Congress has mandated the ban of Microsoft Copilot AI on all Government-owned devices used by US congressional staff members. House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor enforced the strict ban, citing the threat of leaking House data to unapproved cloud services. Consequently, Copilot will be removed from and blocked on all House Windows devices. Last year, House users were prohibited from using the free version of ChatGPT on government-owned devices, but they are still allowed to use the paid version for research. Developed by Microsoft earlier this year, Copilot, akin to Open AI’s ChatGPT, is utilized for conducting research or creating content. In response to the ban, Microsoft expressed an understanding of the government’s need for heightened security requirements and announced plans to launch tools with enhanced security measures designed for government use, including an Azure OpenAI service for classified workloads and a new version of Microsoft 365's Copilot assistant. Additionally, one of the designers for Copilot Designer raised concerns over the program creating offensive images containing political bias, underage drinking and drug use, and misuse of trademarks and copyrights. This latest ban serves as a precautionary measure to ensure the security of government-owned devices from potential data leaks and misuse.