Microsoft is testing a new name for the Copilot tab in Bing Search, and the name it picked belongs to its rival: AI Mode, the label Google uses for its own AI search experience. The test swaps the dedicated Copilot Search tab’s branding to match the term searchers are rapidly learning from Google.
It is not the first borrowed label. Bing previously tested calling the AI answers at the top of its results “AI Overviews,” again Google’s term, before this. By mid-October, searchers tracking the test reported the AI Mode tab showing consistently across browsers and on mobile, which suggests the experiment may be close to a full rollout.
Two borrowed Google names in quick succession tells its own story about the AI search race: Microsoft appears to judge that users already recognise Google’s vocabulary for AI features better than the Copilot brand Microsoft has spent heavily to build. In generative search, it seems, the category language is being set by one company — and everyone else is deciding whether to speak it.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable
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