{"id":85462,"date":"2026-04-09T10:03:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/?p=85462"},"modified":"2026-04-09T10:03:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:03:49","slug":"microsoft-copilot-ai-user-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/en\/mozilla\/ai\/microsoft-copilot-ai-user-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Old habits die hard: Microsoft tries to limit our options, this time with AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Black-and-white<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft recently announced<\/a> it’s pulling back Copilot from several of its core Windows apps \u2014 Photos, Notepad, the Snipping Tool, and Widgets. Rolling back these forced AI integrations is the right move, but this is just the most recent example of Microsoft going too far without user consent.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copilot was pushed onto users<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Over the past year, Copilot wasn’t offered to Windows users \u2014 it was installed on them. The M365 Copilot app began auto-installing<\/a> on any Windows device running Microsoft 365 desktop apps, with no prompt and no consent. A new physical keyboard key<\/a> was added to laptops that launched Copilot by default, with no simple way to remap it. By default, Copilot was pinned<\/a> to the taskbar starting with Windows 11 PCs. And, going a step further, Microsoft planned to embed it into three of the most fundamental surfaces for the operating system: the Windows notification center, the Settings app, and File Explorer.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the user backlash<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Microsoft says<\/a> it now wants to be “intentional” about Copilot, they’re really admitting that they made repeated choices to serve their business over their customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t the first time \u2013 Microsoft has a pattern of deceptive design patterns<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The pattern of behavior here isn’t new. Independent research<\/a> commissioned by Mozilla has documented how Microsoft uses design and distribution tactics to override user choice \u2014 from deliberately complicated processes for changing your default browser, to UI that routes users back to Microsoft\u2019s Edge browser even after they’ve explicitly chosen something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Mozilla published that research, Microsoft has continued to escalate its use of dark patterns to force behaviors that help the bottom line, not people\u2019s lives. Here are a few examples from the rollout of Windows 11 that have continued to strip users of their choice: <\/p>\n\n\n\n