depending on who is talking.
Office Niaga supplies Microsoft 365 to Malaysian businesses, through a Microsoft CSP partner, as well as Google Workspace. Customers ask us about these names, and even our own IT team found them confusing. This guide sorts out what each “Copilot” is, what is free, and how to tell which one you have.
Every “Copilot” in one table
These are the Copilot names a Malaysian business user is most likely to meet, as of 26 September 2026:
| Name you see | What it is | Free or paid |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Copilot (the app) | The home app for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive and Copilot Chat. Formerly the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, and before that the Microsoft 365 app. | Comes with your Microsoft 365 plan |
| Microsoft Copilot Chat | AI chat for people signed in with a work account. Formerly Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. | Included at no extra cost with eligible plans |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot, now also called Microsoft Copilot | The paid add-on licence. Copilot works across your email, files, meetings and chats. For businesses of up to 300 users it is sold as Microsoft 365 Copilot Business, or built into Business Standard with Copilot and Business Premium with Copilot. | Paid |
| Microsoft Copilot for personal use | The consumer Copilot at copilot.microsoft.com and in the Copilot app, used with a personal Microsoft account such as Outlook.com. | Separate from your work account |
| GitHub Copilot | A coding assistant for software developers. | Separate product |
| Copilot Studio | A Microsoft tool for building your own AI agents. | Separate product |
If you only read one row, read the first. That is the change most people noticed this month.
How the app got its new name
The app has changed its name several times. Here is the path, with the dates Microsoft has published:
- Office. The original Office app and office.com, where you opened Word, Excel and PowerPoint online.
- Microsoft 365 app. Microsoft later renamed the Office app the Microsoft 365 app.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot app. By 15 January 2025, when Microsoft launched Copilot Chat for businesses, it was sending people to “the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, available at m365copilot.com”.
- Microsoft Copilot. On 14 August 2026 Microsoft told its partners that from 18 August the app would get “a simplified app name and icon”, with an early preview of the Windows and Mac desktop apps on 18 August and broad deployment beginning in mid-September.
At the same time, the web app is moving from m365.cloud.microsoft to copilot.cloud.microsoft. Microsoft says users are automatically redirected unless their organisation blocks the new address. It also says “Security, compliance, and governance controls remain unchanged.”
On Windows and Mac there is a second change. Until now, many people had two apps: the personal Copilot app and the work Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Microsoft is merging them into one Microsoft Copilot app, which it calls the unified Copilot app. To help you tell your work account from your personal one, the app now shows account labels, a green shield for work accounts and a different background for each.
Expect more change. On 25 September 2026, the day before we published this guide, Microsoft announced “the new Copilot”, which brings its Home, Code and Autopilot experiences together in one place. It is rolling out first through Microsoft’s Frontier programme, so most businesses will not see it yet.
Why “Microsoft Copilot” now means three things
The app rename is only half the story. Microsoft’s own documentation now says: “Microsoft 365 Copilot is now named Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is now named Microsoft Copilot Chat.” It adds that some licences and screens may keep the old names during the changeover.
That is why the names do not match from one place to the next. When we checked on 26 September 2026:
- Microsoft’s admin documentation called the paid licence “Microsoft Copilot” and the business version “Microsoft Copilot Business”.
- Microsoft’s Malaysian website still sold it as Microsoft 365 Copilot Business, and listed Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot and Business Premium with Copilot.
- Inside our own Microsoft Copilot app, one heading still said “Use across Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 Copilot”.
- The personal Copilot, which has nothing to do with your company account, is also called Microsoft Copilot.
So do not rely on the name. Look at which account you are signed in with, and at the Copilot label, as described below.
What is free and what needs the paid licence
The free part is Copilot Chat. Microsoft says it is available “at no extra cost for eligible users who sign in with a Microsoft Entra work or school account and have a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription”. For small businesses, that means Business Basic, Business Standard and Business Premium, including the “(no Teams)” versions.
Microsoft 365 Apps for business is not on Microsoft’s list. We saw this ourselves: our test account is on Apps for business, and when we opened Chat in the Microsoft Copilot app on 26 September 2026, it said “Copilot Chat isn’t available”. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneDrive worked as normal.
This is what Microsoft lists for the included chat compared with the paid licence:
| What you can do | Copilot Chat (included) | Paid Copilot licence |
|---|---|---|
| Ask questions answered from the web | Yes | Yes |
| Upload a file and ask about it, or create images | Yes | Yes |
| Enterprise data protection when signed in with a work account | Yes | Yes |
| Ask about your inbox and calendar in Outlook | Yes, in supported Outlook experiences | Yes |
| Copilot finds your emails, files, meetings and chats by itself | No, you paste or upload what it needs | Yes |
| Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote | Limited, or not at all, depending on your plan and settings | Yes, the full experience |
| Priority access when the service is busy | No | Yes |
Microsoft says the chat is “primarily web grounded”. In practice, it is a secure business version of an AI chatbot. The paid licence is what lets you ask something like “summarise what the client said about the delivery date across my emails and last week’s meeting” without copying anything in yourself.
To buy the paid licence, a business needs a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan first. Microsoft lists Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, Apps for business and Teams Essentials as the plans that can take the Microsoft 365 Copilot Business add-on. Its Malaysian site also says the add-on “is available only to existing Microsoft 365 customers with an eligible Business plan”. Prices vary by supplier and change often, so we have not included them here.
What changes for you in practice
For most people, day-to-day work stays the same. These are the differences you will notice:
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A new name and icon. On your computer, phone and in the browser, the app is now called Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft’s own note says: “Your experience is the same.”
-
Your apps are in the same place. On our account, the left menu of the web app shows Search, Create and Apps, with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and OneDrive pinned underneath. Outlook, Teams and the rest are under Apps > All apps, and Install apps at the top right downloads the desktop apps. See our guide to installing the Microsoft 365 apps.
The Apps page in our Microsoft Copilot web app on 26 September 2026, with the left menu and the Install apps button highlighted. -
A Work label. Next to your name at the bottom left, the app now shows Work when you are signed in with your company account. If you see a personal account instead, you are using the consumer Copilot, which is not covered by your company’s Microsoft 365 protections.
The Work label next to the user's name at the bottom left of the app, in our test account. -
Old bookmarks still work. When we tested on 26 September 2026 while signed in, www.office.com forwarded us to m365.cloud.microsoft, whose page title now reads Microsoft Copilot. Typing copilot.cloud.microsoft opened the same app with the same sign-in. Our account had not yet been moved to the new address automatically, so you may see either one for a while.
-
Nothing happens to your files or email. The rename does not move, delete or change your files in OneDrive, your mailbox or your licence. You sign in with the same work email address and password. If you are new to Microsoft 365, our first sign-in guide walks through it.
How to check whether you have the paid Copilot
There are two quick ways, one for everyone and one for admins.
If you are a user, look at the label Microsoft shows in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and the Microsoft Copilot app. Microsoft uses these labels:
- Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) or (Pro): you have the paid licence.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot (Basic): no paid licence, but you have standard access to some Copilot features in the Office apps.
- Copilot Chat (Basic): no paid licence and no Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote. You have the chat only.
If you see “Copilot Chat isn’t available”, as we did, your plan does not include Copilot Chat or your admin has turned it off.
If you are the admin, sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin centre at admin.microsoft.com and go to Billing > Your products. A paid licence shows as a separate subscription, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot Business, or as part of a plan name that ends in “with Copilot”. Because of the rename, it may also appear as Microsoft Copilot. To see who has it, go to Users > Active users, select a person and open Licenses and apps. Our guide to assigning Microsoft 365 licences shows both pages.
For admins: what changed for IT
Microsoft has published deployment guidance for the unified app. These are the points most relevant to a small business IT team:
- Allow the new address. Make sure copilot.cloud.microsoft is not blocked by your firewall, proxy or web filter. Microsoft suggests adding
*.cloud.microsoftto allow lists where appropriate. If the new address is blocked, users are not redirected. - Windows rollout. During the early phase, the Copilot Unification Allowed policy controls which devices get the unified app. From September, Microsoft rolls it out more widely. If you do nothing, devices that already have a Copilot app may download the update by themselves. Devices need EdgeUpdate version 1.3.253.25 or later.
- Pausing it. To stop the unified app installing on Windows devices, Microsoft documents a Pause Copilot App Unification Rollout registry key. If bandwidth is tight, Microsoft recommends a staged rollout.
- Mac. Deploy the macOS installer package (.pkg) through your device management tool, such as Microsoft Intune or Jamf.
- Taskbar pinning. In the admin centre, Copilot > Settings > View all > Pin Microsoft Copilot to the Windows taskbar lets you pin the app on Intune-managed Windows 11 devices. It is off by default and needs the Intune Administrator role. Domain-joined devices use Group Policy instead.
- Copilot Chat pinning. Microsoft pins Copilot Chat by default in the Microsoft Copilot app, Teams and Outlook for most eligible users. For tenants outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland, the Pin Microsoft Copilot Chat setting has not controlled the Copilot app since 28 January 2026, so Chat stays in the app’s menu.
- Billing for new Copilot Business licences. From 2 November 2026, new Microsoft 365 Copilot Business licences bought through a Microsoft CSP partner come with usage-based (pay-as-you-go) billing switched on by default, for extra features such as Copilot Cowork. Check your usage settings after buying.
How we checked this guide
Every fact in this guide comes from Microsoft’s own pages: its Partner Center announcements for August and September 2026, the Microsoft Learn guides to deploying the unified Copilot app, Copilot Chat, Copilot licensing and taskbar pinning, Microsoft’s January 2025 announcement of Copilot Chat, and Microsoft’s Malaysian Microsoft 365 and Copilot business pages. We also tested the app ourselves on 26 September 2026, signed in to our own Microsoft 365 Apps for business account, and checked where office.com, m365.cloud.microsoft and copilot.cloud.microsoft led. We did not include prices, because they vary by supplier and change often.
We drafted this guide with AI help. Hanny Ramzy then checked every name, date and menu path against Microsoft’s pages on 26 September 2026. For the plan names behind all of this, see our earlier guide, Office 365 vs Microsoft 365. Microsoft is still renaming things, so we will update this page when the names change again.
Not sure which Microsoft 365 plan or Copilot you need?
If you are unsure what your team has, or whether Copilot is worth adding, WhatsApp our team on +60 16-916 3324 and we will check it with you. We supply both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, so we will tell you plainly which fits the way you work.
Hanny RamzyHanny Ramzy runs Office Niaga at Web Impian Sdn. Bhd. (SSM 920163-H) in Kota Bharu, Malaysia, helping businesses and agencies move to Google Workspace and business email with Ringgit billing and local support.