I want to turn off or hide the draft with copilot dingbat that follows my cursor around in MS Word.

None of the above work, but I do have the real solution... I am using Wordperfect.   Wordperfect can save files as word versions (just not edit them there). It's a bit of a pain, but since Microsoft cannot be bothered to change, I cannot be bothered to use their "services"

Came up with a great solution to this. I cancelled my Word 365 sub and moved to Libre Office. Saved myself $180 Australian and got rid of Copilot at the same time. Highly recommended!

Here's how to get rid of the stinking Copilot poop emoji that follows you around in Word (365 for Mac)—and save yourself $30 to boot! The option to turn it off does NOT exist in Word version 16.93 (25011212) Preferences. Turning off Connected Experiences does NOT remove it. After over an hour of frustrating chatting with M$ I was finally offered the solution: 1) Manage your subscription to Office 365; 2) Select CANCEL; 3) Choose Classic subscription for the old price of $69.99; 4) Restart Mac TWO TIMES; 4) Launch Word and go to Preferences, where the CoPoop option now appears; 5) Deselect it. You are now free of CoPoop and have saved $30.

Please be sure to inform M$ of how much you appreciate having Clippy 2.0 shoved down your throat with a 50% price increase and no simple way to remove it! 

Does anyone know how to remove this dingbat on Mac? 

I just updated my app this morning and am already pulling my hair out. Please please someone help get rid of it. So awfully distracting.

BTW, I closed Word and restarted it. The co-pilot icon appeared at the top of the document, but no where else. Such a relief. I like others, am a full-time writer and that icon was very distracting to the point where I was searching for alternatives and I've been using Word for 30+ years. Yeesh.

Yes! This worked for me. Within my Word document I went to File > Options > clicked on the Copilot tab (mine is 4th down between Proofing and Save) > unchecked the box that says "Enable Copilot." Thank you!!

I did manage to get rid of the dingbat out of Word!

After exhausting all of the recommended downgrade options, I had a fairly successful attempt at hacking the application to remove it out of the JavaScript files, but also ran into stability issues, and found that after a little bit it would come back,

Finally, I discovered that my work was running a slightly older version of Microsoft Word, version 2410, (listed as a monthly enterprise channel) so I copied and pasted that onto a USB thumb drive and overwrote the copy that I had on my home computer, this got rid of the dingbat and made me extremely happy.

(Yes, the non-consensually obtained work copy uses my home account\licence!)

Once I implemented this fix, I also made sure to disable all Microsoft Word updates,

During my hacking spree I did manage to isolate the library file where the copilot extension lives, but the process to remove it's just too difficult to create a user guide for.

Finally, to permanently disable Copilot across Microsoft 365 subscriptions, I've already made a response in another thread that I will link here as well as import into this thread here:

If it hasn't been mentioned in the thread already, and I am not sure what Microsoft's reasoning is behind all of this,

but if you go to the manage subscription option on your account, and then go to cancel your subscription, on the landing page there will be an option for Microsoft Office 365 Family Classic, with a button that allows you to switch to that tier, not only does this get rid of the AI but it keeps the price the same for next year.

It's just really inane that it's only available on that page.

I was shown this from a Reddit thread that I will link to in reply because I'm not sure if it'll get flagged doing it in this response.

So, in June when my subscription lapse over to the classic tier I'll finally be able to update Microsoft Word again, and it may be one of the last times that I'll be able to update Microsoft Word because this whole experience has put me off Windows 11. (I am staying on Windows 10 until the support runs out and moving away afterwards)

EDIT: This didn't work. It did temporarily, but it came back.

These instructions in another thread did work:

Hello Michael_Win98se_fan,

Some users in the community have reported that rolling back the Office version can turn off Copilot, so you can try that:

Restore your version of Office

Close all Office software, in the "Start Menu", find "Command Prompt" (or "cmd"), right-click and select "Run as administrator" ;

At the command prompt, type the following command and press Enter:

cd %programfiles% \Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun  
  

Then enter the following and press Enter

Officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.17531.20120 
  

This will bring Office back to a stable version in February 2024.

If the above steps are successful, you'll be able to view Office version 17531.20120 under File -> Account -> Product Information. If another version is displayed here, it means that some of the steps were not executed successfully, please refer to the previous method and try again.

After restoring, open any Office application, such as Word, click File -> account. On the right side, check the "Microsoft 365 and Office Updates" heading , click the "Update Options" button, and select the "Disable Updates" option to disable the auto-update feature.

Please consider turning on automatic updates again after successfully switching to Classic to avoid updating again to a new version with Copilot.

I hope this is useful and please feel free to ask any questions.

Best wishes

Miyeon.S- MSFT |Microsoft Community Support Specialist

So I asked Copilot in Word "How do I remove the Copilot icon from my document?" and it responded with this:

It seems like you're looking to remove the Copilot icon from your Word document. Unfortunately, I cannot make changes to your document directly. However, I can provide some guidance on how you might be able to do this.

To remove the Copilot icon from the ribbon in Word, you can follow these steps:

Open Word and go to the File menu.
Select Options.
In the Word Options dialog box, go to the Customize Ribbon section.
In the right pane, find the Copilot icon and uncheck it to remove it from the ribbon.
Click OK to save your changes.

If you want to turn off Copilot entirely, you might need to adjust your account privacy settings:

Go to File > Account > Account Privacy > Manage Settings.
Clear the checkbox for Turn on experiences that analyze your content.
Click OK and restart Word.

Please note that turning off Copilot might also disable other features in your Microsoft 365 apps1.

I hope this helps! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

It seems to have worked!

I'm an author. I spend my life on Word. This is annoying to the point of driving me insane!! I'm going to have to look at some sort of alternative. I CANNOT concentrate and DO NOT need a stupid AI icon constantly shoved in my line of vision! The idea we pay for this stuff, didn't ask for it and have no ability to turn it off is beyond frustrating.