Microsoft has announced a significant change to Copilot’s visibility in Word for the web. It forces the Copilot icon to sit permanently in the margin next to the line where your cursor is placed.
Previously, the Draft With Copilot icon only appeared when you opened a blank Word document in Word for the web or created a new line in an existing online document. However, with this update, even if you have your cursor in the middle of a paragraph, the icon never leaves your sight.
For those who don’t want to use Copilot at all, it’s yet another reminder of Microsoft’s relentless drive to force us all to use its persistent AI tool. For those who do, this new feature sacrifices clean real estate for a tool that can otherwise be accessed simply by right-clicking the relevant part of the document and selecting “Draft With Copilot” or, even more easily, using the keyboard shortcut Alt+i.
What’s more, after clicking the icon to open the floating Copilot dialog box, the only way to close it is to click the “X” in the top-right corner or press Esc, though the latter option only works on some systems. Frustratingly, it doesn’t close if you click or type elsewhere in your document.
Any individual or business with a Copilot license will see this increased AI visibility the next time they open a document on Word for the web. This includes anyone with a Microsoft Personal or Family subscription, after Microsoft added Copilot to the paid packages by default for an extra $3 a month in January 2025.
At the time of writing, there’s no way to disable Copilot from within Word for the web itself. The only way to stop the Copilot icon from following you around is by downgrading to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family Classic through your account settings, though Microsoft has hinted that this is potentially only a temporary fix, and you won’t see it disappear until your subscription renewal date. Alternatively, use the Microsoft Word desktop app, where you can escape Copilot’s invasiveness.
Source: Microsoft
