{"id":599214,"date":"2026-05-23T04:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/599214\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T04:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:24:11","slug":"microsoft-lets-users-exile-floating-copilot-button-after-interface-rage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/599214\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft lets users exile floating Copilot button after interface rage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"kicker \" style=\"\">AI + ML<\/p>\n<p class=\"subtitle \" style=\"\">Listening to your customers? Who are you, and what have you done with Microsoft?<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft has made Copilot a little less in-your-face with the option to banish the assistant&#8217;s Dynamic Action Button to the toolbar.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/techcommunity.microsoft.com\/blog\/microsoft365insiderblog\/shaping-copilot-across-word-excel-and-powerpoint\/4521706\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">change<\/a>, rolling out this week, comes after howls of outrage from customers over Microsoft&#8217;s decision to drop a Copilot button onto user workspaces.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Although the desire to get users clicking on the assistant is understandable, obscuring content in its productivity applications was perhaps not the best way to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft&#8217;s forums show plenty of frustration with the floating button. Some call it &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/feedbackportal.microsoft.com\/feedback\/\/idea\/5a91f68e-b649-f111-9a90-6045bdb3484a#comments\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">infuriating<\/a>,&#8221;\u00a0while others are less tactful. One Excel user wrote: &#8220;Did you let copilot design this idea and no human review it? Such abomination.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Another said: &#8220;Putting a button over the working content was not a good move by Microsoft,&#8221; which gets to the heart of the problem. Redesigns and interface tweaks will always generate strong feelings. However, obscuring content with something that many don&#8217;t want is arguably a step too far.<\/p>\n<p>There was already a way to turn off Copilot features in Excel and Word via the Settings screen, but the latest update indicates that Microsoft has paid attention to recent feedback. A user commented: &#8220;There needs to be a toggle or something to move it back to the ribbon,&#8221; and that is pretty much what Microsoft has done.<\/p>\n<p>A new option has been added to the button&#8217;s menu, &#8220;Move to ribbon,&#8221; which does exactly that. Click it, and Copilot is banished to the ribbon. The floating Copilot Dynamic Action Button is no more, although it can be moved back if a user happens to miss that particular design decision.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft has acknowledged that forcing Copilot on users was not universally welcomed. Windows boss Pavan Davuluri <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/software\/2026\/03\/24\/windows-boss-promises-to-heal-the-operating-systems-wounds\/5223630\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">promised<\/a> a reduction in Copilot entry points and a rethink of how the technology is integrated into the operating system (because of course it isn&#8217;t going away any time soon).\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/personal-tech\/2026\/05\/12\/microsoft-makes-copilot-easier-to-summon-harder-to-ignore-in-office\/5238612\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Earlier in May<\/a>, Microsoft said it would &#8220;streamline&#8221; access to Copilot in its productivity applications.<\/p>\n<p>Alas, that &#8220;streamline&#8221; involved the Copilot button, and plenty of customers asked for the ability to shift it back to the ribbon.<\/p>\n<p>Less than two weeks after the initial announcement, Microsoft has responded. Although Copilot will still be there, the option to move it back to the ribbon is a move in the right direction.\u00a0\u00ae<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AI + ML Listening to your customers? Who are you, and what have you done with Microsoft? Microsoft&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-599214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}