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

I am so furious about CoPilot.
It is not wanted or needed in my personal or business operations & I do not want Microsoft training it's AI by snooping on my work.
Microsoft really hasn't learnt from the enormous antitrust case they faced about embedding Explorer in their products have they?
This intrusion by CoPilot is unacceptable, doubly so because you cannot turn this invasive, privacy breaching software off!

You have to 'downgrade' your subscription.

I've been free of this evil add on since 28 November.

Go to 'manage your subscription' I think it is called.

Cancel your subscription.

You will likely get an offer to stay on for free. Either at that stage or after declining the free offer, you will see (or at least I did) an option to have a 'classic' account without Copilot. Bonus: it's at the same price as it was a couple months ago, before the recently announced price hike.

You will then have to wait until the day after your renewal for it to update, but you'll be free of this cursed add on.

Further to my original post and all attempts to stop Copilot from operating, while preparing an important document that I cannot have any form of AI being associated with, this just popped out of the blue.

It was accompanied by a range of options.

Despite everything I have attempted, trying to follow all sorts of 'instructions' that refer to things that cannot even be found, Copilot is actively involved in my Word document in progress. Nor have I been able to make this thing even go away.

Microsoft have enacted AI in its suite of products, not told users anything about it and have not even given us a working option to stop it from interacting with our work.

Anyone who works in formal research, security and other things that cannot have AI involved, has been royally shafted by Microsoft, who refuse to even discuss the matter down here in Australia.

Frankly Microsoft can go **** themselves. And to think I have been continuing to pay for this alleged 'service.'

Unfortunately, I've discovered, much to my frustration, that you can't convert a Word document back into Pages. You can convert Pages into Word but not the other way around. I had to copy and paste across the two.

I work for councils who use MS Office, such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, and so I can't not use MS Office.

This situation TRULY SUCKS! I can't stand opening up a new word doc and seeing that STUPID COPILOT thing on the page. Please take COPILOT OFF!! It's so annoying.

"Listened carefully to customer feedback"?! Doesn't seem likely given the dissenting voices here and in several other similar discussions I've been reading. I hope (although greatly doubt) that they are listening to all the criticism here! I'm in New Zealand. I use Word in my publishing industry work. I will no longer be able to use it if it incorporates AI. It's that simple. And I certainly won't agree to pay more for a 'service' that no one asked for or – let's be real here – needs. Utter BS, Microsoft.