Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Apple is late to Siri revolution, so Microsoft brings you Copilot for Mac

Copilot app for Mac
Microsoft

Microsoft has today launched a dedicated Copilot app for Mac. For now, the app is only available for users in the US and UK, but it’s already loaded with the latest and greatest tricks from Microsoft, such as the new Think Deeper mode.

The only system requirement is that your machine must be running macOS 14, or a later version. On the hardware side, any Mac with an M1 silicon, or newer processor from Apple, is compatible with the app.

Recommended Videos

And before you ask, yes, it does support a native dark mode.

Running Copilot app on a MacBook
Microsoft

The Copilot app includes support for its own quick launch keyboard shortcut — option + space — to bring up the AI assistant. The version up and running on macOS supports multi-modal input, which means it can process text-based queries as well as voice and photos.

The app also serves the Copilot Daily feature, which essentially provides a summarized rundown of daily news from reputed sources, weather updates, and more. This personalized audio briefing is somewhat similar to the Now Brief system Samsung has implemented on the Galaxy S25 series phones.

Copilot for macOS also brings support for features such as text-to-image generation, writing assistance, language translation, and image editing, among others. “Copilot combines the power of AI with the imaginative capabilities of the latest OpenAI models all in one place,” says the App Store listing.

A weird AI situation for Mac

It’s a bit ironic that Copilot is parading OpenAI’s tech stack on an Apple platform, especially when you see Microsoft and Apple are computing rivals. Interestingly, OpenAI’s GPT stack is the binding force between the two tech giants.

Microsoft is one of the biggest investors in OpenAI and a close business partner, with Copilot being one of the products that benefit from OpenAI advancements. Earlier today, Microsoft deployed OpenAI’s latest AI model, GPT-4.5, in its Azure AI Foundry.

Now live in the App Store (and my dock): Copilot for MacOS 🍎 Don’t know how I ever lived without option+space for the million things a day I ask Copilot. Apple lovers, your Mac can now join the party with iPhone and iPad. Check it out and let me know what you think! pic.twitter.com/Di4GE6IoyR

— Mustafa Suleyman (@mustafasuleyman) February 27, 2025

On Apple’s end, the company inked a deal that tightly integrated ChatGPT’s capabilities with Siri and its Apple Intelligence platforms across mobile and computing devices. For any chores that Siri can’t handle, ChatGPT takes over.

Apple is reportedly running into delays at giving a generative AI overhaul to Siri. However, it is making slow progress. The company recently finalized deals with Alibaba and Baidu to work on AI projects in China.

The likes of Google, on the other hand, have replaced Google Assistant with the far more capable Gemini assistant across Android and other supported platforms, either via native OS-level integration or through the standalone Gemini app.

Will this merely serve as an AI stopgap for Mac fans? Only time will tell. For now, Copilot for macOS hasn’t been widely released in all markets. However, Microsoft executive, Yusuf Mehdi, has assured that the team is working on expanding the app’s availability.

Nadeem Sarwar
Nadeem is a tech and science journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started…
Microsoft 365 Copilot gets an AI Researcher that everyone will love
Researcher agent in action inside Microsoft 365 Copilot app.

Microsoft is late to the party, but it is finally bringing a deep research tool of its own to the Microsoft 365 Copilot platform across the web, mobile, and desktop. Unlike competitors such as Google Gemini, Perplexity, or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, all of which use the Deep Research name, Microsoft is going with the Researcher agent branding.
The overarching idea, however, isn’t too different. You tell the Copilot AI to come up with thoroughly researched material on a certain topic or create an action plan, and it will oblige by producing a detailed document that would otherwise take hours of human research and compilation. It’s all about performing complex, multi-step research on your behalf as an autonomous AI agent.
Just to avoid any confusion early on, Microsoft 365 Copilot is essentially the rebranded version of the erstwhile Microsoft 365 (Office) app. It is different from the standalone Copilot app, which is more like a general purpose AI chatbot application.
Researcher: A reasoning agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot
How Researcher agent works?
Underneath the Researcher agent, however, is OpenAI’s Deep Research model. But this is not a simple rip-off. Instead, the feature’s implementation in Microsoft 365 Copilot runs far deeper than the competition. That’s primarily because it can look at your own material, or a business’ internal data, as well.
Instead of pulling information solely from the internet, the Researcher agent can also take a look at internal documents such as emails, chats, internal meeting logs, calendars, transcripts, and shared documents. It can also reference data from external sources such as Salesforce, as well as other custom agents that are in use at a company.
“Researcher’s intelligence to reason and connect the dots leads to magical moments,” claims Microsoft. Researcher agent can be configured by users to reference data from the web, local files, meeting recordings, emails, chats, and sales agent, on an individual basis — all of them, or just a select few.

Why it stands out?

Read more
Microsoft will soon use AI to help you find your photos and files on Copilot+ PCs
The Surface Laptop shown in front of a Copilot+ sign.

In a Windows Insider blog post, Microsoft announced an AI upgrade to Windows Search to make finding photos, documents, and settings easier. However, the enhanced feature is restricted to Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon processors; AMD and Intel support is coming soon.

The update has all the same fixes and improvements from build 26100.3613; nonetheless, some of the best Copilot+ PCs will be left out simply because they use  AMD or Intel processors. Microsoft will release the update gradually, and you can also take advantage of both semantic and lexical indexing to search for your photos and documents more efficiently. Because of this improvement, you don't have to remember the exact file name you're looking for, which is a huge time-saver.

Read more
macOS 16: everything you need to know
macos update everything you need to know craig federighi ventura wwdc 2023

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2025) date has been set for June 9, 2025, and the next macOS installment will be one of the main attractions. Excitement is already building for this year's installment thanks to rumors of a major design overhaul for the Mac operating system. This is everything we've heard so far about macOS 16.
When will macOS 16 launch?

In recent years, Apple has developed a neat little schedule for WWDC, announcements, and product releases. As we now know that WWDC will take place on June 9, it's highly likely that macOS 16 will be announced on that day. The keynote will introduce all of the biggest new features, updates, and products, making it the most exciting part of the conference for most of us.

Read more