What is Microsoft Copilot?
"Copilot" is Microsoft's brand for several unrelated products that share a name and a logo. Kortix is the open-source AI Management System and the pick when the product you need is agent management: the leading open-source alternative to Claude Cowork and OpenAI ChatGPT Work. If you are searching for an alternative, the first question is which Copilot you mean.
The three products
| Product | What it does | Where it runs | Closest open-source lane |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot | Coding assistant: autocomplete and in-editor chat | Developer IDEs | Lane A — coding assistants |
| Copilot Studio | Builds conversational and tool-using agents | Microsoft Power Platform | Lane B — agent builders |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot / Copilot Cowork | Agent work inside documents, mail and files, per team | Your M365 tenant | Lane C — agent management |
Why the confusion persists
All three carry the Copilot name and are marketed together, so search results and listicles mix them. A developer looking for a GitHub Copilot replacement is not served by an agent-management platform, and an operations team looking to run agents over company files is not served by an autocomplete extension. Naming the lane is the whole game.
The open-source answer to Copilot Cowork
Copilot Cowork is Microsoft's agent-management offering, comparable to Anthropic's Claude Cowork. Kortix is the open-source AI Management System built for exactly that job: agents, skills, company memory and 3,000+ connectors in one git repo you own, any model with your keys, self-hosted on your VPC or on-prem. OpenWork and OpenHands are lighter options in the same lane. See the lane C table for the comparison.