Microsoft has a long history of being criticized for coming up with clunky product names, and it is often difficult for customers to keep up.
An employee of the company once joked in a viral video that said the iPod was called “Microsoft I-Pod Pro 2005 XP Human Ear Professional Edition with Subscription.”
Latest complaints between some employees and customers: the trend of slapting “co-pilot” on all AI.
“We have a fantasy on the market side, and literally everything was renamed to copylot it,” one employee told Business Insider late last year. “Everything is co-pilot. Nothing else matters. They want the co-pilot bond for everything.”
Advertising watchdogs are currently weighing. Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division reviewed Microsoft's ads for the Copilot AI tool.
Nad called Microsoft's “product description “Copilot” and said “consumers don't necessarily understand the difference.”
“Microsoft uses “Copilot” across all Microsoft Office applications and business chat, but despite the functionality and manual steps required for business chat, the steps required to produce the same results as Copilot in a specific Microsoft Office app,” further explained in an email to BI.
The NAD did not mention any specific product name recommendations. However, Microsoft said it should change its claim that Copilot works “seamlessly across all data” because all the tools of the company that used Copilot Moniker do not work continuously as consumers would expect.
“For Business Chat Copilot, you need to manually copy and paste the text-based response from Business Chat into the related application to achieve the same functionality as Copilot in Word or PowerPoint,” says Nad.
Watchdog also recommended that Microsoft cancel or change ads and disclose clear evidence for its claim that “over 6, 10, and 10 weeks, 67%, 70%, and 75% say they are more productive.”
“We take our responsibility to provide clear, transparent, and accurate information to our customers,” said Jared Spataro, AI at Microsoft, workplace chief marketing officer, in a statement. “Companies choose Microsoft 365 Copilot to provide measurable values at a safe and large scale.”
Spataro also said that “record numbers of customers” have returned, buying Microsoft 365 Copilot Seats last quarter, and that the company's transaction size continues to grow.
“From Barclays deploying copilots to maintain identification of millions of potential savings, up to 100,000 employees, the data speaks for itself,” Spataro said.
A Microsoft spokesperson added that the company hinted at NAD's conclusions about the advertising phrase and certain claims, but did not agree on whether to follow NAD's recommendations.
Recently, the company developed a New plans To simplify many of them ai According to internal slides from a recent presentation, it offers by streamlining how a product is marketed to customers.
Any hints? Please contact this reporter by email astewart@businessinsider.com Or the signal +1-425-344-8242. Use your personal email address and unprocessed devices. Here's a guide to sharing information safely.
