Microsoft Strips Copilot's Free Features — and Puts Deep...

Microsoft Strips Copilot's Free Features — and Puts Deep Research Behind a Subscription

From dev.to • Sep 01 • 9m read time

Starting 18 August 2026, Microsoft retired several free Copilot consumer features — Group Chat, AI-generated Podcasts, Deep Research, Copilot Labs and the Mico character — as part of merging its consumer and business Copilot apps into one. Deep Research's replacement, Researcher, is now available only to Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers at a reported $19.99/month. Removed features like Podcasts and Group Chat came with a manual, deadline-bound save-or-lose export process with no bulk export option. Existing Deep Research reports remain accessible via chat history or Word export. The piece argues this is partly legitimate consolidation but also a pattern of moving the most valuable free capability behind a paywall while merely deleting less useful features.