It seems like most Windows users do...

Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, appears to be struggling to match its competition in terms of popularity. The number of people using Copilot has remained around 20 million weekly users for the last year, according to tech newsletter Newcomer, while OpenAI’s ChatGPT has hit as high as 400 million weekly users.

The data was shared at an annual executive meeting in March by Microsoft’s chief financial officer Amy Hood, Newcomer reports, and raise some concerns about the AI future Microsoft is pitching. Microsoft uses OpenAI’s models to power Copilot, and the assistant offers similar features to ChatGPT, but they clearly don’t draw the same interest from users. The company has also built Copilot into Windows 11, Microsoft 365 and the Edge browser, without apparently reaping the benefit of additional user growth.

The need to revamp Copilot, become less dependent on OpenAI and reimagine the company’s assistant as a true consumer product were Microsoft’s motivations for acqui-hiring Mustafa Suleyman and his team from Inflection AI. Suleyman’s work as CEO of Microsoft AI has culminated so far in a redesign of Copilot, and the launch of several new features, including the ability for the AI to take action for you in certain websites. It’s maybe the start of a cohesive vision, but not one that’s immediately connected with Windows users or anyone else.

Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI to aid the company’s research and gain privileged access to its models, all in the hopes of competing with Google. Even with that access, ChatGPT arriving first seems to have had the biggest impact on turning people into AI users. ChatGPT was the AI assistant people tried first, and it’s not clear what new Copilot feature will pull them away.