Usman Salis
● Microsoft's latest Edge browser update is turning heads, and for good reason. According to Paul Couvert, the company has made Copilot "fully agentic," which is tech-speak for giving it the ability to control your browser without you lifting a finger. You tell it what you want done, and it goes to work.
● Here's how it works: fire up Copilot Mode in Edge Preview, enable Actions, and you're good to go. From there, Copilot can handle all sorts of tasks—navigating websites, managing your to-do list, clicking buttons—basically anything you'd normally do yourself. Microsoft's built in three different modes (light, balanced, and strict) that let you control how much freedom the AI gets. Want it to ask permission for everything? Light mode. Ready to let it run wild in the background? Strict mode's got you covered.
● Now, this is obviously cool, but it's also a bit scary. An AI that can control your browser raises some serious questions about privacy and security. What if it accidentally shares something it shouldn't? What if someone figures out how to exploit it? These aren't hypothetical concerns—they're real risks that Microsoft needs to address with rock-solid safeguards.
● From a business angle, though, this is a smart play by Microsoft. The AI assistant space is getting crowded fast, with Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT all pushing toward more automation. By baking a capable AI agent directly into Edge, Microsoft's positioning itself to grab market share from both individual users and businesses looking to streamline their workflows. Analysts are already saying this could drive more people into Microsoft's ecosystem and set a new bar for what browsers can do.
Usman Salis
