It feels like MS is already treating it like a generic term. I think I saw a Kevin Scott article recently where he kept referring to "copilots" as well. The term is being so widely used right now that they'd need to defend it quickly if they even have a trademark. (Looking at the USPTO database, MS applied for a trademark for "Microsoft Copilot" in September then filed an express abandonment a few days later.)
That said the concept of a copilot is pretty generic, so hopefully we can peacefully coexist.
They've doubled down on the Copilot naming after the project was well underway, and I don't really want to rename it in anticipation of trouble that may never materialize
It's an airline term, I am not a lawyer at all but I feel like there's an argument somewhere that using it as a brand for an intelligent/computer assistant, or, fine if you want to be buzzwordy, AI assistant on a computer is a novel use.
A bit like "Apple". If you open a computer store named Apple, I think you can't get away with the argument that "It's a term from the agriculture industry!".
How about FirstOfficerKit, but that seems very far away from AI if one doesn't get that it's a synonym for copilot