Microsoft Introduces 'Copilot Mode' in Edge

Skepticism about security, privacy, and user control

• Many distrust claims like “highest Microsoft standards of security, privacy and performance” and “user always in control,” reading them as marketing with a poor track record behind it.
• Copilot watching “all your open tabs” is seen as another data-harvesting channel and client-side spyware, especially valuable to corporate and government customers.
• Some see this as one more in a series of user-hostile moves (forced Edge, dark patterns, Recall, telemetry resets).

AI agents as “robot visitors” and impact on the web

• Copilot mode is viewed as a robot replacing the human on websites, raising concerns for publishers and designers.
• Several note we already build for robots via SEO and Googlebot; this may simply deepen that trend.
• Others point out that automating tedious web UIs (data extraction, form-filling) has long been a real need; agents could save significant time but also invite abuse.

Product vision, branding, and Microsoft’s AI strategy

• Confusion and fatigue over the proliferation of “Copilot” products, rebrands, and inconsistent naming; “Copilot” is seen as the new “Live/MSN/Metro” label.
• Commenters argue Microsoft is throwing AI into everything to justify sunk costs and impress shareholders rather than solving clear user problems.
• Some feel Copilot should focus on obvious high-value workflows (Excel/Office automation, “natural language to spreadsheet operations”) instead of yet another browser gimmick.

Quality, reliability, and determinism concerns

• Multiple reports that Copilot (and similar tools) are unreliable: failing to import data, timing out, producing broken links, misclassifying recipes, fabricating availability, or truncating outputs.
• Debate over whether non-deterministic behavior is acceptable in productivity tools; many insist repeatable results are essential, especially for computation and business tasks.
• AI’s difficulty in weighting sources and filtering SEO spam raises fears of “garbage in, garbage out” and defensible misinformation.

User experience, demand, and alternatives

• Some ask who actually wanted this feature; they see no product–market fit and describe it as “April Fools”-like.
• Others would prefer browser augmentations like robust annotation, note-taking, and better tab/document management rather than a lurking agent.
• A minority is genuinely interested: deep, cross-tab LLM integration for research sounds valuable, but they may wait for similar offerings from OpenAI or others.
• Broader sentiment: Edge started promising, then became bloated with promos and AI; this pushes users to alternative browsers (Brave, Vivaldi, Firefox, Safari).

Bigger-picture takes

• Some think AI “browsers” are inevitable, so Microsoft and Google can’t ignore this space as Perplexity/OpenAI/others move in.
• Others argue that in modern public markets the real “product” is the company’s AI narrative; whether features are useful or respectful of users is secondary.