Frontier is Microsoft’s early access program for the latest AI innovations in Microsoft 365 giving you hands-on access to experimental agents and Microsoft app features before they become generally available. Frontier empowers you to drive innovation and shape the future of AI at work and at home, all within the security and familiarity of your own Microsoft 365 environment.

Eligibility: Frontier features are available to all Microsoft 365 customers with a Copilot license. Your organization’s admin settings may determine who can access and use Frontier features. Additionally,
individuals with Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, or Premium subscriptions can also access and use Frontier features.

Please see instructions below for any other unique requirements:

• WHITEPAPER: Getting started with Frontier
  https://adoption.microsoft.com/files/copilot/Frontier_Getting-started-guide.pdf
• SITE: More about the Frontier Program for Microsoft 365 Copilot
  https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/frontier-program/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: [P]erhaps AI can, in fact, learn in a more human way -- by figuring out interesting questions to ask itself and attempting to find the right answer. A project from Tsinghua University, the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), and Pennsylvania State University shows that AI can learn to reason in this way by playing with computer code. The researchers devised a system called Absolute Zero Reasoner (AZR) that first uses a large language model to generate challenging but solvable Python coding problems. It then uses the same model to solve those problems before checking its work by trying to run the code. And finally, the AZR system uses successes and failures as a signal to refine the original model, augmenting its ability to both pose better problems and solve them. The team found that their approach significantly improved the coding and reasoning skills of both 7 billion and 14 billion parameter versions of the open source language model Qwen. Impressively, the model even outperformed some models that had received human-curated data. [...] A key challenge is that for now the system only works on problems that can easily be checked, like those that involve math or coding. As the project progresses, it might be possible to use it on agentic AI tasks like browsing the web or doing office chores. This might involve having the AI model try to judge whether an agent's actions are correct. One fascinating possibility of an approach like Absolute Zero is that it could, in theory, allow models to go beyond human teaching. "Once we have that it's kind of a way to reach superintelligence," [said Zilong Zheng, a researcher at BIGAI who worked on the project].

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Office brand isn’t dead, says Microsoft in a statement to Windows Latest. The Office app got renamed to Microsoft 365 Copilot, which was previously renamed to Microsoft 365. This mess is a perfect example of how bad Microsoft is with naming products, and it’s only getting worse, as Copilot rolls out across the company. But why is “Office is dead” talk of the town again?

The clarification comes after a couple of viral posts on X, particularly by Perplexity AI, claimed that Microsoft had killed the Office brand and that millions of users were now using AI overnight.

This is far from reality, and Windows Latest was among the first publications to call out Perplexity for spreading misinformation on X.

It’s true that “Microsoft 365 Copilot” exists, and it’s installed on Windows 11. Windows Latest first reported the development in January 2025, a year ago from today, contrary to Perplexity’s claims that this “just” happened.

However, Microsoft 365 Copilot is the name of an app originally called “Office (hub)”, where Hub is silent. Office (Hub) was renamed to Microsoft 365 in November 2022, and later it became Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Office hub > Microsoft 365 > Microsoft 365 Copilot. NOT Office to Microsoft 365 Copilot

The real story is that Microsoft has been phasing out “Office” as the consumer-facing brand for years and pushing Microsoft 365 instead, which remains Microsoft 365, not Microsoft 365 Copilot. It makes sense because Microsoft 365 includes services beyond Office, including Clipchimp, a video editor.

The “Office” name still shows up in a few places, such as Office 2021 LTSC. Office brand is also used to refer to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office apps within the Microsoft 365 subscription.

That means the “Office” brand name is not dead, and it can’t be killed off. There’s no reason to do that because Microsoft says “Office” is part of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, and “Microsoft 365 Copilot” is an app within that ecosystem.

Gareth Oystryk, Senior Director of Marketing, Microsoft 365, shared the following statement with Windows Latest:

“We have not made any recent naming changes to our Office apps. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — the Office apps within the Microsoft 365 productivity suite — remain unchanged.

In November 2022, we renamed only the Office ‘hub’ app for web and mobile to the Microsoft 365 app. In January 2025, we updated it to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app to reflect its role in bringing Copilot and Microsoft 365 productivity experiences together in one place.”

So, if Office name is still a thing, and it’s part of Microsoft 365. What the hell is Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Microsoft 365 Copilot is the original Office hub that gives you access to Office apps like Excel and Word in one place.

In November 2022, Microsoft renamed the “Office” app, also called “Office Hub,” to Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 is also the name of the subscription that gives you access to Microsoft products.

Originally, Office Hub/Microsoft 365 app bundled access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint files, PDFs, etc. However, that changed when Microsoft began to focus more on Copilot. In January 2025, Microsoft renamed “Microsoft 365” (originally called Office, also “Office Hub) to “Microsoft 365 Copilot” to reflect the Copilot integration.

That’s why Microsoft Store, Play Store listings, and the splash screen of Microsoft apps can make it look like “Office” or “Microsoft 365” itself got renamed, but it’s really just the app label.

The claims made on social media are basically confusing an app (Office) rebrand with a full product rebrand.

This is “poor wording” because when people see “Microsoft 365 Copilot app,” they assume Microsoft renamed everything. In reality, Microsoft just slapped Copilot branding onto the Hub app that used to be called the Office/Microsoft 365 app.

Microsoft 365 is not called Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft also told me that Microsoft 365 hasn’t been renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot.”

Microsoft 365 is the name of the subscription bundle (for work or personal use) that gives you Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc), OneDrive storage, Exchange email (business), etc. It also includes Microsoft 365 Copilot app.

It’s also worth noting that for enterprises, Copilot inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook isn’t automatically included for everyone. For many users, it’s a paid add-on or a higher tier, while Personal or Family users may get limited Copilot usage via credits and can often disable Copilot UI.

The post Microsoft denies killing Office brand in favour of Microsoft 365 Copilot, says it renamed Office Hub to MS 365, later to MS 365 Copilot appeared first on Windows Latest

Microsoft is testing a new Windows policy that lets IT administrators uninstall Microsoft Copilot from managed devices. The change rolls out via Windows Insider builds and works through standard management tools like Intune and SCCM. BleepingComputer reports: The new policy will apply to devices where the Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot are both installed, the Microsoft Copilot app was not installed by the user, and the Microsoft Copilot app was not launched in the last 28 days. "Admins can now uninstall Microsoft Copilot for a user in a targeted way by enabling a new policy titled RemoveMicrosoftCopilotApp," the Windows Insider team said. "If this policy is enabled, the Microsoft Copilot app will be uninstalled, once. Users can still re-install if they choose to. This policy is available on Enterprise, Pro, and EDU SKUs. To enable this policy, open the Group policy editor and go to: User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows AI -> Remove Microsoft Copilot App."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a big business. While some SEO practices are useful, much of the day-to-day SEO wisdom you see online amounts to superstition. An increasingly popular approach geared toward LLMs called "content chunking" may fall into that category. In the latest installment of Google's Search Off the Record podcast, John Mueller and Danny Sullivan say that breaking content down into bite-sized chunks for LLMs like Gemini is a bad idea. You've probably seen websites engaging in content chunking and scratched your head, and for good reason -- this content isn't made for you. The idea is that if you split information into smaller paragraphs and sections, it is more likely to be ingested and cited by gen AI bots like Gemini. So you end up with short paragraphs, sometimes with just one or two sentences, and lots of subheads formatted like questions one might ask a chatbot. According to Google's Danny Sullivan, this is a misconception, and Google doesn't use such signals to improve ranking. "One of the things I keep seeing over and over in some of the advice and guidance and people are trying to figure out what do we do with the LLMs or whatever, is that turn your content into bite-sized chunks, because LLMs like things that are really bite size, right?" said Sullivan. "So... we don't want you to do that." The conversation, which begins around the podcast's 18-minute mark, goes on to illustrate the folly of jumping on the latest SEO trend. Sullivan notes that he has consulted engineers at Google before making this proclamation. Apparently, the best way to rank on Google continues to be creating content for humans rather than machines. That ensures long-term search exposure, because the behavior of human beings -- what they choose to click on -- is an important signal for Google.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft’s decision to renew a large swath of office space in Redmond is emerging as a key stabilizing force for the Eastside office market near Seattle.

That’s one takeaway from a new report by commercial real estate firm Broderick Group, which highlighted Microsoft’s renewal for 396,228 square feet at Redmond Town Center, just north of the company’s main headquarters campus. The deal was one of the largest office transactions on the Eastside in 2025.

Microsoft confirmed the new lease when contacted by GeekWire. The tech giant also confirmed a report from the Seattle Times that it is reoccupying space at the Millennium Corporate Park location in Redmond, where it has about 480,000 square feet. The company had previously offered that space for sublease.

While Microsoft was responsible for some of the region’s largest space givebacks last year — including a 750,000-square-foot reduction at The Bravern in Bellevue — the latest commitments suggest the company is holding onto its remaining footprint as it begins enforcing a new return-to-office policy. This past September the company announced that it would implement a three-day in-office requirement, starting across the Seattle region in February before expanding to other U.S. locations and eventually globally.

Both Microsoft and Amazon — and their respective in-office policies — appear to be playing an outsized role in determining how quickly the Eastside’s office recovery takes shape, even as overall vacancy reached 21.8% in the fourth quarter.

Amazon, which last year increased its own in-office policy from three to five days a week, continues building out major projects in Bellevue, including Bellevue 600, The Artise, and West Main. The company employs more than 12,000 people in Bellevue as part of what it calls its “Puget Sound headquarters” which also includes its Seattle campus. Amazon cut 14,000 workers in broad layoffs in October, with 2,303 corporate employees in Washington state.

A growing roster of technology companies has also signed new or expanded leases on the Eastside in recent years, including OpenAI, Snap, Anduril, Shopify, Snowflake, Walmart, and Chewy.

“Notably, a growing number of new-to-market entrants … are choosing the Eastside over Seattle, drawn by Bellevue’s modern office inventory, business friendly climate and skilled technology workforce,” Broderick’s report noted.

Despite the positive signals, the firm cautioned that vacancy is unlikely to fall sharply in the near term. Downtown Bellevue’s vacancy rate stood at 25.4% at the end of the year.

The report also noted that more than 1% of the Eastside’s office inventory has been removed through office-to-residential conversions.