Copilot isn’t just an assistant—it’s Microsoft’s fix for a decades-old problem

Microsoft Copilot is marketed as a genius coworker, and in many ways, it lives up to that promise. It can summarize 50-page transcripts, draft repetitive emails, and generate Excel formulas. But beneath the hype, it often functions merely as a high-tech shortcut to commands buried in the ribbon.

Copilot highlights a deeper truth about Office: the menus have grown so complex that we need an assistant just to navigate them.

The ribbon has finally strangled itself

Copilot is a workaround, not a reinvention