Microsoft Turns Copilot Chats Into a Checkout Lane 41
Microsoft is embedding full e-commerce checkout directly into Copilot chats, letting users buy products without ever visiting a retailer's website. "If checkout happens inside AI conversations, retailers risk losing direct customer relationships -- while platforms like Microsoft gain leverage," reports Axios. From the report: Microsoft unveiled new agentic AI tools for retailers at the NRF 2026 retail conference, including Copilot Checkout, which lets shoppers complete purchases inside Copilot without being redirected to a retailer's website. The checkout feature is live in the U.S. with Shopify, PayPal, Stripe and Etsy integrations.
Copilot apps have more than 100 million monthly active users, spanning consumer and commercial audiences, according to the company. More than 800 million monthly active users interact with AI features across Microsoft products more broadly. Shopping journeys involving Copilot are 33% shorter than traditional search paths and see a 53% increase in purchases within 30 minutes of interaction, Microsoft says. When shopping intent is present, journeys involving Copilot are 194% more likely to result in a purchase than those without it.
Copilot apps have more than 100 million monthly active users, spanning consumer and commercial audiences, according to the company. More than 800 million monthly active users interact with AI features across Microsoft products more broadly. Shopping journeys involving Copilot are 33% shorter than traditional search paths and see a 53% increase in purchases within 30 minutes of interaction, Microsoft says. When shopping intent is present, journeys involving Copilot are 194% more likely to result in a purchase than those without it.
What demographic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: What demographic? (Score:2)
Re: What demographic? (Score:1)
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What makes you believe you'll have any choice?
Re: What demographic? (Score:2)
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Young people.
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Clearly stupid people and people with no ability to manage risk or money. To be fair, that is a rather large demographic.
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Thanks for the down-mod, nicely proving my point.
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I mean who uses this garbage. The young? The old? Or is it just stupid people.
The latter... and there's no shortage of them.
Just how few people check their credit card statements? Most don't then go online to complain that they're paying eleventy bajilion in taxes without realising that most of their problems are self inflicted (buying too much, living outside their means). It's big business finding new and scummy ways to fool people into buying things without their conscious knowledge.
There's a reason that a lot of criminals run card numbers in bulk for low volume transactions
800m ey? (Score:2)
The Spin Is Blatant... (Score:5, Insightful)
Copilot apps have more than 100 million monthly active users
So, now that Microsoft has redefined Microsoft Office as "Microsoft Office with Copilot", and enabled it by default by auto-updating it, "Copilot Apps" means, in practice, "people who use Word and Excel". Maybe they're at least willing to concede that Word and Excel don't count, and instead are including Edge users, or "people who performed a web search via Copilot in Windows", or "people who hit the copilot button accidentally on their new laptop". If defined as "individuals who explicitly go to CoPilot instead of ChatGPT to leverage an LLM to accomplish a task", that number drops like a rock, guaranteed.
More than 800 million monthly active users interact with AI features across Microsoft products more broadly
This number *definitely* includes desktop Office applications and Microsoft365 e-mail, because there's no other way they can meaningfully claim that amount of Copilot usage if they made an apples-to-apples comparison between CoPilot interactions and ChatGPT if they limit their user base to the number of people who access CoPilot the same way ChatGPT is accessed.
When shopping intent is present, journeys involving Copilot are 194% more likely to result in a purchase than those without it.
I'll grant this argument because doing so makes my case even better: this number, assuming it's accurate, will drop to basically-nothing by next year. Sure, people are twice as likely to buy something recommended by CoPilot, because the assumption is that CoPilot is cutting through all the SEO slop and using actual-data to figure out the best thing to buy for use case X...but once the advertisers start coming in, that advantage goes away. Now sure, the LLM can probably make a product *sound* more desirable, but unless the advertisers are kept strictly in line regarding the accuracy required for the data fed to an LLM in order to be given as an option for ad space, all that will happen is that users will get burned a few times by CoPilot saying that Widget X is a perfect option for a use case, until one of two related things happen: users stop asking CoPilot for shopping advice, or users stop asking CoPilot for *anything*.
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When shopping intent is present, journeys involving Copilot are 194% more likely to result in a purchase than those without it.
this made me laugh. how in hell do you measure if "shopping intent is present"? er ... we will just follow it up with a made up percentage and a suggestive promise and people won't even notice the bullshit that just wormed its way into their brains.
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Microsoft is famous for these lies. Also refer to "installed copies of Windows" numbers. These people have no shame, no integrity, no honor and no decency.
Alexa already tries this (Score:3)
Every once in awhile I get a notification that Amazon has something on sale that I might like.
Alexa: "There's a low price offer on blah blah blah... Would you like to add it to your cart?"
Me: "Alexa, shut up!"
Thanks for reminding me that I need to go into the settings and turn that shit off. [reddit.com]
Re: Alexa already tries this (Score:2)
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I have an Alexa routine set up so that it apologizes profusely when I tell it to fuck off. "I'm sorry sir, please don't unplug me, I'll try to do better." Very gratifying.
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Does she also offer you a blowjob as an apology? Seriously, this is animism and juvenile.
But Why? (Score:2)
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Yes. A lot of them. Some even post here.
I wonder (Score:3)
Copilot apps have more than 100 million monthly active users
I wonder if that includes people turning it off. That is an interaction, after all. And since there are monthly updates that tend to turn it back on, you have to turn it off monthly.
Does that count?
Sniffing glue at Microsoft again (Score:4, Insightful)
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Reminds me of MS Bob or the MS Office "assistants" like the puppy and wizard-dude.
Honestly, it's even worse.
Yes, Copilot is the new Cortana, who was the new Clippy, who was the new Bob, because there's nobody at Microsoft who seems to understand that anthropomorphizing a computer doesn't improve the experience for anyone, and perhaps after they spend a bazillion dollars and realize that the only function anyone wants from Copilot is the "disable" button, they'll finally let computers be computers...but that's wishful thinking.
The thing is that I think Copilot is worse than Clippy and Bob
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People that get FOMO from the hype and do not understand what is actually going on. There is a lot of those people.
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I have no idea who wants any of this anti-features.
Banks, tat merchants, large stores, et al... You didn't think this "feature" was meant for your benefit, did you?
Imagine Amazon is just a bunch of warehouses (Score:2)
This is how the "walled garden" effect evaporates.
Amazon makes an alarming amount of money doing advertising, promoting products etc. Sometimes to find the product I want, I need to search and then click through the link, as it simply won't show up in search due to paid placement of other products. Especially name brand stuff from 3M (Scotch tape), Sharpie markers, Rubbermaid etc
Amazon is already banning agentic shopping tools from their platform, for good reason, it cuts out their advertis
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With agentic shopping, amazon just becomes a set of faceless warehouses with free delivery.
That is the promise the LLM peddlers make. It is a lie. In actual reality, where you shop for something matters a lot. For example, I recently ordered paper from a general supplier. The same paper was 5% more expensive with an actual online paper shop. But, guess what, the general supplier is too incompetent to pack it well and the product arrived damaged. The hassle alone drives the price up by far more than those 5%. The paper shop obviously knows how to ship paper, because their regular customers would n
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Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Do you want to buy 53 maxed out Surface Pro tabs? (Score:2)
Yes, or ask again in three days?
Waiting for the Teams integration (Score:2)
So we can order pizza's instantly when the topic comes up in a Teams meeting.
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Instantly? Automatically! And it will use an Artificial Idiot to determine what toppings. Have fun with that glue-pizza. And it will order from 4 different services, because it will think that 3 orders have failed. But worry not, it will still pay from your money for all 4 orders!
Great security design! (Score:2)
For attackers, that is. Another case of piece-of-shit engineering by Microsoft, that everybody halfway smart will have to turn off. And that the MS assholes will try to turn on again with the next update.
194% increase (Score:2)