Hey Microsoft, you should apply a little dating advice when trying to win over your users: desperation is never attractive. The company has employed Windows’ built-in Edge browser as a marketing tool many times before, often in trying to convince people not to use Chrome. Now it’s pulling some similar moves, begging people to use Microsoft’s Copilot “AI” system rather than ChatGPT or Perplexity.
If you happen to be reading this in Edge right now (hey, it’s not impossible), then try heading over to ChatGPT.com, Perplexity.ai, or DeepSeek.com. You might see a little flashing banner in the URL bar inviting you to “Try Copilot.” That’s according to Windows Latest, which also says that you’ll be seeing Copilot ads in Bing Search if you look for competing products.
I’m not able to replicate the results on my own desktop (where I have Copilot turned off) or laptop, and neither are other PCWorld team members. But considering how much Microsoft has plastered Copilot over every possible surface for the last year, I’m not in any doubt that it’s an active campaign for at least some users.
There’s a bit of irony in the prompt, since many Copilot functions use ChatGPT itself—Microsoft and OpenAI are close partners, as ChatGPT and other systems tap into Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. But Microsoft would surely prefer that you use its own branded and integrated interface rather than the LLM/chatbot that’s become phenomenally popular with web spammers, cheating students, and lawyers charging hundreds of dollars an hour to create fake case references. (And I guess some other people use ChatGPT, too.)
Apparently that big push for Windows 11 isn’t occupying all of the marketing team’s time just yet. But I suppose it’s only fair, since going to Perplexity’s site opened up an ad for that company’s Comet browser.