What is an AI Copilot?

The copilot pattern is deliberately human-in-the-loop by design, not as a safety afterthought: the AI proposes, the human disposes. A code copilot suggests the next lines but the developer decides whether to accept them; a writing copilot drafts a paragraph but the author edits or discards it. This keeps the human accountable for the final output and lets the AI contribute speed without taking on independent authority. Copilots differ from full agents primarily in scope of autonomy: a copilot embedded in an existing application typically can't take irreversible actions on its own, send the email, execute the trade, delete the record, without the human explicitly approving each step. This makes copilots a natural fit for high-stakes or judgment-heavy work where full autonomy would be premature or risky, while still delivering meaningful productivity gains over unassisted work.