What is a copilot?
A copilot is an AI assistant built into an app that helps a person as they work, suggesting drafts, answers, or next steps while the person stays in control.
The word copilot is used in two ways. As a general term, it describes an AI assistant that works alongside a person inside the tools they already use, rather than acting on its own. The person asks for help or accepts suggestions and remains responsible for the result. As a brand name, Copilot is what Microsoft calls its AI assistants, and GitHub Copilot is an AI coding assistant.
For example, a copilot in an email app might draft a reply based on the thread, a copilot in a spreadsheet might suggest a formula or explain a trend, and a copilot in a document editor might summarize a long report or rewrite a section. In each case the suggestion appears where the work is happening, and the person decides whether to use it.
The difference from an AI agent is mostly about control. A copilot assists step by step and waits for the person, while an agent is given a goal and takes several actions on its own. The names are used loosely, and some products do both, so it is worth checking what a particular tool can actually do without approval.
A copilot's suggestions can be wrong or incomplete, like any AI output, so they still need reading before use. Workplace copilots can usually draw on whatever the signed-in person has access to, such as emails, files, and chats, so organizations need file permissions set correctly, or a copilot may surface documents that were shared more widely than intended.
An example
While writing a proposal, an employee asks the document editor's built-in copilot to turn the client's earlier emails into a background section.