Preface
We are in 2026, not 2023. The concept is proven. And yet the conversation I keep having with colleagues across the industry starts in the same place every time, with a point of confusion that has quietly hardened into a habit.
Copilots are being treated as agents.
Sometimes they can genuinely function as agents. Most of the time they are very good assistants: citizen-developer tooling, employee-level enhancement, a copilot for this and an AI function for that. Useful, and not the same animal. With an assistant, you still work with the system. You are still the driver. There is still an owner, and it is you.
And the first wave is genuinely good. You hand people these tools, and they do what they already do well, only better. It works; ...
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