Microsoft Is Beating Itself: How Office Branding Chaos Exposes Copilot Woes

DavidLinthicum · x · 2026-09-13

An analysis argues Microsoft may be losing the desktop wars to itself, not to competitors.

A viral Perplexity post wrongly claimed Office was renamed the "Microsoft 365 Copilot app" and that 400 million users became "AI users" overnight. The claim was false, but millions believed it—evidence of how confusing the Office → Microsoft 365 → Microsoft 365 Copilot branding has become, even for tech press.
The Copilot investment itself has been mixed: enterprises pay for AI features they didn't ask for, bundled into products whose names change every 18 months.
The core thesis: constant rebrands and bundled AI are eroding user trust—Microsoft's problem is self-inflicted rather than competitive.

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