How to disable or remove Copilot from Word (there is a solution - check 2nd edit)

I have a suggestion that involves changing your privacy settings. It does not remove the Copilot menu item on the ribbon, nor does it remove the initial line about Copilot when you create a new document. But it prevents your doc from using Copilot. At least it worked for me.

In Word, go to File > Options > General.

Click Privacy Settings.

Scroll down the dialog and UNcheck one or both of the boxes in "Connected Experiences". I have the first box unchecked, and this makes Word lose access to Copilot.

Given other comments, I would like to re-iterate that my solution does NOT remove the new Copilot item on the ribbon. It does NOT remove the initial Copilot line you get in a new document. But it DOES stop Word from accessing Copilot.

I already have both those boxes unchecked - it doesn't stop Copilot Draft from operating.

This is a massive oversight on the behalf of the office team leaders and managers and i would expect heads to roll. They have risked serious legal implications for their institutional and educational users. The use of AI is highly contentious in commercial and education institutions due to how it obtains its data - many see this as clandestine for of plagiarism. We may be wondering why Microsoft brought out a feature that was clearly unwanted and in some regions questionably legal. It will of course allow tech companies to monitor all activity on your computing environment in much the same way virtual home assistants do so for shopping behavior. surveillance.

This worked for me, 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.

I used Libre Office before I bought MS 365 a couple of years ago on a whim with a new laptop. Back then I was commenting on other people's ms and editing, etc. You can get away with using Libre on Word documents and commenting, editing, etc. It's not 100% seamless, you get a few hiccups like you used to do when moving between different versions of MS Word on different operating systems.

But yeah, I agree, we shouldn't have to workaround this problem. I'm able to go back to Libre easily at the moment but if you use it professionally, it's much trickier. Surely publishers, universities, etc, who buy big MS Office subscriptions might be able to get some answers if everybody screams loud enough.