Microsoft is about to change how Copilot ads appear and trigger

Microsoft Advertising will soon change the way ads in Copilot appear to users, as well as how ads trigger. Advertisers are also about to get two new pilot features.

New Copilot ad experience. Copilot ads will appear below Copilot’s (organic) answers in a feature Microsoft is calling “ad voice.” This will include text referencing the conversation within Copilot and acts as a transitionary message from the advertiser. Fewer ad annotations and extensions will appear.

What it looks like. Here’s a screenshot Microsoft provided of the new look experience:

Timeline. This change will first come to copilot.microsoft.com this month and expand to more Copilot experiences – including Bing Search – “over time,” Microsoft said

New Microsoft advertising features. Microsoft will also launch two new generative AI features in pilot this month:

• Diagnostics. This “inspect campaign setup, assess account health, diagnose where attention is needed, and propose what to do next, all activated via simple conversational engagement.”
• Performance snapshot. You “can use natural language to ask Copilot in the Microsoft Advertising Platform to obtain an account or campaign-specific performance overview with a summary of key insights, trends, and anomalies.”

Why we care. Microsoft, citing internal data, said Copilot ads have “click through rates that are 69% stronger, and conversion rates are 76% higher when comparing lower funnel ad types to traditional search.” While these stats are quite vague and open to our interpretation of what they actually mean – ultimately, any changes Microsoft makes that could impact your advertising performance and ROI is one to watch and know about.

Microsoft’s blog post. Transforming audience engagement with generative AI.