AI Companion Watch — 2026-04-02

New Releases

Microsoft Copilot Cowork

• Platform: Web (Microsoft 365)
• What's new: Copilot Cowork is Microsoft's new experiment using Anthropic's Claude AI models to plan and delegate work within Microsoft 365. It is bundled with the AI-focused E7 subscription tier, which is priced at $99/month.
• Pricing: Available under the Microsoft 365 E7 plan at $99/month
• First impressions: Early coverage positions Cowork as a meaningful step up in the value proposition of the premium E7 tier — particularly for users who need complex task delegation across long workflows. The Claude integration is the headline here, signalling Microsoft's willingness to blend rival AI providers rather than lock users into a single model.

Major Updates

Microsoft 365 Copilot — Critique & Council Modes

• What changed: Microsoft has added two new modes — Critique and Council — to Microsoft 365 Copilot. In Critique mode, Anthropic's Claude reviews and fact-checks content drafted by OpenAI's GPT. In Council mode, multiple AI models work in parallel on the same question, presenting their outputs side by side.
• Impact: This is a significant architectural shift: rather than routing queries to a single model, Copilot now orchestrates rival models as a quality-control layer. Users doing complex research or document drafting benefit most, as Claude's critical review can catch GPT's errors before they surface in the final output.

Gemini — Traffic Surge Narrows Gap with ChatGPT

• What changed: According to SE Ranking data, Gemini's platform traffic grew 47% month-over-month, while ChatGPT's traffic declined 8% over the same period. The gap between the two has narrowed from a 22x advantage for ChatGPT to just 8x.
• Impact: Traffic parity between Gemini and ChatGPT is now projected to arrive somewhere between June and October 2026. Combined with the recently covered Gemini switching tools (memory and chat import from ChatGPT/Claude, covered 2026-03-31), Google appears to be executing a coordinated campaign to convert users from rival platforms.

User Verdict

Real-world reviewers testing the broader AI companion and assistant landscape are converging on a few consistent themes this week:

• Character.AI reached 233 million reported users as of April 2026, cementing its position as the dominant social/companion chatbot platform by raw user count.

• On the dedicated AI companion app side, a hands-on review from RoboRhythms (published 2 days ago) tested 8 apps and found: "Nomi has the best memory, Candy AI wins on visuals, Character AI is the best free pick."

• On the assistant side, users in Microsoft 365 communities are cautiously optimistic about the Critique/Council modes, with tech press noting the novelty of paying for two competing AI models to argue with each other inside a single enterprise product. As XDA-Developers put it: "We're entering an era where each AI model does something the others can't."

Comparison Corner

Gemini vs. ChatGPT vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot — Platform Switching & Openness

The defining tension right now is openness vs. walled gardens. Google is winning converts by making it easy to leave ChatGPT or Claude and bring your data with you. Microsoft is winning enterprise users by refusing to pick a single AI provider at all — letting GPT and Claude collaborate inside one product. ChatGPT, by contrast, has not announced comparable multi-model or import features as of April 2, 2026.