Microsoft has a long history of Mac software development. It is not something you often hear about anymore, but the company’s legacy is as intertwined with Apple’s as any other. I tend to be quite negative about Mac Office. I have never been a fan of PowerPoint, Excel, or Word. I was always an iWork guy personally, despite the flaws those three apps have. This is all to say that Microsoft now makes some of the nicest Mac apps there are. Yes, I cannot believe I just wrote that sentence. I am not talking about Office apps, I am talking about Copilot and Edge. OpenAI has gotten a lot of credit for its world-class Mac ChatGPT client. It is an excellent app, both from a functionality standpoint and in terms of its user interface. But Microsoft came out of nowhere with what I have to say, is a drop dead gorgeous native Copilot app.

Copilot on the Mac does not feel like a web wrapper. Today that is the best case scenario, the least you can hope for. It has fluid animations, a nice soothing color palette, and is blazing fast when answering prompts. It really just works. With the current Apple Intelligence situation, it is something that almost anyone who has a Mac should consider using. Not just because it is free, but because you get so much from that free version. From deep research with o1 to beautifully generated user interfaces for certain answers to a command bar you can bring up from anywhere, it fills a lot of needs. Microsoft’s decision to subsidize extensive usage also makes it what I think is one of, if not, the best free AI tool. Given the vast array of new features unveiled by Microsoft his past week for Copilot, I imagine that it is only going to get better. By the way, you should go watch the presentation if you have not. Mustafa Suleyman is an excellent presenter and does a great job walking through where they are heading with all of this. Thankfully, they are not gatekeeping all of these things to Windows. Microsoft has really filled a major gap in macOS for the first time since before Safari and iWork.

Now I know what you are thinking: “Why would I not just use the ChatGPT app?” That is completely valid and I am not saying one should replace it with Copilot. I think Copilot is a supplement. ChatGPT on the Mac is the best choice for working with code or text. It also happens to now be the best way to generate and edit images on the fly. But Copilot feels more personal and is faster at answering search queries. I have struggled in the past to figure out how the different large language models all fit into my workflow. I used to think that I had to use one or the other. But it is clear they are all sticking around, at least for now. I have altered my workflow to use ChatGPT while coding or designing, Claude while writing or as a back up for difficult coding issues, Gemini while working with Google apps as a sort of basic assistant on my phone, and now Copilot for casual use on the desktop. Others occasionally make their way in there, but this is largely how I am using these tools. At the end of the day, the Copilot Mac app is nearly as good as the ChatGPT app. And I would argue that it has one advantage, it is in the Mac App Store while ChatGPT is not.

Now I have heaped a ton of praise on the Copilot Mac app, but I mentioned that Edge has gotten really good as well. I bring this up largely in the context of changes at The Browser Company. I was a huge fan of Arc, but it is not my browser of choice anymore as I do not think I can count on them to keep iterating on it as they once did. I have tried a variety of clones, some of them are fine, but I am not sure how reliable they are long term. I have even been using the alpha of The Browser Company’s new app, Dia. But I will not say anything about that just yet, it is too early to tell where it is going. After all of this searching, I was so pleasantly surprised by the current state of Edge on the Mac. I used to use Edge in lieu of Chrome given how much less power intensive it was. But I was never particularly a fan of the user interface. Now it is arguably one of the best-looking Mac browsers. It also happens to be a true AI web browser with the Copilot sidebar, which now adopts the new design from the Mac app making it much more palatable. It has quick access to summarization and key points, but the best part is that it supports vertical tabs. Vertical tabs were the best part of Arc and they were implemented in such a powerful way that I have difficulty going back to horizontal ones. Thankfully Edge combines AI with vertical tabs and has a development roadmap that you can count on for the long haul. Arc users, I highly suggest trying the latest version of Edge. Port your chromium extensions over, reconfigure your vertical tabs, and you might just find yourself in a state of browser zen.

So yes, Microsoft now makes one of the best AI apps for the Mac and one of its best browsers. They are both well worth checking out if you have not used them in a while. I would not be surprised if many of you have not even tried the new Copilot app. I continue to be delighted by the experience and my usage of it keeps increasing. But the real story here goes back to what I said earlier, Microsoft is once again filling in gaps on the Mac. As Siri falls further behind and Safari continues to stagnate on the AI side, they have garnered an upper hand. They should not have to fill these gaps, but they saw the opening and they went for the jugular. They could have half-assed these tools, but they went all out making them on par or better than their Windows counterparts. I hope this spurs Apple to build a proper Siri app that tracks your conversations and uses the best models. I also hope this gets the Safari team thinking bigger about how they can incorporate AI and make browsing even more fun.