ChatGPT's enterprise success against Copilot fuels OpenAI/Microsoft rivalry

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Copilot Branding & Licensing Confusion

  • Many commenters say “Copilot” is unintelligible as a brand: it can mean GitHub Copilot (inline coding), Copilot in VS Code/JetBrains, Windows Copilot, Bing/Edge Copilot, M365 Copilot, domain-specific Copilots (Sales, Service, Fabric, Dynamics, Security), and now even the Office suite (“Microsoft 365 Copilot app”).
  • Users can’t easily see what license or model tier they have, especially in M365; “Pro”, “enterprise data protection”, “researcher agent”, etc. are poorly surfaced.
  • Several see this as deliberate obfuscation for enterprise sales: marketing can claim “you get all these Copilots” even though quality varies radically.

Product Quality: Copilot vs ChatGPT & Others

  • Many report Copilot (especially M365/Web) as the “dumbest” major LLM: short, cautious, often useless answers; bizarre replies like claiming to have run missing Python code instead of just emitting an ffmpeg command.
  • Others can’t reproduce those failures and get good ffmpeg commands or solid Outlook/Planner help, underscoring non-determinism and context dependence.
  • Repeated theme: the same prompts work well in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, or even small local models, but fail or underperform in Copilot.
  • Some think Copilot is “lobotomized” via system prompts, shorter responses, or token conservation; others say it’s mostly a Bing‑grounded RAG layer whose ceiling is Bing’s results.

Integration with Microsoft 365 and Enterprise Use

  • Expectations were that Copilot 365 would shine on work graph (Teams, mail, files). Many say that’s unreliable: it can’t always see recent emails, markdown docs, or query panes (e.g., in SSMS).
  • When it does have graph access, some report good performance for summarizing messy org documentation or generating Planner plans and executive-style summaries.
  • Several note Copilot often acts like a generic chat iframe, not a true agent that can actually send emails, create meetings, or consistently act on documents.

UX, Friction, and Adoption

  • Heavy criticism of Microsoft UX: confusing portals, modals, auth flows, broken links, inconsistent UIs, and opaque rate limits/quotas (some hit monthly Copilot limits in days).
  • Users contrast: “open ChatGPT/Claude/Perplexity and type”, vs. multi-step M365 login plus a “sterile, over-cautious” Copilot tone.
  • Some orgs report Copilot hype fading; teams pivot to Claude/ChatGPT or tools like Cursor/Windsurf instead.

Strategy, Control, and “Rivalry”

  • Debate on whether Microsoft “wasted” a unique head start (exclusive OpenAI access + Bing) by shipping a messy brand and weak UX, versus still winning via distribution and a large profit share from OpenAI.
  • Concern that Microsoft’s main advantage is bundling/sales, not product quality; parallel drawn to Teams vs Slack.
  • Some see the tension as about control and positioning: OpenAI wants to be a first-class enterprise platform, not just an Azure feature.

Technical Debates: Models, Prompts, and Non‑Determinism

  • Confusion over what models Copilot actually uses (“GPT‑4‑based”, distills, older 4o revisions, smaller internal models) with no transparency and no model picker in many SKUs.
  • Extended argument over whether bad outputs are mostly bad prompts vs. bad models; examples show even tiny modern models handle vague prompts that Copilot sometimes fumbles.
  • Multiple people stress non‑determinism and hidden context: “worked for me” doesn’t invalidate failures, but reproducible anecdotes also expose real quality gaps.

Security, Governance, and Enterprise Buying

  • Some call Copilot a “security nightmare” given broad tenant access, citing at least one published vuln (details not discussed).
  • Others say its biggest real advantage is clear corporate legal terms around data use; “safe to buy” often beats “best to use” in large enterprises.

OpenAI’s Position & Alternatives

  • Several note that OpenAI’s direct ChatGPT offering feels faster, less constrained, and more capable, which is driving enterprises to test it alongside or instead of Copilot.
  • Mention of OpenAI’s rumored “AI super app” (canvas + docs + more) as a potential direct challenge to Office/Workspace, though details are unclear from the thread.
  • Some commenters think OpenAI’s enterprise “success” is still mostly marketing and anecdotes; the article’s numbers are viewed as incomplete.