Microsoft Copilot passed 150 million monthly active users in October 2025, and Microsoft 365 Copilot passed 30 million paid seats in July 2026. Bing, the search index Copilot grounds its answers in, reached 1 billion monthly active users. Below are 30 numbered statistics on Copilot usage, adoption, traffic and citation behaviour, each tied to a Microsoft primary source or an original third-party study. All sources were read on 1 November 2026.
What are the key takeaways?
- Copilot is a 150-million-user product. Microsoft's family of Copilot apps passed 100 million monthly active users in July 2025 and 150 million in October 2025.
- Paid business seats doubled in six months. Microsoft 365 Copilot went from 15 million paid seats in January 2026 to over 30 million in July 2026. Microsoft gave no seat update in October 2026.
- Usage is accelerating. Copilot daily users rose more than 5x year over year by October 2026, and 90% of Copilot queries now use Auto mode.
- 17% of US adults use Copilot, against 44% for ChatGPT and 24% for Gemini (Pew Research Center, February 2026).
- Copilot cites retailers, not Reddit. Amazon (16.8%) and Walmart (12.6%) lead its citations in Ahrefs' September 2026 data, and reddit.com is not in its top 50.
- Copilot traffic converts. Copilot referrals subscribed at 17x the rate of direct traffic and 15x the rate of search in Microsoft Clarity's study of 1,277 domains.
How many people use Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft's family of Copilot apps passed 150 million monthly active users in October 2025, up from 100 million in July 2025. Microsoft has since reported growth rates rather than totals: daily users rose nearly 3x year over year by January 2026 and more than 5x year over year by October 2026.
- The family of Copilot apps passed 100 million monthly active users across commercial and consumer. Source: Microsoft FY25 Q4 earnings call, July 2025.
- The first-party family of Copilots passed 150 million monthly active users, and daily users of the Copilot consumer app rose nearly 50% quarter over quarter. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q1 earnings call, October 2025.
- Daily users of the Copilot app rose nearly 3x year over year. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q2 earnings call, January 2026.
- Copilot daily users rose nearly 50% quarter over quarter and more than 5x year over year, and user satisfaction rose nearly 20% in the quarter. Source: Microsoft FY27 Q1 earnings call, 28 October 2026.
- 17% of US adults use Copilot, including 22% of adults aged 30 to 49 and 10% of those 65 and older. ChatGPT is at 44%, Gemini 24%, Meta AI 14%, Grok 8% and Claude 6%. Source: Pew Research Center, survey of 17 to 23 February 2026.
| Chatbot | US adults who use it (Pew, Feb 2026) |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 44% |
| Gemini | 24% |
| Copilot | 17% |
| Meta AI | 14% |
| Grok | 8% |
| Claude | 6% |
Copilot is the third most-used chatbot in the US. For how AI assistants compare on reach, see our AI search adoption statistics.
How many paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats are there?
Over 30 million. Microsoft reported 15 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats in January 2026, over 20 million in April 2026 and over 30 million in July 2026. In October 2026 it reported growth signals instead, such as an 8x rise in customers with more than 50,000 seats.
- More than 90% of the Fortune 500 use Microsoft 365 Copilot. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q1 earnings call, October 2025.
- 15 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats, with seat adds up over 160% year over year. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q2 earnings call, January 2026.
- Over 20 million paid seats, with seat adds up 250% year over year, Microsoft's fastest growth since launch. Accenture alone has over 740,000 seats. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q3 earnings call, April 2026.
- Over 30 million paid seats, with net seat adds more than doubling quarter over quarter. Enterprise customers deploying Copilot to most of their information workers grew nearly 75% in the quarter. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q4 earnings call, July 2026.
- NHS England is rolling Copilot out to 505,000 clinicians and staff after a trial showed it saved employees an average of 43 minutes a day. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q4 earnings call, July 2026.
- Customers with more than 50,000 Copilot seats grew over 8x year over year, and Volkswagen announced plans to deploy Copilot to more than 330,000 employees. Microsoft did not disclose an updated seat count. Source: Microsoft FY27 Q1 earnings call, 28 October 2026.
| Date | Paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 2026 | 15M | Microsoft FY26 Q2 |
| Apr 2026 | 20M+ | Microsoft FY26 Q3 |
| Jul 2026 | 30M+ | Microsoft FY26 Q4 |
| Oct 2026 | Not disclosed | Microsoft FY27 Q1 |
Seats doubled in six months. Every one of those seats is a worker who can ask Copilot which vendor to shortlist.
How much do people use Copilot once they have it?
More each quarter. Microsoft 365 Copilot daily active users grew 10x year over year by January 2026, queries per user rose nearly 20% in the quarter to April 2026, and Purview had audited over 50 billion Copilot interactions by July 2026. Copilot is becoming a daily work tool, not a trial.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot daily active users grew 10x year over year. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q2 earnings call, January 2026.
- Copilot queries per user rose nearly 20% quarter over quarter, and Microsoft shipped 625 Microsoft 365 Copilot updates in the year, up 50%. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q3 earnings call, April 2026.
- Purview has audited over 50 billion Copilot interactions, up nearly 360% year over year. The count was 16 billion in October 2025, 24 billion in January 2026 and 35 billion in April 2026. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q4 earnings call, July 2026.
- 90% of Copilot queries use Auto mode, which routes each task across models, and automated tasks nearly doubled between July and October 2026. Source: Microsoft FY27 Q1 earnings call, 28 October 2026.
- Microsoft AI analysed 37.5 million de-identified Copilot conversations from January to September 2025. Health was the top topic on mobile at every hour of the day and every month of the year. Source: Microsoft AI, Copilot Usage Report 2025, 10 December 2025.
- On desktop, "Work and Career" overtakes "Technology" as the top topic between 8am and 5pm. Source: Microsoft AI, Copilot usage paper, arXiv 2512.11879.
People bring Copilot health questions on their phones and work questions at their desks. Both are moments where a product or provider gets named.
How big is GitHub Copilot?
GitHub Copilot had 50 million users by July 2026, up from 20 million a year earlier. It had 4.7 million paid subscribers in January 2026, up 75% year over year, and 90% of the Fortune 100 use it. It is Microsoft's largest developer AI product and runs separately from the consumer Copilot app.
- 20 million GitHub Copilot users, and 90% of the Fortune 100 use it. Source: Microsoft FY25 Q4 earnings call, July 2025.
- Over 26 million users, and 80% of new GitHub developers start using Copilot in their first week. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q1 earnings call, October 2025.
- 4.7 million paid GitHub Copilot subscribers, up 75% year over year. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q2 earnings call, January 2026.
- 50 million GitHub Copilot users. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q4 earnings call, July 2026.
How big is Bing, the search engine behind Copilot?
Bing reached 1 billion monthly active users for the first time in April 2026, and Microsoft says Bing and Edge have taken share for five straight years. Copilot answers are grounded in Bing's index, so a page Bing does not rank or retrieve is unlikely to be cited in Copilot.
- Bing monthly active users reached 1 billion for the first time, and Edge has taken share for 20 consecutive quarters. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q3 earnings call, April 2026.
- Bing and Edge have both taken share for five straight years. Source: Microsoft FY26 Q4 earnings call, July 2026.
- Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs grew 12%, driven by higher volume and rate across LinkedIn, Edge and Bing, and Bing and Edge took share again. Source: Microsoft FY27 Q1 earnings call, 28 October 2026.
Which websites does Copilot cite?
Copilot cites retailers and reference sites. In Ahrefs' September 2026 data from over 3 million US queries, Amazon held 16.8% of mention share among Copilot's top 50 domains, Walmart 12.6% and Wikipedia 7.6%. Reddit, the most-cited domain on ChatGPT and Perplexity, is not in Copilot's top 50.
- Amazon is Copilot's most-cited website at 16.8% mention share, with 775,592 pages cited. Walmart follows at 12.6% and Wikipedia at 7.6%. Source: Ahrefs, The 50 Most-Cited Websites in Copilot, September 2026.
- reddit.com does not appear in Copilot's top 50 cited websites. In the same month it was the most-cited domain in ChatGPT at 16.8% mention share. Source: Ahrefs, Copilot top 50, September 2026 and Ahrefs, ChatGPT top 50, September 2026.
- Reddit ranked 31st among domains cited by Microsoft Copilot, against first on Perplexity and second on ChatGPT, across more than 4 billion citations from August 2024 to October 2025. Source: Profound, The data on Reddit and AI search, 10 November 2025.
| Rank | Domain | Copilot mention share (Sept 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | amazon.com | 16.8% |
| 2 | walmart.com | 12.6% |
| 3 | wikipedia.org | 7.6% |
| 4 | scienceinsights.org | 3.5% |
| 5 | engineerfix.com | 3.3% |
| 6 | grokipedia.com | 3.1% |
| 7 | goto.walmart.com | 3.0% |
| 8 | target.com | 2.8% |
| 9 | biologyinsights.com | 2.5% |
| 10 | etsy.com | 2.4% |
Copilot's source mix looks nothing like ChatGPT's. A brand that wins on Reddit threads can still be missing from Copilot, where product listings and reference pages carry the answer. Our AI answer sources statistics compare source mixes across engines.
Does Copilot traffic convert?
Yes, at high rates. In Microsoft Clarity's study of 1,277 domains, Copilot referrals had the highest subscription conversion of any AI source, 17x direct traffic and 15x search. Microsoft Advertising reports 73% higher click-through rates on ads in Copilot than in traditional search. AI referrals remain under 1% of traffic.
- Copilot referrals subscribed at 17x the rate of direct traffic and 15x the rate of search, the highest of any AI source. AI referrals grew 155.6% over eight months but were still less than 1% of traffic, and LLM referrals signed up at 1.66% against 0.15% for search. Source: Microsoft Clarity, 6 November 2025.
- AI-referred visitors had 1.60 quick backs per session against 2.04 for organic search, 21.6% fewer, and AI-referred traffic grew 22% in six months, across 30 billion sessions. Source: Microsoft Clarity, AI visitors show stronger intent signals.
- Ads in Copilot drew 73% higher click-through rates and 16% stronger conversion rates than traditional search, with customer journeys 33% shorter. 33% of Copilot users are aged 18 to 29. Source: Microsoft Advertising, 6 August 2025.
| Metric | Copilot or AI referral | Comparison | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription conversion | 17x direct, 15x search | Direct and search traffic | Clarity |
| Sign-up rate (all LLMs) | 1.66% | Search 0.15% | Clarity |
| Quick backs per session | 1.60 | Organic 2.04 | Clarity |
| Ad click-through rate | 73% higher | Traditional search ads | Microsoft Advertising |
For more on how AI visitors behave once they land, see our AI referral traffic statistics.
How can you see when Copilot cites your site?
Through Bing Webmaster Tools. Microsoft launched AI Performance in public preview in February 2026, showing citations of your pages in Copilot, Bing AI summaries and select partners. It added Intents, Topics, Citation Share and Compare in June 2026 and a Topics Portfolio beta in October 2026. It shows your own site only.
- AI Performance reports total citations, average cited pages per day, grounding queries and page-level citations across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations. Source: Bing Webmaster Blog, February 2026.
- Citation Share shows how much of the citation space your site receives for a grounding query, but Microsoft states it "does not expose competitor domains." Source: Bing Search Blog, June 2026.
- Topics Portfolio lists Opportunity Queries where other sites are cited and yours is not. Source: Bing Webmaster Blog, October 2026.
Bing's report answers "is Copilot citing me?" It does not answer "which competitor is Copilot naming instead?"
What do these numbers mean for brand visibility?
Copilot is a large, work-heavy audience with its own source mix. Over 30 million paid business seats, 1 billion Bing users and a citation pattern led by retailers mean Copilot visibility does not follow from ChatGPT or Reddit visibility. You need to check it on its own terms.
Three moves follow from the data:
- Fix your Bing presence first. Copilot grounds in Bing, so indexing, crawlability and clear product pages on Bing come before anything else. Then turn on AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Treat Copilot as a separate engine. Reddit ranks first on ChatGPT and Perplexity in Ahrefs' data and is absent from Copilot's top 50, so a Reddit-led strategy will not carry over.
- Watch competitors elsewhere. Bing's report hides competitor domains, so use a tracker that shows who gets named on the other engines your buyers use. Our guide to checking if ChatGPT mentions your brand shows the method.
See which competitors ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI name instead of you. Start free, no card.
Where does Mentionova fit, and where does it not?
Mentionova does not track Microsoft Copilot. It runs your buyers' real questions through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI and Reddit on a weekly, two-weekly or monthly schedule, logs who was named and which sources were cited, and keeps the history. For Copilot, use Bing Webmaster Tools.
What it does well:
- Answers "why does AI recommend my competitors and not me?" on the six engines it covers, with the competitors named and the URLs cited instead of you.
- Compares engines side by side, so you can tell a one-engine gap from a gap everywhere.
- Tracks Reddit as an engine on Scale and above, including the threads AI cites in your category.
Limits worth knowing: no Copilot or Bing coverage, so pair it with Bing's AI Performance report. Starter is $99 a month billed annually ($125 monthly) and covers three engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google); all six need a plan such as Scale at $320 a month billed annually ($400 monthly). See pricing.
Where does each number come from?
All sources read on 1 November 2026.
- Microsoft earnings call transcripts: FY25 Q4 (July 2025), FY26 Q1 (October 2025), FY26 Q2 (January 2026), FY26 Q3 (April 2026), FY26 Q4 (July 2026) and FY27 Q1 (28 October 2026), microsoft.com/investor.
- Pew Research Center, chatbot use by age chart, survey of 17 to 23 February 2026.
- Microsoft AI, Copilot Usage Report 2025 (10 December 2025) and arXiv paper 2512.11879.
- Microsoft Clarity: AI traffic conversion study (6 November 2025) and AI visitor intent study.
- Microsoft Advertising blog, Copilot ad performance (6 August 2025).
- Bing Webmaster and Bing Search blogs: AI Performance (February 2026), new AI visibility insights (June 2026), Topics Portfolio (October 2026).
- Ahrefs Brand Radar: most-cited websites in Copilot and in ChatGPT (September 2026).
- Profound, The data on Reddit and AI search (10 November 2025).
- Mentionova plan details: mentionova.com/pricing.
What do people ask about Microsoft Copilot?
How many people use Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft's family of Copilot apps passed 150 million monthly active users in October 2025. Microsoft has since reported growth rates rather than totals, with daily users up more than 5x year over year by October 2026. Pew found 17% of US adults use Copilot.
How many companies use Microsoft 365 Copilot?
More than 90% of the Fortune 500 use Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft said in October 2025. Paid seats passed 30 million in July 2026, and customers with more than 50,000 seats grew over 8x year over year by October 2026.
Is Copilot more popular than ChatGPT?
No. In Pew's February 2026 survey, 44% of US adults used ChatGPT and 17% used Copilot. Copilot's strength is at work: it is built into Microsoft 365, Windows and Edge, and Microsoft reports over 30 million paid business seats.
Does Microsoft Copilot cite its sources?
Yes. Copilot answers include citations drawn from Bing. Ahrefs found Amazon, Walmart and Wikipedia were the three most-cited websites in Copilot in September 2026. You can see citations of your own pages in Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report.
Does Copilot use Reddit as a source?
Rarely. Reddit is not in Copilot's top 50 cited websites in Ahrefs' September 2026 data, and Profound ranked Reddit 31st among domains Copilot cites. On ChatGPT and Perplexity, Reddit ranks first or second in the same studies.
How do I get my brand cited by Copilot?
Start with Bing. Make sure Bing indexes your key pages, state product, pricing and specification facts plainly, and keep listings on major retailers accurate, since Amazon and Walmart lead Copilot citations. Then use Bing's AI Performance report to see which pages get cited.
Why does Copilot recommend my competitors and not me?
Copilot cites the pages Bing retrieves that answer the question most directly. If a competitor has clearer product pages or retailer listings, Copilot names them. Bing's report shows your own citations only, so check competitor visibility with a separate tracker.
Find out which brands AI names in your category. Start a free trial, no card.