Today I’m using Pages to write my blog post. Normally, I would use Word. But Word is pissing me off, so I thought I’d give Pages a try. After all, it’s already on my Mac.
Why is Word pissing me off? A little over a year ago, Word introduced a new feature called Copilot, which Google describes as: “an AI-powered assistant integrated into Microsoft 365, designed to draft, rewrite, summarize, and edit documents using natural language prompts…”
Umm, no thanks. While other people might welcome this addition, I didn’t want nor ask for it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just ignore Copilot because the new feature included an annoying cursor that appeared to the left of whatever paragraph I was working on.
Like an annoying stalker it followed me around on the page. As many of you already know, writing is a creative process. For some writers they need to listen to certain music when creating—while some of us need total silence. Some people enjoy writing in a coffee shop, while others (like me) can’t write if someone is in the room with them.
While some authors might enjoy the company of the Copilot stalker, I find it distracting, annoying, and I’m certain it raised my blood pressure. I started checking with my author friends, who, like me, were just discovering Copilot had infiltrated their Word, and like me, they were NOT happy.
Finally we were given an option to disable Copilot under Word’s Preferences. When I first heard about this option, I didn’t yet have it. But after a week or so, it suddenly appeared in my menu and I got rid of the obnoxious cursor.
Now fast forward some 14 months….and HE’S BACK!
After a recent update the stalker came back this morning, but he looks a little different now. (See photo of the document above.) I figured I could hide him like before. Nope.
Today I spent over four hours on support with Microsoft. I ended up being shuffled from one support person to another (at least six people)—and once, after being on a phone call for 48 minutes, hung up on.
One of my author friends told me that she got rid of Copilot several months ago by downgrading her subscription. (Please note, Microsoft had added Copilot to our subscription, we never signed up for it.) However, when I suggested this option when talking to tech people this morning, I was told by one that a downgrade would not resolve my issue.
I was assured (repeatedly) there was a way to hide the Copilot cursor, and they could help me—but none of their solutions worked. Finally, the last support person I spoke to admitted this was an issue many Word users were experiencing, and the option to disable Copilot wasn’t there for everyone—something about how Microsoft rolled out changes.
Of course, no one told me that when I first called this morning. Instead, they had me jumping through hoops for hours while my blood pressure spiked.
Hopefully Microsoft will decide to stop tormenting its users and give us the option to hide the stalker.
There was a time I recommended Microsoft Office. The loyal customer, around for decades, beginning when I had a PC and had to download the software on my computer.
And now…well, the company is so big they don’t care. Frankly, I suspect members of their team who decided to roll out Copilot out this way, knew it would drive some of us crazy, pushing us to spend hours on support like a dog chasing its tail.
Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if members of their Copilot team—the ones who thought it was a brilliant idea to throw in an annoying cursor without being able to disable it—would get some perverse pleasure reading this, knowing they damaged a necessary tool some of us use daily, while understanding its not so easy for disgruntled customer to disentangle from Office.
And the cherry on top? I decided to click that Copilot icon and see what it actually does, and it told me there was a problem with the licensing so I couldn’t use it!
So, to summarize…Microsoft added a feature to my subscription but it doesn’t work. They also added a distracting icon that goes to the feature that doesn’t work, and its purpose? To annoy me.