Explore Arrives in Copilot: Helpful Guide or Clippy 2.0?

A new "Explore pane" is coming to the Create, Search, and Notebook module experiences for Microsoft 365 Copilot app users.

The purpose is to help users get more value from these Copilot experiences providing in-context help to get started or to understand what else is possible.

This will be coming to targeted release by late this month, but no word on a General Availability timeline for the feature yet. The full information is available at MC1183295 in Message center.

Is there value in adding an Explore experience? I guess it somewhat depends on how you're approaching Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption. My preference would probably be that on-by-default contextual help doesn't clutter up the interface - didn't we learn that with Clippy? But at the same time, there is a barrier in many users finding some of the highest value experiences when getting started with AI tools. It also somewhat highlights the complexity of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app that such guidance is needed.

What are your thoughts? Are you excited to see Explore start turning up in your tenant?

First posted on Linkedin on 11/07/2025 -> View Linkedin post here