Windows 11 Copilot Is Already Starting to Show Ads to People

Microsoft made headlines last week by adding its AI-powered Copilot technology to Windows 11, effectively replacing Cortana as a built-in assistant for the OS. Now that people have had time to fiddle with its knobs, a predictable scenario has occurred: Microsoft has begun placing third-party ads into query results. This isn't a huge surprise, given its past behavior on this front. But previously, Microsoft was known for promoting its own products in the OS, not random ones.

The inclusion of ads in search results was discovered by Ghacks.net. We tested it to see it for ourselves, and it is definitely a part of Copilot. For example, If you ask for a laptop or CPU cooler recommendation, it'll give you results from a Bing search. The results are pulled from popular sites that review these things and are the text equivalent of a standard search engine query. That's fine, but it will also include affiliate links at the bottom of the results with products not listed in its own results, as ads are based on keyword bidding.

Third party ads, in my Copilot?! Credit: Copilot

For example, for the query "What is a good CPU cooler?", the results were from Noctua, Corsair, and the venerable Cooler Master Hyper212. In the box below, several ads appeared for coolers from DeepCool, Thermalright, MSI, and others. In other words, random ads are based on the search terms. The note from Microsoft included in the results box says they're relevant to your inquiry, which is accurate, and that it may be compensated if you buy one of them.

Overall, this move by Microsoft is not surprising given that it's placed ads in Explorer, the Settings area, and even the sign-out screen previously, but those were for its own products. These are third-party ads placed in search results, just like you'd see on Google or Bing, making Copilot a reskin of a web browser for these kinds of queries.

To be fair to Microsoft, the text portion of the answer does present useful summaries based on skimming popular sites, so that information could be helpful to some people. However, the inclusion of third-party ads really muddies the waters because the ads conflict with its own results.

Another revelation about Copilot revealed by a closer look is that it requires a constant internet connection—even for local tasks like enabling Dark Mode for the OS. This is probably because Microsoft wants to know what people are doing with its new AI assistant, which could help it improve. Still, it's odd this is a requirement for things stored locally or accessible without the help of the Internet.