An interview with Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, who manages the OpenAI partnership, as Microsoft adds Copilots to everything from Office to Terminal to Edge
Microsoft is putting AI Copilots in everything. Will it change the way we use computers? … Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's Copilot push followed its Microsoft 365 Copilot vision and lessons drawn from Bing AI, discussed in an earlier Microsoft 365 Copilot and Bing AI interview. This story matters because it extends the assistant from a single product feature into Office, Terminal, and Edge under the OpenAI partnership managed by Kevin Scott.
The accompanying move toward a shared plugin standard with ChatGPT suggests Microsoft was not only placing Copilots in its own surfaces, but also seeking a common way for tools and extensions to work across the two assistant ecosystems.
First-order effects
- Microsoft users encounter Copilot-style AI in more of the company’s existing work and browsing tools, rather than through a standalone destination.
- Microsoft makes its OpenAI partnership operational across multiple product teams, raising the importance of a consistent Copilot experience.
Second-order effects
- A shared plugin approach can reduce duplication for developers building integrations for ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, while making extension compatibility a competitive requirement for other assistant platforms.
- Embedding Copilots across Office, Terminal, and Edge increases pressure on competing productivity, developer-tool, and browser vendors to add AI assistance within established workflows.
Third-order effects
- If these integrations persist, the primary computing interface may shift toward an assistant layer distributed across applications—an integration-focused Copilot strategy rather than a separate AI app.
- The strategic contest increasingly moves from model access alone to control of the work surfaces, extension standards, and user context where AI assistance is delivered.
The trend: This is an early instance of workflow-native AI, in which vendors turn assistants into a cross-product layer embedded throughout everyday software.