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Hamed holds a B.A. in English Literature, graduating cum laude. He loves music, tech gadgets, and exploring the latest in the world of LLMs. He also enjoys tinkering with creative software such as Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Photoshop.
A lifelong musician, Hamed plays multiple instruments, including guitar, bass, and oud. He is equally fascinated by smart-home technology and can happily spend hours geeking out over connected lights, speakers, sensors, and automations that make everyday life a little more interesting. When he isn’t covering the latest tech news, he explores more creative topics on his Medium blog, works on his music, or clears his head by riding his motorcycle.
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Summary
- Microsoft is retiring Podcasts, Deep Research, and Group Chat from Copilot starting August 18.
- Download your podcasts and any Group Chat media shared by other participants before your account updates.
- Existing Deep Research reports will remain accessible, but saving important reports to Word provides an extra backup.
Microsoft announced that it would retire three features from the consumer Copilot app tomorrow, August 18th. The removals accompany Microsoft's wider effort to merge its consumer and Microsoft 365 Copilot apps into one experience, a change that has already placed some of Copilot's most capable research tools behind a subscription. The three features set for sunsetting are Podcasts, Consumer Deep Research, and Group Chats.
This is not Microsoft’s only recent product consolidation to cost users functionality, either. The company also plans to remove Loop components from OneNote’s web app in September.
Copilot will not back up everything automatically
Credit: Tada Images / ShutterstockPreviously created podcasts, along with the links you shared to those episodes, will become inaccessible after August 18. Moreover, existing Group Chats will turn into individual conversations with Copilot. While your own messages and artifacts remain as they are, anything else shared or created by another participant in Group Chats will no longer be accessible. That includes images, documents, and other media. Deep Research will disappear as well, although Microsoft says your saved reports will not be deleted.
To save your podcasts, you should open Copilot on the web and visit your podcast library. The odd thing about it is that you can only download them one episode at a time. So, if you have a rather large library of Copilot podcasts that need saving, it's best if you start immediately.
The Group Chat transition begins on August 18 and will roll out gradually, so the exact cutoff may differ between accounts. That does not make waiting a good idea, though. Once your account updates, other participants' content will already be unavailable. Your best bet is to individually save and download important files and images shared by other people who participated in the chat.
Deep Research users have less to worry about. Saved reports remain available through Researcher for Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers and chat history for Personal and Family subscribers. If Deep Research has become part of your workflow, it's still good practice to open important reports in Microsoft Word and save separate copies.
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