From PC World: Back in August 2025, Microsoft launched a new kind of software initiative called “Microsoft 365 Companions,” which were like mini-apps that lived within the taskbar and served a middle-of-the-road solution between simple notifications and complex Widgets.
When they first launched, there were three Microsoft 365 Companions immediately available: People, which showed your favorite contacts and let you search your full contact list; Files, which could search, preview, and share cloud files without fully opening them; and Calendar, which let you join Teams calls without opening the full app.
But now, just over a year since these Companions were first announced, Microsoft has decided to discontinue them. It’s unclear why they’re being discontinued—Microsoft offers no explanation.
According to this Microsoft 365 support page, all three companion apps will be going into retirement starting on December 16th, 2026. You can keep using these until then, and once they’re removed, you won’t lose any data and no other existing Microsoft 365 features will be impacted.
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