Satya Nadella: Copilot in Windows is already available on more than 75 million Windows 10 and Windows 11 PCs

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, stated, in a conference call discussing Microsoft’s latest earning reports, that since its release on Windows 11, and Windows 10, in October and December 2023, Windows Copilot has amassed more than 75 million users, which is quite impressive given that Copilot has been available on Windows for less than 3 months.

But the good numbers don’t stop here, though: there are over 400 million Office 365 paying users, according to the report for Q2 of the 2024 fiscal year. The company reported a growth of 9% in paid Office 365 seats, which accounts for approximately 400 million users.

The report, which can be read here in its entirety, was discussed by Microsoft executives, including the CEO, Satya Nadella, in a conference call, where he agreed that Copilot was the main reason Office 365 got to the staggering number of 400 million users, as many corporations adopted and integrated the AI tool into their infrastructure:

A growing body of evidence makes clear the role AI will play in transforming work. Our own research, as well as external studies, show as much as a 70% improvement in productivity using generative AI for specific work tasks. And, overall, early Copilot for Microsoft 365 users were 29% faster in a series of tasks like searching, writing, and summarizing. Two months in, we’ve seen faster adoption than either our E3 or E5 suites as enterprises like Dentsu, Honda, Pfizer all deploy Copilot to their employees.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO

While the Redmond-based tech giant also got some impressive earnings for its Windows OEMs department, and Xbox, with a surge of 11% increase in the former, and 61% surge in the latter, this was somehow expected given the giant acquisition Microsoft closed with ABK (Activision-Blizzard-King) in October 2023.

However, the Copilot numbers are quite impressive, given the relatively short time since its release, and it’s definitely a sign that AI on Windows should do just fine.

As you know, Microsoft is planning on releasing the next Windows version this year, and according to the Redmond-based tech giant, the OS will be AI-based and AI will be an essential part of the new Windows experience.

The new Windows is expected to be announced in April, and released sometime in August/September 2024, but many wondered if people were truly ready for it. In a way, the question makes sense, given the fact that Windows 10 still has over 1 billion users, double the number of Windows 11 users, even though the OS is reaching its EOS next year.

Microsoft decided to extend the EOS for Windows 10 for 3 more years for a price and released Copilot to it in December 2023, so it’s reasonable to ask if Windows users are indeed ready for an AI-based Windows.

However, even if there are currently over 75 million Copilot users on Windows, that doesn’t mean the majority of the Windows users will adopt the AI. For now, Copilot’s capabilities are quite limited. It’s capable of summarization, creating content, and helping users superficially set up some of the Windows settings, and that’s pretty much it, for now.

Unless Microsoft finds a way to make Copilot useful for a broader range of tasks, such as a potential Coinstaller which could be used to fix various Windows issues, or even ways to make the AI useful in the daily life of a Windows user, then Copilot won’t be widely used and considered a part of Windows.