If there’s one word that defined 2023, it was probably AI. While ChatGPT was first launched at the tail end of 2022, last year was marked by a significant expansion of not only ChatGPT itself, but also generative AI as a whole. Microsoft launched several tools using OpenAI’s GPT language model, including the popular Bing Chat service, which is now simply called Microsoft Copilot. Now, Copilot has a dedicated app for iPhone devices.
Microsoft has just launched a dedicated iOS app for Copilot, which can now be downloaded on iPhones. This comes just days after Microsoft quietly released the app on Android as well. Likewise, this release went without much fanfare from Microsoft. Both the Android and iOS apps are identical, and if you’ve previously used Copilot (or, quite frankly, any other chatbot AI app), you’ll probably know your way around this pretty well.
By default, you get a few free tokens without logging into your Microsoft account, and these get expanded by logging in. This is contrary to the web experience, which requires an account to be logged in, at least in most cases. Unlike ChatGPT by default, Copilot has access to web searches through Bing, giving you sources to information where applicable. You can also ask it all kinds of questions, and it will attempt to answer them to the best of its ability.
ChatGPT was launched on smartphones last year, so it’s one more place where Microsoft needs to compete as well. To be fair to Microsoft, Bing with AI capabilities was already available as an app for iOS and Android users, but not this new separate Copilot experience. Copilot and Bing Chat are identical in usage, and Microsoft hasn’t done away with Bing’s chat capabilities (nor there’s evidence that it’s planning to do so at some point), but it’s certainly trying to push AI as something separate from Bing now, and these new apps are yet another step in that direction.
You can download Microsoft Copilot from the App Store for free, though you do need a device running iOS 15 or later. It’s also available to download from the Mac App Store, but that just gives you the potentially-unoptimized iPad app—you’re better off just using the Copilot website.
Source: Apple App Store
