Microsoft lets users exile floating Copilot button after interface rage

AI + ML

Listening to your customers? Who are you, and what have you done with Microsoft?

Microsoft has made Copilot a little less in-your-face with the option to banish the assistant's Dynamic Action Button to the toolbar.

The change, rolling out this week, comes after howls of outrage from customers over Microsoft's decision to drop a Copilot button onto user workspaces. 

Although the desire to get users clicking on the assistant is understandable, obscuring content in its productivity applications was perhaps not the best way to do it.

Microsoft's forums show plenty of frustration with the floating button. Some call it "infuriating," while others are less tactful. One Excel user wrote: "Did you let copilot design this idea and no human review it? Such abomination."

Another said: "Putting a button over the working content was not a good move by Microsoft," which gets to the heart of the problem. Redesigns and interface tweaks will always generate strong feelings. However, obscuring content with something that many don't want is arguably a step too far.

There was already a way to turn off Copilot features in Excel and Word via the Settings screen, but the latest update indicates that Microsoft has paid attention to recent feedback. A user commented: "There needs to be a toggle or something to move it back to the ribbon," and that is pretty much what Microsoft has done.

A new option has been added to the button's menu, "Move to ribbon," which does exactly that. Click it, and Copilot is banished to the ribbon. The floating Copilot Dynamic Action Button is no more, although it can be moved back if a user happens to miss that particular design decision.

Microsoft has acknowledged that forcing Copilot on users was not universally welcomed. Windows boss Pavan Davuluri promised a reduction in Copilot entry points and a rethink of how the technology is integrated into the operating system (because of course it isn't going away any time soon). Earlier in May, Microsoft said it would "streamline" access to Copilot in its productivity applications.

Alas, that "streamline" involved the Copilot button, and plenty of customers asked for the ability to shift it back to the ribbon.

Less than two weeks after the initial announcement, Microsoft has responded. Although Copilot will still be there, the option to move it back to the ribbon is a move in the right direction. ®