How do I disable Copilot and all Other AI functionality in Windows 11 PRO

I don't have an issue living with it; I do that on my personal computers. The issue is when small businesses must comply with GLBA, HIPAA, and IRS Publication 17. These requirements dictate how data must be protected, but CoPilot doesn't abide by these requirements and places these businesses in a non-compliant state. Our only real option is to list this risk in the WISP and hope that PII from clients doesn't end up in these LLMs used by CoPilot. This is not a way to do business. The Enterprise edition of Windows allows for the disablement (and removal I believe) of CoPilot and AI in this form, but most small businesses can't afford an Enterprise version of Windows. Herein lies the problem.

Bottom line for me -- it isn't conspiracy, smugness, or just a hatred for AI. It is with keeping my clients in compliance with US state and federal regulations.

If you really have stepped out of the coverstion, that would be a good thing. You are apparently a young person who has yet to learn that there are many in the government and business that are out to gather information about you, to be used later. That is no conspiricy theory, that is fact. FYI, look up where the term conspiricy theroy comes from. It may be eye oopening for you. It is deragetory to call someone a conspircy theorist. Especially when their concerns are accurate. When you get older and wiser, there will be young "know-it-alls" that will do the same to you. You have much to learn about the world around you.

Most of us like MS for their OS and Office apps. We don't want to use anythng else. MS just needs to stick to what they do well and quit using resources on phony AI. AI is a joke. There is nothing intelligent about AI. It's just the latest buzz word much like "cloud".

I know this is an older post but just in case anyone is interested.

This is how I disabled copilot.

How to disable Copilot in Windows 11 | Tom's Guide (tomsguide.com)

Hope this helps have a great day.

If I hallucinated as much as AI while doing my job I'd get terminated.

For those like me just looking for the answer to the question. Please follow the walk-through in TomsGuide, the first link below. First, it needs to be disabled for the taskbar. Next turn CoPilot off via a specific group policy. The group policy is named something like "Turn off CoPilot" so make sure you are Enabling the policy to turn on the policy which shuts off CoPilot. Microsoft being intentionally difficult here IMHO...

If gpedit.msc does not launch, it needs to be manually added to the operating system using command prompt as an admin. Super easy, follow the seconds link below to add group policy editor then go back to TomsGuide. There are two separate commands listed in the GPEdit link. Don't try and run all 4 lines at once, it's two separate commands. Turns out Microsoft decided home users don't get gpedit by default. FYI, GPEdit is now part of "Microsoft Management Console".

Took me all of 5 minutes after I found the articles. I don't know if this is for a specific user or for the entire machine. More knowledgeable people on here can figure that out. Hope this helps.

Walk-through for disabling CoPilot in W11:

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/software/how-disable-copilot-in-windows-11

Walk-through for adding group policy editor back to the operating system: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/gpeditmsc-missing/d75b96e0-8bd9-4810-a609-90893cd65342