Microsoft Copilot was the most innovative feature of the latest update to Windows 11. And – although it was not originally planned – it will eventually come to Windows 10 as the Redmond company wants to monetize its investment in artificial intelligence technologies.

Once fully implemented, Microsoft Copilot will be an integral part of Windows 11 and will work on many tasks, internal tools, proprietary applications such as Edge browser, Bing search engine, Office suite and more. External software will also be available as Microsoft wants to incentivize developers to work on add-ons and apps for Copilot.

Copilot, like other assistants that rely on AI, has the ability to provide personalized answers to web searches, help you better organize and search internal or cloud files, analyze them and even write you emails. for that Copilot must have access to your data. According to Microsoft, the large language models used by AI are not based on this data, and the company ensures that it complies with the protection of regions such as the European Union in data protection regulations.

How to disable Microsoft Copilot in Windows 11

Even so, Windows 11 does not exactly stand out in the privacy section and telemetry is abundant. In addition, you will already see a colossal conflict and a fierce struggle for power in the company OpenAI, in which Microsoft has invested 13 billion dollars and whose technology is used for Copilot. If the idea of ​​AI scanning your data doesn’t appeal to you, there are several ways to disable Microsoft Copilot in Windows 11.

From the main panel

• Open Settings.
• Tap Personalization.
• Select the dashboard page on the right.
• Find the taskbar items settings and turn off the Copilot switch.

Group Policy

Previous measures removes the Copilot button, but it is still active and in fact, you can use it simply by pressing Windows + C. To disable the chatbot completely, you can use the Group Policy Editor if your device is running Pro, Enterprise, or Education versions:

• Press the keyboard shortcut “Windows + R” and type gpedit.msc to start the editor.
• Open Group Policy User Settings.
• Select Administrative Templates.
• Go to Windows Components.
• Select Copilot and set it to off.

Windows 11 Home version

The consumer version of Windows does not have Group Policy, but you can also deactivate here Microsoft Copilot, in this case using the ever-useful Windows Registry.

• Access the Windows Registry using the ‘regedit’ command.
• Go to “HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsCopilot” path.
• Double-click and disable Copilot by marking its DWORD value from 0 to 1.
• Save changes.

This will completely disable the Windows 11 Home AI assistant, also from the taskbar.