Deep Research, the Copilot feature that spends time assembling long-form research reports, disappears from Microsoft's AI assistant on August 18, 2026. The same day brings an account migration that also ends Podcasts and Group Chat, and anyone who wants to keep doing in-depth research is pointed toward Researcher, which sits inside Microsoft 365 Premium. The free tier survives, but a few of the retiring features require action before the migration reaches your account.

Two Copilot Apps Become One

The change rests on a merger. The consumer Microsoft Copilot app and the Microsoft 365 Copilot app are folded into a single updated Copilot app, and account migrations begin rolling out on August 18.

If you sign in with a personal Microsoft account, or through Google or Apple, the desktop and web versions guide you to the updated Copilot automatically. Mobile users need to download the new version of the app. People using Microsoft 365 Copilot with a work or school account see little more than a name and icon change.

Chat history, images, and other content you have created move with you. If you were running both apps on a personal account, their contents merge into one place. Work and personal boundaries stay intact, however, and nothing entered on one side flows to the other. Files shared or generated in the standalone Copilot app are moved to OneDrive.

Deep Research Ends, and Researcher Costs Money

Deep Research is retired in the consumer Copilot app starting August 18. For anyone who has leaned on it for detailed reports and analysis, this is effectively a move upmarket.

The replacement is Researcher in Copilot, available to Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers. In the United States the plan runs 19.99 USD per month (about 3,200 yen), or 199.99 USD per year (about 32,000 yen). Microsoft describes Deep Research and Researcher as separate experiences, but Researcher carries the same role of handling in-depth research tasks.

1 USD = 159 JPY (as of August 18, 2026)

Existing work is not deleted. Saved research content stays available: Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers reach it through Researcher, while Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers can find previous Deep Research reports in their chat history. Reports can also be opened in Microsoft Word and saved for later, which is the safest way to keep anything important. Microsoft says no action is required, but exporting the reports that matter to you is worth the few minutes it takes.

Podcasts Become Completely Inaccessible

Podcasts, the feature that turns research output into a spoken conversation, is gone from Copilot after August 18. The difference from Deep Research is significant: you can no longer create new podcasts, and you cannot play the ones you already made either.

If you want to keep any of that audio, you have to download each episode individually through the download option in the podcast library menu. Once the migration has run, that window has closed, so heavy users of the feature should act early.

Group Chats Survive as One-to-One Conversations

Group Chat is also being retired, though the handling is more nuanced. Your history does not vanish. After the migration, each group chat appears as a one-to-one conversation with Copilot.

The catch is that prompts written by other participants, and artifacts they created including images, become inaccessible. You also cannot continue the conversation as a group. If you used group chats for collaborative work, download any shared media worth keeping before your account updates.

The Free Tier Stays Open

The overall shape of this change leans toward paid tiers, but the free entry point remains. Chatting with Copilot, creating images, and uploading files continue at no cost, subject to available capacity and limits. When you hit a limit, you either upgrade or come back later.

There is also a small gain: people who had been using the Microsoft 365 Copilot app without a Microsoft 365 subscription now get Copilot chat at no extra cost. Higher limits, agents, and complex multi-step tasks, on the other hand, require a Microsoft 365 purchase. The merger draws a clearer line, pushing heavy workloads to paid plans while widening what free users can touch.

Summary

Microsoft's two Copilot apps become one, and account migrations start on August 18, 2026. The same day retires Deep Research, Podcasts, and Group Chat, moving serious research capability into Researcher under the 19.99 USD per month Microsoft 365 Premium plan. Chat history and created content carry over, but podcast audio and media shared by other group chat participants cannot be retrieved afterward, so download anything you need before the migration reaches your account.