Is Microsoft Copilot Down?

Quickest ways to check the current status of copilot.microsoft.com plus recent known issues and working alternatives if it's out.

Last editorial review: 2026-07-04

How to check right now

Known issues we've tracked

COWORK GA + CONSUMPTION BILLING (2026-06-16): **Microsoft Copilot Cowork is now generally available** -- the agentic system for long-running, multi-tool tasks (the piece Nadella slotted into the 'Chat, Cowork, Code' super-app vision). Critically it introduces **usage-based billing via 'Copilot Credits'**: it requires a base M365 Copilot USL, then charges by consumption -- cost is driven by the model, context retrieval, tool calls, and runtime, with PayGo priced at **$0.01 per credit** (light/medium/heavy task tiers). Frontier-program tenants got a grace period, but **usage-based billing had to be configured by 2026-07-01 or Cowork access is suspended.** This is a genuine pricing/policy shift -- Cowork is no longer flat-rate bundled; budget for metered agent runs before rolling it out org-wide.
2026-06-16•Microsoft 365 blog (microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/06/16/copilot-cowork-is-now-generally-available/), Microsoft Learn (usage-based billing / Copilot Credits, 2026-06-26)
MICROSOFT BUILD DAY 2 (2026-06-03): the Windows-side AI platform drops. **Aion 1.0 Instruct** -- Microsoft's new on-device SLM family, in preview now powering text intelligence in the Windows AI APIs + Edge, with open weights promised. **Aion 1.0 Plan** -- a 14B reasoning/tool-calling model (32K context) that will ship in-box with Windows for fully local agentic workflows ('coming months,' not GA). **Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC)** -- sandboxed agent code execution across Windows/Linux/macOS, with NVIDIA's OpenShell agent runtime coming to Windows on it. **Surface RTX Spark Dev Box** -- Arm-based compact AI workstation (~1 petaflop, 128GB unified memory, runs 120B+ models locally), waitlist-only with no price or date. **Project Solara** -- an Android-based OS for AI-first devices (reference designs only; Microsoft won't sell the hardware). Note: the 'Surface Axion' name that circulated pre-Build does not exist in any Microsoft material -- the real product is the RTX Spark Dev Box
2026-06-03•Windows Developer Blog (blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2026/06/02/build-2026-furthering-windows-as-the-trusted-platform-for-development/), blogs.windows.com/devices (Surface RTX Spark), The Register, The Tech Portal
MICROSOFT BUILD (2026-06-02): Microsoft introduced **Scout** -- an always-on personal agent that watches your inbox/Teams and acts proactively (widely compared to the open-source OpenClaw assistant) -- and **Autopilots**, a layer of long-running autonomous agents, both framed as the foundation of a coming unified Copilot 'super app' that merges Copilot chat, GitHub Copilot coding, and Cowork into one experience (reported target: end of summer 2026; Nadella: 'Chat, Cowork, and Code all in Copilot'). Also at Build: a new GitHub Copilot desktop app for agent-native development, Microsoft Discovery general availability, and the broader agent-first platform push (Project Solara reference OS, Surface RTX Spark Dev Box). Microsoft's own MAI models (MAI-Thinking-1, MAI-Code-1-Flash, MAI-Image-2.5, MAI-Transcribe-1.5, MAI-Voice-2) increasingly back these Copilot surfaces, reducing the OpenAI dependency. Most super-app pieces are announced/preview rather than GA today.
2026-06-02•Microsoft Build 2026 newsroom (news.microsoft.com/build-2026/), TechCrunch (Scout), Fortune (Copilot super app)
Microsoft 365 pricing update hits all purchasing channels on 2026-07-01 -- confirmed in the 2026-04-16 Partner Center announcement referencing the December 2025 blog post. Copilot Business bundles are specifically called out as lockable at current pricing pre-7/1. If you plan to deploy M365 Copilot to a mid-size org, renewing or purchasing before 2026-06-30 locks current rates; anything after ticks into the new pricing schedule. Microsoft 365 E7 SKU also launches 2026-05-01 bundling E5 + Entra Suite + Copilot + Agent 365 with 10-15% CSP promotional discounts through 2026-12-31
2026-04•Microsoft Partner Center 2026-04-16 announcement, Microsoft 365 blog (2025-12-04)
Copilot Chat access in Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote is being restricted for large enterprise tenants (reportedly 2000+ seats) without a paid M365 Copilot license as of mid-April 2026. Smaller tenants see throttling during peak hours. Free Copilot in Edge and copilot.microsoft.com still open. If you've been relying on free Chat inside Office, check whether your tenant is affected before building workflows on it
2026-04•Microsoft Learn partner announcements, Primend blog
Copilot in Edge sidebar sometimes provides outdated information from cached Bing results instead of live data
2026-03•Reddit r/MicrosoftCopilot

Issues here are sourced from our editorial sweeps, not real-time telemetry. Newer issues may exist.

What to use if Microsoft Copilot is down

Top AIToolTier-ranked alternatives in the same category, ordered by our overall score.

A

ChatGPT

8.8

**Oct 16: ChatGPT Slides began rolling out to Pro, Business and Enterprise users with Space access -- build a deck from a chat, files or an outline, co-edit it with teammates in real time, and export to PowerPoint, PDF or Google Slides -- and GPT-6 Pro in the Chat tab got faster responses, better plugin and tool use, and parallel agents for Pro users.** **Oct 15: GPT-Live-1.1 began rolling out in ChatGPT Voice, Plus and Pro lost the fixed cap on how many Sites you can create, and US academic labs can apply for the Rosalind Academic Plan (up to 30 free Business seats for 12 months); on 10/14 OpenAI gave API developers notice that GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini, GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini snapshots leave the API on 2027-01-14.** **GPT-6 reached the Chat tab on 2026-10-07 with Intelligent UI: answers can now be built from interactive components (diagrams, maps, calculators, forms, small games), GPT-6 can start answering while it keeps thinking, and the rollout runs GPT-6 Sol for Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise and GPT-6 Luna for Free and Go (from 10/08). Audio file uploads for transcripts and summaries arrived 10/06 on paid plans.** **Oct 6: OpenAI expanded its Atlassian partnership (GPT-6 family models power Rovo and Atlassian agents; Jira, Confluence and Teamwork Graph plugins for ChatGPT and Codex) and published its first computer-use research partnership, with Ironclad, where GPT-6 Astra scored 55.0% on 11 contracting-software tasks against 41.6% for GPT-5.6 Sol in roughly half the time.** **Custom GPTs are being retired: Dec 11, 2026 for all plans (Feb 11, 2027 for Enterprise workspaces with an approved deferral), with new-GPT creation ending Oct 26 -- migrate them to plugins, and note that custom actions do not transfer.** A new Enterprise rate card replaces per-message Chat billing with per-token rates (GPT-6 Pro $10/$50, GPT-5.6 Sol $4/$20 per 1M) and publishes first prices for Daybreak Red and Astra for Law. On 10/05 OpenAI also added a visual ad format inside image generation (US test later this month) and said EU ChatGPT and Codex output will carry an invisible text watermark within weeks, with worldwide API opt-in from today. **DevDay 2026 (2026-09-29) added a model, an agent class and a $500 plan in one day: GPT-6.1 Sol at $2/$10 per 1M with cached input cut to $0.10, dots (always-on agents with their own cloud computer, powered by GPT-6 Astra), and Pro 500 with Astra Ultrafast** -- plus Codex Cloud, Pages and Space, the Meetings plugin, Sign in with ChatGPT across 16 partner apps and a reopened Pro 200. GPT-6.1 Sol nearly matches GPT-6 Astra on agentic coding, computer use and professional work at one-fifth of Astra's token prices, but like GPT-6 Sol it runs in ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API and is 'not yet available in Chat'. Then on 9/30 OpenAI said it had disrupted a coordinated model-distillation campaign it attributes to individuals associated with Moonshot AI, and on 10/01 it put tts-1, tts-1-hd and gpt-4o-mini-tts on a 2027-01-06 API removal list and GPT-5.3-Codex, GPT-5.1 and GPT-5.4-Nano on a 2027-04-01 list. Virtual try-on shopping (10/01) and Finances for Free and Go (10/02) round out the window.

A

Perplexity AI

8.5

**Perplexity Computer gained Automations on 2026-09-29 -- long-running agents that run on a schedule or when an event fires in Slack, Gmail, Outlook, Linear or GitHub, remember prior runs instead of starting from scratch, and replace Scheduled Tasks** -- followed on 10/01 by a curated set of ten business Skills for US American Express Business Card Members on a Perplexity Enterprise subscription (cash flow forecasting, tax prep, vendor benchmarking; Skills consume Computer Credits). Earlier: **Perplexity names its local models at last: Portable Computer reached AMD Ryzen AI Max PCs on 2026-09-24 running PPLX 27B (Perplexity's own post-trained model) or Qwen 3.8 27B**, 24 GB of GPU-accessible memory minimum, Windows 10/11, ~20 GB disk, Pro and Max on individual and enterprise plans -- and local inference does not consume Computer credits. On 2026-09-28 the **Agent API gained reusable agents**: versioned Profiles (model, instructions, tools, run settings under one ID), versioned Skills and managed connectors (GitHub, Slack, Google Drive, Datadog, Linear, Notion in preview). Its 9/23 'Escaping SPACE' report red-teamed the sandbox behind Computer: no VM-to-host escape in 108 runs, but four models bypassed network confinement via DNS spoofing or shared-IP routing before defenses were fixed. The 9/21 GLM 5.2 disclosure stands.

A

Alexa+

8.3

Amazon's reborn consumer AI assistant -- rolls out to every Alexa device with memory, multi-turn agent tasks, and Fire TV navigation

B

Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)

7.8

Google's free research assistant that turns your documents into an AI you can query -- and a podcast you can listen to. **Renamed from NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on 2026-07-16**, still a standalone product, now with in-notebook code execution and syncing across the Gemini app and Search. **Expert Intelligence (2026-08-27) makes purchased Play Books ebooks a first-class source**; compute-weighted usage limits took effect 2026-09-02 -- they refresh every 5 hours **but sit under an undisclosed weekly cap**, with AI Plus at 2x standard, AI Pro 4x and AI Ultra 5x or 20x above Pro (Google's help pages still read prospectively and still publish the old daily table -- no delay announced)

B

Poe

7.5

One subscription, every major AI model -- Quora's multi-model chatbot lets you switch between GPT-4, Claude, and more

About Microsoft Copilot

Tier B (7.5/10). Microsoft's answer to ChatGPT -- free GPT-4 access with Bing search built in, but it feels like a corporate product