{"slug": "microsoft-tries-to-obscure-ai-features-behind-flowery-design-language", "title": "Microsoft tries to obscure “AI” features behind flowery design language", "summary": "Microsoft is rolling out a new \"Copilot Design System\" to integrate artificial intelligence features more deeply into Windows 11, using language that describes the technology as an \"intelligent presence\" and \"thoughtful partner\" woven into user workflows. The initiative follows user backlash against a floating Copilot button that obscured workspace content in Office apps, forcing Microsoft to issue a fix allowing users to remove it. Critics argue the company is using flowery terminology to obscure aggressive AI integration that many users have rejected.", "body_md": "Now that my one-month sentence of using Windows 11 has begun (you can follow along!), I’m also a bit more perceptive of news and developments regardingMicrosoft’s latest and greatest operating system version. Despite claims to the contrary, we already know the company isn’t really removing “AI” features from Windows, merely renaming them instead, but it turns out they’re planning something more all encompassing: the Copilot Design System. Long-time Microsoft veteran Jon Friedman published a blog post introducing this new concept. As Copilot steadily evolves into a thought partner—an intelligent presence woven into your workflow—its backbone will become the Copilot Design System, an AI-forward design system we’re crafting to feel intentional and humane. From orchestration patterns to iconography, the experience we’re building will ultimately have components that work together to amplify thinking, guide decisions, and unlock creativity—seamlessly, wherever you work. Anchored in customer feedback around creating better experiences, a fundamental question guides our system’s evolution: how would a thoughtful partner look and behave? ↫ Jon Friedman at Microsoft’s design blog I’ve read the whole post and I still have no idea what most of it is supposed to mean in practice. It feels like the written equivalent of someone trying to put lipstick on a pig, and pretty much anyone is going to see right through the fancy words and phrases and realise what we’re really dealing with here: a company trying to figure out just how far they can shove “AI” down your throat before you gag reflex kicks in. You can hide behind flowery language all you want, but if you’re selling shit, it’s going to stink regardless. The only concrete user interface idea that’s come out of this Copilot Design System was a floating Copilot button that permanently floated on top of your workspace area in Word, Excel, and so on, obscuring the actual things you were working on. Users hated it so much that Microsoft had to quickly release what is essentially a hotfix to give people the ability to remove that floating button, putting it in a toolbar instead. Like I said: people see right through these thinly-veiled attempts at baiting them into using your pachinko machine. Anyway, yes, I’m working from Windows 11 now, just as you people paid me to do. Here’s the proof: Only 30 days left to go. I can do this.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-tries-to-obscure-ai-features-behind-flowery-design-language", "canonical_source": "https://www.osnews.com/story/145120/microsoft-tries-to-obscure-ai-features-behind-flowery-design-language/", "published_at": "2026-05-27 18:45:08+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-27 19:12:52.975995+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-tools", "generative-ai"], "entities": ["Microsoft", "Windows 11", "Copilot", "Jon Friedman"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-tries-to-obscure-ai-features-behind-flowery-design-language", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-tries-to-obscure-ai-features-behind-flowery-design-language.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-tries-to-obscure-ai-features-behind-flowery-design-language.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-tries-to-obscure-ai-features-behind-flowery-design-language.jsonld"}}