On version 146.0.3856.39 of Microsoft Copilot — currently rolling out to Windows Insider participants — clicking any link during a Copilot session no longer opens it in your chosen browser. It opens in an Edge-powered side panel built into the assistant, regardless of whatever default you have configured.
Microsoft calls this 'context preservation,' and the rationale is at least superficially coherent: keeping web content visible alongside the conversation reduces context-switching. But the behavior ships without a clear opt-in prompt, and Microsoft has not publicly documented a way to disable the link interception while keeping the rest of the Copilot experience intact. Privacy advocates, including researchers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who have been tracking browser-default disputes on Windows, say that framing a unilateral change as a quality-of-life feature is a pattern the company has leaned on before. 'The question is always whether you can undo it,' one researcher told Agent Wars. 'Here, the answer isn't obvious.'
Bundled into the same update are three additional capabilities, and the distinction in how they're introduced is telling. With explicit user consent, Copilot can read the context of tabs opened during a session — enabling summarization, cross-tab Q&A, and drafting assistance — and those tabs persist within the conversation for later retrieval. A separate, optional password and form-data sync feature lets Copilot draw from stored credentials. Both require the user to agree. The link interception does not.
For enterprise IT teams, the practical problem is immediate and largely independent of the broader privacy debate. Browser policy enforcement is a routine part of Windows fleet management: organizations standardize on a specific browser for compliance requirements, security tooling, or extension compatibility, and that setting is expected to hold system-wide. An update that silently routes browsing through Edge's rendering layer disrupts that regardless of Group Policy configuration. Without a discrete toggle to disable the behavior, administrators have limited options short of blocking Copilot outright — a blunt instrument that most IT managers would prefer to avoid.
The rollout remains Windows Insider-only for now. Microsoft has not commented publicly on whether link interception will be made opt-in before the update ships broadly, or whether a standalone disable toggle is planned. That's the question the next few weeks will answer.