Starting August 18, 2026, Microsoft is merging its separate consumer and Microsoft 365 (business) Copilot apps into a single unified application across web, desktop, and mobile, with clearer account indicators to distinguish personal from work use and a URL migration from m365.cloud.microsoft to copilot.cloud.microsoft. Alongside the merge, Microsoft is retiring three features from the consumer side effective the same day: Group Chat (shared AI conversations with other people), AI-generated Podcasts, and the consumer version of Deep Research. Existing podcasts and group chat threads will not carry over to the new unified app, so anything users want to keep needs to be saved beforehand. Deep Research is not disappearing outright, Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers retain equivalent functionality through a renamed feature called Researcher, but free and non-premium consumer users lose access entirely. Microsoft frames the merger as groundwork for a broader super app version of Copilot expected later in 2026, consolidating what had become a confusing sprawl of Copilot variants (Windows Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot for consumers, and various in-app assistants) into one product surface. For IT admins and end users, the practical implications are twofold: expect account-switching UI to change during the transition window, and audit any workflows that depend on Group Chat or consumer Deep Research before the cutover, since Microsoft has indicated no export path for that content. This is also a useful data point on how quickly AI product features get sunset once usage does not justify the maintenance cost.