How do I stop the annoying copilot thing popping up on Excel, Word, and everywhere else it's not wanted?

Question

I am a professional writer and I find it objectionable and distracting. If it has an impact on my working efficiency, I'll be off to another platform. Please provide information about how it can be disabled permanently.

Answer 1

Hi Philip Bryer,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

Starting from January 16, 2025, the product team will roll out Copilot globally to Office users. Everyone has received the update. Although this update was not my decision, I sincerely apologize for the abrupt changes. I fully understand that professional users like yourself require a neat and clean working environment, and the introduction of Copilot may have become an impediment.

About disable Copilot:

In the latest version of Word (version 2501), the development team has added a button that allows you to disable all Copilot prompts in Word with a single click. To do this, please open the Word application, go to File > Options > Copilot, and uncheck the "Enable Copilot" option. 

Currently, this feature to disable Copilot is only available in Word; it has not yet been added to Excel or PowerPoint, as the development team has received the most feedback from Word users. Plans to disable Copilot in Excel and PowerPoint are already on the agenda, with the development team expecting to release an update next month (February 2025) that will add a button similar to Word's for one-time disabling of Copilot functionality across the entire application.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions regarding the use of Office applications, please feel free to share them with the development team at any time by using the File > Feedback button within the application. The development team is committed to listening to user feedback to improve Office.

Lastly, we would like to extend our gratitude for your feedback, which is incredibly valuable to Microsoft. I hope the information above is helpful to you, and I look forward to your reply!

Best Regards,

Thomas C - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

I also found it very annoying to have a software "enhancement" that I haven't requested and don't need foisted on me so finding the toggle to turn it off was a relief. In future, Microsoft, please do your users the courtesy of not compelling them to accept functionality they haven't requested and impeding their use of the product as they wish. An option would have been fine - compulsion is not!.

Answer 3

What if I don't want to disable my ability to use CoPilot.....I just don't want the popups when I don't ask for it.

Answer 4

Gee, funny how every single place I visit, it's nothing but people complaining about this obnoxious censored chatbot's advertisements shoved into every single corner of their operating system. Not a single person that finds this chatbot amusing or welcome.

Answer 5

We are now in April. Can we get an updated ETA for Excel? I am constantly moving what cell is highlighted in order to read any spreadsheet I am on... Extremely frustrating....