Microsoft now lets admins uninstall Copilot on enterprise devices

Source: Bleeping Computer

New policy to uninstall Copilot

Microsoft says IT administrators can now uninstall the AI‑powered Copilot digital assistant from enterprise devices using a new policy setting, which has become broadly available after the April 2026 Patch Tuesday.

RemoveMicrosoftCopilotApp is available as a Policy CSP and Group Policy after deploying this month’s Windows security updates on endpoints managed via Microsoft Intune or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).

The policy applies only to Windows 11 25H2 devices where:

• Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are both installed,
• the user did not install the Microsoft Copilot app, and
• the Microsoft Copilot app was not launched in the last 28 days.

“The new RemoveMicrosoftCopilotApp policy setting allows you to uninstall Copilot from devices in your organization in a non‑disruptive way,” Microsoft said.

“If this policy is enabled, the Microsoft Copilot app will be uninstalled. Users can still re‑install if they choose to. This setting applies to Enterprise, Professional and Education client SKUs only,” it added.

How to enable the policy

1. Open the Group Policy Editor.
2. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows AI > Remove Microsoft Copilot App.
3. Enable the setting.

Rollout history

• The RemoveMicrosoftCopilotApp policy first rolled out in early January to Windows Insiders in the Dev and Beta channels who installed Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7535 (KB5072046). See the original report here.

• Last month, Microsoft also stopped automatically installing the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows devices with the Microsoft 365 desktop client apps. Details are available here.

Other Copilot‑related changes

• The company is reportedly cancelling plans to ship several other Copilot‑powered features that would have embedded the assistant into Windows 11 system notifications, the Settings app, and File Explorer. See the report here.

• In February, Microsoft revealed a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug that caused the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails, bypassing data loss prevention (DLP) policies. More information can be found here.