Glorious Irony As Microsoft’s AI Co-Pilot Comes To iPhones And iPads

Microsoft has spent most of the last couple of decades playing catchup in an number of key growth markets. Microsoft, however, is now in a leadership position in the AI space thanks in part to its partnership with OpenAI. The company's GPT-infused Copilot has popped up in Windows, Office, Bing, Edge, and now it's on the iPhone. And why not? It's not like Microsoft has its own mobile platform anymore. 

The Copilot app has arrived in the Apple App Store, ready for download on your iPhone or iPad. The iPad version also works on Macs powered by Apple silicon. This is not the only way to access Microsoft's AI chatbot, but it is the easiest. There's already a Bing app with most of the same GPT conversational abilities. However, that app also has news, widgets, and a bunch of other things that are much less cool than Copilot. When you open the Copilot app, you can get right to chatting and generating content.

You can use the app without logging in, but doing so will enable longer conversations and additional interactions. You also have the choice of the default GPT-3 large language model (LLM) or the latest GPT-4. If you hit that toggle (right at the top of the app when you open it), you'll get better answers but they'll take longer to appear.


In addition to text, the Copilot app has full support for the DALL-E 3 image generator bot. We tested both text and image responses in the app, and performance seems identical to other platforms. That's not a surprise as ChatGPT runs on powerful cloud servers rather than on the phone itself. Although, Apple has been toying with ways to make LLMs work on its mobile devices with limited RAM.

Unlike the Windows version of Copilot, the iOS app does not have any connection to the apps and services running on your phone. The Windows Copilot can change settings and automate certain features, but Microsoft doesn't have any system access on the iPhone beyond what is available to every other app. Temper your expectations, and Copilot might be a great addition to your iPhone. Get it for free in the App Store.