There’s got to be solid reasons why they do this and have done so for so damn long. At the very least institutional reasons. At best, actual research that suggests they make more money this way. But as a consumer, I hate it.

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estimator7292 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Marketing has too much power. They get some hairbrained scheme to goose the numbers and just slam a mandate all the way down the org. Is "Copilot" not getting enough clicks? Make every button say "copilot", problem solved. Marketing doesn't know or care what was there before, someone needs numbers up to get their promotion.

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phkahler 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>> Is "Copilot" not getting enough clicks? Make every button say "copilot", problem solved. Marketing doesn't know or care what was there before, someone needs numbers up to get their promotion.

So Microsoft isn't bringing copilot to all these applications? It's just bringing a copilot label to them? So glad I don't use this garbage at home.

	▲	Sharlin 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes and no, because "Copilot" isn't any single thing, but can mean whatever they want it to mean in different contexts.

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fluidcruft 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's marketing but I think they want everything to seem like an integrated platform so they can sell you on creeping into bundles.

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Nevermark 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Perhaps the "consistent" naming helps them shove more through the Enterprise door.

If a large company has bought into "Co-Pilot", they want it all right? Or not, but let's not make carving anything out easy.

Just a thought.

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3acctforcom 5 hours ago | parent [-]

This is actually one of their smart decisions. "Copilot" is currently going through the corporate regulators, who know nothing about technology, but I can't buy it until they say everything is Legal.

So once we have signoff then my counterpart in Sharepoint/M365 land gets his "Copilot" for Office, while my reporting and analytics group gets "Copilot" for Power BI, while my coding team gets "Copilot" for llm assisted development in GitHub.

In the meantime everybody just plugs everything into ChatGPT and everybody pretends it isn't happening. It's not unlawful if they lawyers can't see it!

	▲	Nevermark 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Thanks for validating my intuition! > In the meantime everybody just plugs everything into ChatGPT I believe you meant "everyone plugs everything into ChatGPT for Co-Pilot"! A statement with its own useful ambiguities. It is comical, but I can now make a serious addition to Sun Tzu's maxims. “All warfare is based on deception.” “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” "Approval is best co-opted with a polysemous brand envelope."

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cornonthecobra an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's because Microsoft isn't a software company. They're a marketing company that happens to make software and a few other bits.

We're now on the back end of that, where Microsoft must again make products with independent substance, but are instead drowning in their own infrastructural muck.