Microsoft portrays Copilot as a “vital companion” in a sweeping new analysis of 37.5 million conversations
by Taylor Soper on December 10, 2025
Microsoft has released one of its most granular looks yet at how people use Copilot. The findings indicate that the AI assistant plays different roles depending on time of day and the device in use.
In a new preprint titled “It’s About Time: The Copilot Usage Report 2025,” Microsoft’s AI researchers examined 37.5 million de-identified Copilot chats from January through September this year. The study excluded enterprise and school accounts, and used machine classifiers to tag each chat by topic and “intent,” such as information discovery, seeking advice, or content creation.
The headline takeaway is clear: on desktop computers, Copilot centers on work and technical questions during business hours; on mobile devices, it centers on health concerns around the clock.
“Health and Fitness” paired with information-seeking emerged as the most common topic-intent pairing for mobile users, remaining at the top across every hour of the nine-month period. The paper suggests this pattern reflects a growing tendency to treat Copilot on smartphones as a private, personal advisor rather than merely a search tool.
On PCs, “Work and Career” edges out “Technology” as the leading topic between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., echoing a traditional office schedule. Other work-related areas like science and education also rise during the day and taper off at night.
Microsoft summarizes the contrast this way: the desktop showcases professional utility, while the mobile device functions as a more intimate confidant in one’s pocket. This framing hints at users engaging with Copilot in two modes within a single system: a desk-side colleague and a portable life assistant.
Compared with January, the September data show fewer programming discussions and more interest in culture and history, indicating that Copilot’s user base has broadened beyond early technical adopters into more mainstream, non-developer use cases.
Patterns observed in Copilot’s use mirror those seen in similar consumer AI studies from OpenAI and Anthropic, where ChatGPT and Claude are used for practical guidance, information gathering, and writing help in daily life. Microsoft’s study adds a nuanced angle: desktop use resembles collaboration with a coworker, while mobile use resembles consulting a health and life advisor.
A companion blog post reiterates that Copilot is “much more than a tool: it’s a vital companion for life’s big and small moments.”
The research also highlights a rising demand for advice on personal topics, suggesting that people increasingly rely on AI to support decision-making. That shift raises important considerations for AI builders around accuracy, trust, and accountability.
Notably, Microsoft’s AI team leader Mustafa Suleyman, serving as a co-author, contributed to the study. All conversations were automatically stripped of personally identifiable information, and no human reviewers accessed the underlying chats, according to the paper.
Would you like this rewritten piece to emphasize any particular angle—such as privacy, implications for workplace ethics, or comparisons with other AI helpers—and should we add questions to provoke reader debate in the comments?
