Microsoft Edge’s Copilot UI update is now rolling out to everyone regardless of the channel and Windows version they use. I’m seeing the new Copilot UI in Microsoft Edge (stable) on Windows 11 and 10. It works well, and it can read what’s open in the tab, including YouTube video content, but new Copilot does not come with “Compose Box”.
The removal of “Compose Box” in the Microsoft Edge Copilot window could be an intentional change, as we have little reason to believe it’s temporary. That’s because, in a forum post on September 5, Microsoft confirmed that it was removing Compose Box from Microsoft’s Business edition.
While the change was limited to the “Business” edition, it wouldn’t be surprising if Microsoft thought it would be better to remove it from the consumer edition as well.
Either way, even if it’s a temporary change, it’s still no longer possible to use Compose Box in Microsoft Edge Copilot.
With the Compose box, you could write about anything and then switch between the tones, such as Professional, Casual, Enthusiastic, Informational, Funny, or something custom-created by you.
It also helped prompt engineer the format of the response, including paragraphs, emails, bullet points, LinkedIn Post, summaries, or reports. Finally, you could have tweaked it by selecting the length (Short, Medium, Long).
Compose Box was pretty advanced, and it made prompt engineering very easy for someone new to generative AI.
The sidebar in Edge now simply opens copilot.microsoft.com, but it can read what’s on the new tab, summarize page, and even explain a YouTube video. The best part is that the integration is significantly faster, so you’re going to like it if you never used the Compose Box.
It’s possible Compose Box will be added back in the future in a new way, or Microsoft may have bigger plans for Edge and AI. Edge is also under Microsoft AI, which is headed by CEO Mustafa Suleyman.
Copilot Vision signs, is it coming?
Copilot Vision is super-cool, and it could radically change how you interact with web pages in Microsoft Edge.
Some early references and signs suggest it’s coming to Edge sooner than we expected, and it’s possible to toggle the Copilot Vision interface where the Copilot flyout appears at the bottom of the page.
But it’s not fully functional yet.
Microsoft has acknowledged that Copilot, in its current form, isn’t able to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. With Copilot Vision, Copilot can see what you see in Microsoft Edge. It can understand the page and its context, answer questions about it, and talk to you like a human.
This isn’t supposed to work on sensitive or paywalled pages as Microsoft plans to limit the use of Copilot Vision’s voice message to some pre-approved list of websites only.
For now, it doesn’t work in our Edge installation, but it’s definitely coming in a few weeks.