Microsoft’s Copilot gets a simpler voice chat shortcut

Want to talk with Copilot? If you do, Microsoft is testing an intuitive little tweak to allow you to do so.

On March 10, Microsoft launched a new shortcut that is rolling out as part of the Copilot app on Windows: a “long press” combination of Alt+SPACE as a press-to-talk shortcut to open the Copilot app. But who would remember that?

Now, Microsoft is testing a smarter alternative as part of the Windows Insider Beta Channel, launching a “press-to-talk” voice chat by holding down the Copilot key for two seconds instead. Of course, right? It’s a much more obvious way of interacting with Copilot, period. To end the conversation, all you need to do is press the Esc key or simply wait to end the conversation, which will turn off after several seconds.

You should see this roll out via an update to the Copilot app soon, via Copilot version 1.25033.139.0 and higher.

Long-press shortcuts aren’t actually used within Windows, so the Copilot shortcut would break new ground here. Some third-party software uses long-press shortcuts to trigger functions within Windows, and a right-click-and-hold might be considered a long-press command. But doing so with a keyboard? To my knowledge, that’s entirely new on Windows–it’s usually a function for mobile keyboards, instead.

It’s probably unlikely that too many people will want to actually chat with Copilot right now, based on what I was told was a lack of use with Cortana on Windows. But with conversational modes springing up within Copilot, Gemini, and more, it’s much more likely that users will have an ongoing conversation with Copilot. That’s what Microsoft is betting on, clearly, and the new long-press shortcut seems like a smart addition.