How to disable copilot on microsoft office (excel, word, ppt) on Macbook

It seems you must be right “that Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries are Microsoft's crash test dummies”. I googled “microsoft copilot Australia New Zealand testing” and found the info below. Unbelievable.

Microsoft Tests Bundling Copilot With 365 Personal and Family Plans (for a Price)

https://au.pcmag.com/ai/108179/microsoft-tests-bundling-copilot-with-365-personal-and-family-plans-for-a-price

Nov 08, 2024

Microsoft is addingCopilot and Designer to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.

The upgrade is not free. Copilot and Designer is available now once Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in supported regions update to the latest version of the software. But at their next renewal, the price will increase—"to reflect the value we’ve added over the past decade and enable us to deliver new innovations for years to come," it says.

Price hikes vary by market. In Australia, the cost of the Personal plan goes up by $5 AUD, and the cost of the Family plan increases by $4 AUD per month

Microsoft didn't say if this option will roll out in the US, but it seems likely if the test goes well.

From link in above article (from Microsoft Asia Pacific website):

Unlock your potential with Copilot and Designer in Microsoft 365 Personal and Family

https://news.microsoft.com/apac/2024/10/31/unlock-your-potential-with-copilot-and-designer-in-microsoft-365-personal-and-family/

October 31, 2024

The next step in our Copilot journey 

*It’s been nine months since we introduced consumers to Copilot in our Microsoft 365 apps via Copilot Pro. We’ve spent that time adding new features, improving performance, and listening carefully to customer feedback. Based on that feedback,*we’re making Copilot part of our Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions.

Hello everyone in this thread, I've been looking into this and shouting at my computer for a week, and in case its helpful at all, here's a summary of what I understand about this mess (I use a Macbook):

1. Trying to get rid of Copilot has been an enormous disruption for about a week. I wish I could invoice Microsoft for the wasted days.
2. I have read that Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries are Microsoft's crash test dummies--that is, MS is trialing this version of Copilot out on us and will apparently 'learn from us' (without engaging with us at all) and tweak the programme before it goes out to their 'important' markets (sarcasm).
3. YOU CANNOT GET RID OF COPILOT ENTIRELY yet, without reverting to an old version of the Office software, which I'm not prepared to do as I can imagine bigger problems emerging. After trying very hard to do it myself and reading the community messages here and researching online, I believe that all you can do to minimise Copilot is these two things:

A. On a Mac, turn off 'connected experiences' in your Word privacy settings which seems to disable some of the AI-type features and will stop the Copilot icon appearing when you select text, but will NOT entirely remove the icon from the margin.

B. I have not yet tried this but have read about it: Downgrade your subscription to a leaner version if you can. This will activate when your current sub expires, and you will no longer have Copilot--or so they say. I do not think you can have the simpler version activated yet, but you can select it (please correct me if I'm wrong), presumably because they'd lose their Copilot dummies(?) if we opt-out. I hear that the dumber version of Office will cost what you pay now, and (get this) if you keep your current sub (which has the Copilot) you will be charged $40ish extra with your sub renewal, to pay for Copilot! I am definitely downgrading to Classic/old/dumb MSOffice!

There other word processing options, but if you're a Word user they might seem rustic. I am going to use the Apple/Mac writing options (Pages) to minimise my MSWord usage until my changed sub to the Classic version kicks in (or until a real human gets in touch from Microsoft to answer my questions), and if the downgrade has Copilot, that'll be the end of Office365 for me.

Cheers.

THANK YOU!! Your response was incredibly helpful. I didn't know why my already expensive subscription jumped from $139.00 to $179.00 per year and it was because of that intrusive and unwanted co-pilot rubbish. Microsoft should NOT be allowed to hike up the prices in that way. We are sick of Microsoft and they way they have been increasing their prices for less value and are in the process of switching our services to other providers. Goodbye Micro$oft.

Okay, it’s taken me three hours with MS support, yes three hours to get rid of Copilot.

 I actually had to cancel my subscription to Office 365, remove all traces of it from my Library, Containers folder and Hidden Containers folder.

Then, I had to install an old version of Office for Mac, 2019 that was still on my subscription list and disable the updates…

Result, I opened Word and Excel and there is no Copilot in the ribbon, nor when I hit return. But, I’m having to use a copy of Office that is years old and probably missing out on other features, but I’ll take it.

The consultant wouldn’t acknowledge that this was a very bad idea, but she did acknowledge the validity of my concerns, especially with regard to students being accused of plagiarism and the obvious disconnect that auto AI would have for creative professionals.

It shouldn’t be that hard.

I agree. It's awful, and I don't want it.

I just want to write, I don't want all that noisy **** and I certainly don't want to supply gazillionaire companies with my intellectual property for free. I pay them a $$$ sub, then they annoy me with AI pests on each page so that they can grow richer?! It's not exactly fair. Grrrr!