If you've heard about Microsoft Copilot and want to use it on your Mac, you can go about doing that a few ways. You won't quite get the system-level integration Windows users enjoy, but you can get pretty close and make the program a part of your system instead of just a tab in your browser.

Read on to learn how to insert Microsoft Copilot into your macOS-powered computer.

How to install Microsoft Copilot on Mac

Option 1: App Store

If you have an Apple Silicon Mac, you can run iPad and iPhone apps, including Microsoft Copilot, on your Mac natively thanks to Arm architecture. You just need to download the program:

1. Open the Apple App Store on your Mac.
2. Search for Microsoft Copilot.
3. On the Microsoft Copilot store page, click the Get button.

Microsoft Copilot should ​install like any other app. After the process is finished, you can access it from your Applications folder, then interact with Copilot in a dedicated window.

As you can see from the picture above, Microsoft Copilot on Mac might be fairly basic, but it gets the job done. If you want an integration with Copilot that is more similar to the Windows experience where you can launch the app by pressing a combination of buttons, you can set one up through Automator and the Settings menu. Here's how to do so:

1. Open Automator.
2. Choose File, then New, and then select Quick Action.
3. Create an automation to Launch application, and change workflow to No input.
4. You might need to select Other in the Launch application field's dropdown menu, then navigate to Microsoft Copilot in your Applications folder.
5. Save the automation.
6. Open Settings and scroll down to Keyboard.
7. Click Keyboard shortcuts (while making sure to enable the toggle) and select Services on the left.
8. Expand General and double click None beside Open Copilot. Set the combination to anything that you want, taking care not to have any conflicts with other applications. For this example, we set it to Shift + Command + L.

Once you're done, you'll be able to call Copilot from anywhere on your Mac at any time.

Option 2: Safari web apps

If you want to use Microsoft Copilot but don't want to mess about with Automator or applications, you can simply add Microsoft Copilot to your Safari Dock as a shortcut.

1. Navigate to the Microsoft Copilot website in Safari.
2. Click File at the top, followed by Add to Dock.
3. Rename the app if you want to, then click Add.

If all goes well, you should see Microsoft Copilot in your Dock for ease of access. This is essentially just a wrapper for a Safari tab in an application, but it's virtually indistinguishable from a normal program. However, while adding Copilot to Safari is significantly easier than the prior method, the program won't run locally, but you can't launch it via keystroke any time you want.

Which option is best, and are there others?

Since Microsoft doesn't have any official Mac-dedicated applications, you have to rely on these two methods if you want Microsoft Copilot on a macOS computer. The iPad app is the best native solution for Mac, but if you don't care about that, the Safari Dock option will work just fine. If you want to use OpenAI's latest GPT-4 models on your Mac, there's also the option of using the official ChatGPT Mac app. You could also use virtualization software to get Windows 11, and Copilot by extension, on any of the best Macs.