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Microsoft Office has been one of the most widely used pieces of computer software in history, yet one recent declaration that it's now 'dead' has left over 400,000,000 confused about the future.
Pretty much anyone that's ever used a computer has taken advantage of Microsoft Office at one point or another, as between Word, Outlook, Excel, and more, it has served as the backbone to Windows PCs for decades.
Recent years, however, have seen competition threaten and challenge Microsoft's crown when it comes to productivity services, as not only do you have cloud options from giants like Google, some have also opted for free, open source alternatives — including one major state.
There are still hundreds of millions of people that use at least one aspect of the Microsoft Office suite every year though, and that's why a recent declaration that the service is 'dead' has left so many people stunned.
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As reported by Forbes, it all appears to come from a post on X by AI chatbot Ask Perplexity, which declared:
"BREAKING: Microsoft just renamed Office to 'Microsoft 365 Copilot app'. 400 million users just became 'AI users' overnight."
It stems from a wider push by Microsoft to integrate its own AI model, Copilot, onto as many users and into as many services as possible, and Perplexity is onto something by stating that Microsoft can now technically say that everyone who uses Office is now an 'Copilot user'.
Claims that the service itself is dead though are wildly overblown, and it's simply another one of Microsoft's confusing name changes that are increasingly common these days.
People were already befuddled when Office was previously renamed to 'Microsoft 365', and this new increased focus on Copilot will only mess things up further with some likely to wonder exactly what they're paying for.
Windows Latest, who initially reported on Perplexity's claims, assert that "while Office isn't dead, the branding is slowly being erased," and Microsoft itself asserted in a new statement that they "updated it to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app to reflect its role in bringing Copilot and Microsoft 365 productivity experiences together in one place."
Anyone fearful that AI will creep into and perhaps eventually take over the services is probably more on the money though, as this feels like a more direct mission statement for what the company intends to do in the near future, and it likely won't be long until Copilot is present in every single thing you do on your PC whether you like it or not.
"They laughed at me when I said I was gonna use bootleg Windows 8 forever. Well who's laughing now," jokes one user in the replies to Perplexity's post, with plenty of others suggesting that the company should be renamed to 'Microslop'.
