Windows 11 Users Speak Out: Exclusive Poll on Microsoft Copilot's Impact

You might miss out if you’re on Windows 11 and not using Microsoft’s Copilot, especially now that everything is AI-enhanced. And yes, there are a lot of AI assistants out there, but Copilot is the only one fully integrated into an OS. So why not enhance your workflows with a bit of help?

The artificial intelligence era seems to be upon us, with big players like ChatGPT, Bard AI, and Microsoft Copilot at the forefront. But we can’t forget the dozen smaller ones that also are aspiring for the same spot in the “year of AI PC”, as Microsoft named 2024 in a recent blog post.

One thing’s for sure: Microsoft is preparing Copilot to fully cover all your needs if you’re on Windows 11 and not only, as it’s now available for Android and iOS devices. And that’s just one of the many evolution steps Microsoft’s tool has to make in 2024 to be the go-to assistant of Windows (and not only) users.

Knowing all this, we were really eager to find out how people really felt about Copilot 6 months after our first exclusive survey, and let me tell you, things have changed a lot!

Copilot is now streamlined. Sort of.

The biggest new development is that 70% of Windows users know what Copilot is/does and have used it at least once, with 50% using it regularly. Oh, how the tables turned! Our previous research showed the opposite, as 73% of respondents hadn’t heard of the tool back then. That’s a huge upswing, especially considering that 27% use it daily.

But now comes the “sort of” part: most still use it for light tasks and day-to-day activities, not work. To be more specific, 58% of the respondents use it for personal use cases, while just 11% use it professionally. Despite its high technical sealing, most use Copilot to search for things on their PC, write and answer emails, and answer random everyday questions.

That tells us 2 things: the first one is that people aren’t quite ready to fully adopt AI into their work, and the second one is that more and more non-savvy users are getting curious about Copilot’s use scenarios and capabilities.

The business and education areas are pain points for now, as most users want to see bigger developments there and a much more seamless integration:

Make answers much more accurate.[…] And 2, consider incorporating stock market investing models, and financial metrics calculations.

Anonymous respondent

Still, 16% of our respondents are using Microsoft’s Copilot as a fully-fledged assistant or an automation tool, which means that, slowly but surely, the Redmond giant is pushing its tool into the original intended purpose of an all-in-one Windows assistant.

A surprising statistic for the skeptics out there is that for 37% of users, Copilot worked perfectly for the assigned task, with 27% saying that it’s good but still needs some improvements. Only 9% said that they wouldn’t recommend it. For the latest, in most cases, Copilot tends to overcomplicate things:

Copilot gives too many solutions. I asked about how to disable the FN locking feature on Win 11. It gave way too many options and none of them worked on my brand new Acer. Very frustrating! KISS–Keep It Simple Stupid!

Anonymous respondent

Microsoft Copilot: Bang for the buck or rip-off?

The AI assistant is free for now, and we hope it will remain this way so that all Windows users can put it to good use, but experience has taught us that nothing is free in the online environment. So when asked if they would still use Copilot if it included fees or subscriptions, 46% of respondents answered with a definitive no. Here’s what one user said:

I will appreciate more automation on most educational related platform that students from third world countries can seamlessly have access to its usage, without any form of payment

Anonymous respondent

That is surprising, but not as much as the 27% who said yes or the other 27% who said it depends on the pricing. In other words, 54% of Windows users would be willing to pay (depending on the price, of course) for Copilot.

I would try to make it even more personalized to fit even better for the individual person and also make more sense to pay for 🙂

Anonymous respondent

Coincidently enough, the percentage of people willing to pay for the tool is very similar to that of people who use it daily. So, no matter what anybody thinks about AI or Microsoft’s Copilot, there are people out there who are getting a lot out of it even now when it’s not fully featured. That’s a great sign for Microsoft but not for the competition.

Speaking about its competitors, 48% of respondents said that Copilot is better, faster, and easier to interact with than ChatGPT, while just 13% said the opposite.

Things are ramping up for all AI-based tools in 2024, especially now that hardware changes are completing the software on our PCs. Microsoft’s Copilot key is a clear sign that AI is here to stay, but for now, it’s definitely not for everyone. But is it for you? Let us know your take on Copilot in the comments section below.

About the data

The research above was constructed based on our readers’ input through an online survey that ran for 30 days on WindowsReport.com. Using Crowdsignal, a popular survey tool, we gathered 1761 complete answers to all our questions from 117 countries, but the most popular locations were:

• United States of America – 34%
• India – 13%
• United Kingdom – 8%

Regarding platform distribution, readers who have completed this survey mainly use Windows 11 (54%) and Windows 10 (34%). We’ve also recorded answers from people using Windows 7, macOS, iPadOS, Linux, or Chrome OS.

The raw data used in the research above can be seen and downloaded here.