由于对将 Copilot 强制集成到 Office 的各个功能中的做法感到不满，微软决定将 Office 功能添加到 Copilot 应用程序中，同时将这个 AI 助手从 Outlook 的某些功能中移除。具体操作方式如下：用户只需向 Copilot 应用程序提供指令，Copilot 便会生成相应的 Office 文档（例如 Word 文档），并允许用户在相应的 Office 应用程序中对其进行编辑，同时保持与 Copilot 的对话继续进行。
Not satisfied with shoehorning Copilot into every crevice of Office, Microsoft is adding Office to the Copilot app, while also evicting the AI assistant from certain parts of Outlook. The plan is simple: give the Copilot app a prompt, and it will create an Office document (for example, Word) and let a user edit it in the appropriate Office application while keeping the Copilot conversation going. The document can be shared with other users too, who can use the prompt Copilot to tweak it.
这些文档还可以与其他用户共享，其他用户也可以利用 Copilot 的功能对这些文档进行进一步的修改。虽然这是一个有趣的创新尝试，但我们担心该系统对 OneDrive 的依赖（而非企业更常用的 SharePoint）可能会让部分用户感到不满。此外，这一新功能目前仅面向 Frontier 订阅用户在 Chat 和 Cowork 平台上推出。
Albeit an interesting approach, we suspect the system's reliance on OneDrive, rather than that enterprise favorite, SharePoint, might put off some customers. The new feature is also only rolling out to Frontier customers in Chat and Cowork. There's also a question-mark over Microsoft's commitment. The company is quick to drop or deprecate technology when its attention drifts elsewhere. The ability to create a theme in Outlook with Copilot is an example.
此外，微软的长期支持承诺也令人存疑——当公司的注意力转移到其他领域时，它往往会迅速放弃或停止对某些技术的支持。以 Outlook 中的“主题设置”功能为例：不到两年前，微软曾宣布推出“Copilot 提供的 Outlook 主题设置”功能，该公司称这是“生产力应用中首次实现动态 AI 生成的主题效果”。对于拥有 Copilot 许可证的用户来说，这一功能其实相当简单：它可以根据用户的地理位置（如果启用了相关权限）生成相应的背景图片，并根据当前天气等条件定期更新。
Less than two years ago, Microsoft announced "Themes by Copilot in Outlook" which, according to the software and cloud biz, marked "the first instance of dynamic AI-generated theming in productivity applications." Themes by Copilot in Outlook, for users with a Copilot license, was a relatively simple piece of technology and could be dynamic, showing imagery inspired by the user's locale (if location permissions were enabled) and updating at regular intervals, for example, based on the current weather. It was all terribly exciting, and Microsoft imagined a world where users might fiddle with their productivity applications in the same way that "you might accent your desk with a candle or photos, spruce up your office with artwork or plants."
当时这一功能令人兴奋不已，微软设想用户可以像用蜡烛或照片装饰桌面、用艺术品或植物美化办公室一样，自由地定制自己的生产力工具。不过，根据微软官方消息，这个功能在推出不到两年后就被取消了。
After all, what's better than watching a beautiful sunset while Outlook quietly explodes in the background? However, after less than two years, the feature is for the chop, according to a post in Microsoft's Message Center.
“Copilot主题”将在周末被移除出设置，用户更改为其他主题后，将无法再选择或返回到Copilot主题。如果你目前正在使用Copilot主题，只要你没有更改，它就不会消失；但一旦更改，就再也无法恢复。目前尚不清楚微软为何在宣布该功能后不久就将其淘汰。这可能是因为使用率较低（可以想象，一些管理员可能并不希望用户能够覆盖其工具中已选定的外观），也可能是微软近年来“Copilot包揽一切”策略的一种倒退。
"Themes by Copilot," it wrote at the weekend, "will be removed from Settings, and users will no longer be able to select or return to a Theme by Copilot after changing to a different theme." If you're currently using a Theme by Copilot, it won't go anywhere until you change it, but after that, there's no going back. It's unclear why Microsoft is retiring the feature so soon after announcing it. It might be due to low usage (we can imagine some administrators weren't happy that users could override the selected appearance of their tools) or a step back from the Copilot All The Things approach Microsoft has taken in recent years.
不过，对于任何热衷于在Office中采用Copilot功能的人来说，这确实是一个值得警惕的信号——这一有趣的功能或许会在发布会上带来令人印象深刻的演示。但微软若想继续推进，也需要证明其价值，否则在转向“下一个大趋势”时，它也可能面临与Copilot主题相同的命运。®
It is, however, a salutary warning for anyone enthusiastically embracing Office in Copilot, an interesting feature that will make for some impressive keynotes. It will also need to demonstrate its worth or face the same fate as Themes by Copilot when Microsoft moves on to The Next Big Thing. ®