Remove Copilot from Word

Due to this unwanted foisting of AI upon me I will be ending my microsoft 365 subscription i have had for 10+ years and will instead begin using google docs. At least I'm won't be paying 16 bucks a month to train their entirely useless llm. I just want to type up my own words. I do not want this, did not ask for this and will no longer pay for this service

There should be an easy option to turn off Copilot, not a convoluted return to a previous version, probably each time Word is updated by Microsoft. Not everyone wants to use this feature - why is it being forced on everyone and placed front and centre in every user's face?

Thank you, it's great to know about the possibility of setting up as 'not the main user', to avoid the Copilot - if that's actually possible. I'm not sure how I'd do that seamlessly though (and again, we shouldn't have to do this).

I read the Ed Bott article: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-copilot-ai-is-coming-to-your-office-apps-whether-you-like-it-or-not/ where it explains that Australia, New Zealand, a couple of other markets are the 'crash test dummies' for Copilot. So, based on our frustration they'll probably fix it in time for their 'main markets'?! Meanwhile, this has enraged me so much, as does AI in general, that I'm looking around at replacement writing programmes.

Does anyone know anything about open source software or other versatile options e.g. LibreOffice ?? If I can find word processing software that reads and can be copied into from MSWord and which can save as PDF, then I'm keen to consider that and set it up before the next increased MSOfiice365 sub is due (unless they fix this issue very soon).

Thanks Ian, that worked, although I had to reboot before CoPilot prompts actually disappeared.

For others, Ed Bott of ZDNET has written on this at https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-copilot-ai-is-coming-to-your-office-apps-whether-you-like-it-or-not/.

In this he says that "[Microsoft] is making Copilot part of all Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand." So we're the test market guinea pigs.

He also says "For Microsoft 365 Family subscribers, the added features are available only to the primary user and can't be shared with other members." So perhaps one option to get rid of CoPilot if you've got a Family subscription and a spare licence may well be to stop being the primary user of the Family account. I haven't tried this though.

Yep cheers mate, I actually turned off updates the other day when I was trying other command prompt solutions, as well as removing connected experiences, app permissions, ETC all which did not work. Your solution did, thank you so much. I've wasted days here, and had to vehemently convince my client I am not using AI in my writing. I have clients as well as a private publishing contract, and this was an utter and complete disaster for me. Without this solution I don't know what I would have done, thank you so much :)