Copilot in Word changed dramatically overnight and no longer provides the experience I paid to use

I am reporting a significant change that appears to be specific to Copilot in Word.

Importantly, this is not a general Copilot account issue. The standalone Copilot app still contains my previous chat history, including chats that originated from Word before this change occurred. The problem appears to be isolated to the Word Copilot experience.

Beginning on October 16-17, 2026, Copilot in Word changed dramatically:

1. Previous Word Copilot chat history disappeared, leaving only newly created chats visible.
2. Copilot in Word now states that it can only remember information within the current chat.
3. Personalized preferences that previously carried across conversations no longer appear to work inside Word.
4. The editing workflow has completely changed.
   • Previously, Copilot presented one suggestion at a time inside a dedicated suggestion card.
   • The prior interface used navigation arrows to cycle through alternatives and had clear Apply and Skip/Cancel actions.
   • The new interface generates large numbered lists of suggestions and critiques instead of interactive rewrite cards.
5. The writing assistance feels less natural, less personalized, and noticeably less human than before.
6. The Copilot interface behavior and layout have also changed.

My concern is not simply that the interface looks different.

I upgraded my Microsoft 365 subscription to Premium primarily because of the Copilot experience in Word. I use Copilot heavily for editing school assignments and writing projects and often complete large amounts of work in a single session.

The previous Word Copilot experience helped organize my writing, preserve my voice, and provide efficient rewrite suggestions without sounding like I ran my work through an AI bot. One of the main reasons I chose Copilot over competing AI tools is that it consistently felt more natural and more human when helping me edit and refine my work.

The most significant change is not the appearance of the interface. The entire interaction style has changed. Previously, Copilot in Word felt like collaborating with an editor who reviewed my writing and helped improve it while preserving my voice. The new experience feels more like receiving an automated analysis report from a machine. Instead of helping me refine my writing through natural rewrites and conversational suggestions, it now generates long lists of critiques and recommendations.

While those recommendations may be technically correct, they do not provide the same experience or value. They also do not consistently reflect the writing style, tone, and preferences that I had previously taught Copilot to remember. Instead of receiving rewrites that already sounded like my work, I now have to interpret the feedback and manually rewrite or adjust it so it sounds like me again. This adds additional effort and makes the editing process significantly less efficient than it was before.

Because the standalone Copilot app still has my previous history, this appears to be a change in Word Copilot itself rather than an account-wide issue.

I would like Microsoft to confirm:

1. Whether Word Copilot was recently moved to a new experience or editing workflow.
2. Whether the disappearance of all prior Word chat history is expected.
3. Whether cross-chat personalization or memory behavior has changed.
4. Whether the previous suggestion-card workflow, editing style, or interaction model can be restored or selected as an option.

I understand that Copilot is an AI system, and I do not expect it to behave exactly like a human editor. However, one of the reasons I chose Copilot over competing tools was because it consistently helped me improve my writing while preserving my voice and reducing the amount of editing I had to do myself. After this update, I have found myself relying on Copilot less because it no longer provides the same level of personalized editing assistance, voice preservation, and workflow efficiency that I previously depended on.

This change was immediately noticeable and has significantly reduced the value I receive from the Microsoft 365 subscription I purchased specifically to use Copilot in Word.

I am not requesting new features. I am trying to understand whether this change was intentional, whether the previous Word Copilot experience is still available, and whether some of these issues may be related to the disappearance of my prior Word Copilot chat history and personalization.

If most of these changes are the result of a history or personalization issue, I hope they can be resolved as quickly as possible so I can continue using Copilot the way I did before. However, if the behavior I am seeing is the result of a permanent redesign of the Word Copilot experience, I will need to reconsider whether maintaining my Microsoft 365 Premium subscription continues to provide the value that originally led me to purchase it.