Microsoft has confused the Internet again. Over the past few days, posts on Reddit, Hacker News, and X have claimed that Microsoft has rebranded Microsoft Office as Microsoft 365 Copilot. Although Microsoft loves to promote its Copilot branding everywhere, Office hasn’t been renamed “Microsoft 365 Copilot apps.”
The confusion comes from Microsoft’s own Office.com domain, which has served for the past year as a way to nudge businesses and consumers to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. This app is a hub app that provides access to Copilot as well as all the Office apps. Before the company rebranded Office to Microsoft 365 in 2022, Microsoft called the app simply Office.
If you go to Office.com you’ll see a big welcome to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and a note from Microsoft that will confuse anyone who doesn’t follow the company’s confusing branding: “Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)…”
The “formerly Office” is referring to the much older Office app by Microsoft, which was launched in 2019 as a way to try to convince people to use online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Till a year ago it was called Microsoft 365 Apps. Then Microsoft announced that it was rebranding its Microsoft 365 apps to Copilot in November 2024, which I and everyone else was very confused about. The new app icon and name – Microsoft 365 Copilot – was launched for Windows, iOS and Android users on January 15 last year.
I’m not sure why the Internet only discovered these changes a year later, but the actual suite of Office apps is still a subscription plan called Microsoft 365. Nothing has changed with this branding since 2022. Heck, if you want to be even more confused by Microsoft’s branding choices you can go ahead and purchase Microsoft Office 2024, which is a standalone version of the Office suite without all the cloud features and latest updates that come with a Microsoft 365 subscription.
I asked Microsoft to comment on the confusion over its Office and Microsoft 365 CoPilot branding, but the company declined to provide an on-the-record statement.
Now that you’re familiar with all of Microsoft’s latest Office branding, I’m sure it won’t be long until the company rebrands Copilot in as much of a Microsoft way as possible.
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