Ever since I enabled Copilot on my Asus VivoBook, the battery doesn't last nearly as long. It used to last around 6 hours, now it barely gets to 4. Is this normal or do I have something misconfigured?
A 2-hour drop is definitely pretty suspicious, and you probably have something running that shouldn't be. Copilot itself when it's just sitting there uses little power, but it activates a ton of background processes - indexing, cloud syncing, and some machine learning features that eat up processor and RAM pretty heavily. The more the processor works, the more battery it drains.
First thing: go to Settings > System > Battery and device health > Battery saver and turn on Battery Saver automatically at a higher percentage, like 50%. Second, people usually forget about this, but go to Settings > Privacy & Security > General and turn off "Improve inking and typing", "Tailored experiences", and especially "Improve inking and typing" - these things run constantly. Third tip that nobody mentions: open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), go to the Startup tab and disable anything related to Copilot or Microsoft that you don't need at boot. If there's anything like "Intelligent processing" or similar, get rid of that too.
But real talk: if the battery keeps tanking after all that, it could be that your VivoBook's battery is getting worn out or you've got some other app running in the background that's draining it. I'd try disabling Copilot for a few days to make sure the problem actually goes away - that way you know if it's Copilot or something else. Go to Settings > System > Copilot and disable it there. If your battery goes back to the normal 6 hours, then yeah, Copilot's the culprit.
Was Copilot running in the background even when you weren't using it, or did you only activate it recently?
A 2-hour drop is quite significant, and yes, Copilot can consume considerable resources, especially if it's constantly indexing files or processing data in the background. However, it's not supposed to consume that much on a decent machine. Most people report a battery reduction, but not that drastic. What's probably happening is that Copilot activated several related services (Windows Search indexing, data collection, cloud sync) that are running even when you're not using it.
Start by disabling Copilot in Settings (Privacy and Security → Copilot) if you really don't need it. If you want to keep it, go to Power Settings and lower the plan to "Power Saver" when you're away from an outlet. It's also worth checking Task Manager to see which processes are consuming the most CPU and memory - sometimes there are things running that weren't supposed to be. If the battery still doesn't improve even then, it could be a problem with outdated graphics drivers, which is common in VivoBooks.
Copilot itself isn't a major battery drain while inactive, but the thing is there are several factors that could be draining your battery after you've turned it on. First, check if you have Windows Search indexing running too aggressively - Copilot integrates with the system and that can bump up background activity. Another common thing is having heavier apps running at the same time, or Windows itself doing background updates (which might coincide with when you activated Copilot).
Your VivoBook comes with some services out of the box that waste battery for no reason. Go to Settings > System > Battery and check the usage by app over the last 24 hours - that'll make it clear whether it's actually Copilot or something else. If you see Windows Search or system processes eating a lot of power, you can dial back that activity in Settings > Privacy and security > General search, turning off indexing for local files.
It's also worth checking Task Manager for processes that are always running, and making sure battery saver mode is actually on when you need maximum battery life. If it's still bad after all that, you can disable Copilot completely (it's easy to do through Group Policy or the Registry) and see if things go back to normal - that'll tell you for sure whether it was actually Copilot or not.
When exactly did that battery drain start - right after you turned on Copilot or a few days later?
The thing is, it's not always Copilot's fault directly. That 2-hour drop is definitely significant, but what usually happens is your laptop running background updates, syncing files, or indexing content - all stuff that kicks off when you mess with Windows settings. The other answers got it right that Copilot doesn't use that much when it's idle, but they forgot to mention it activates a bunch of Windows services that probably weren't running before.
My guess is you've got stuff running in the background that you haven't spotted. Go to Settings > System > Battery and check which process is eating the most power - sometimes something completely weird shows up there. It's also worth disabling diagnostic data collection if you don't need it (Settings > Privacy and Security), and seeing if there are pending updates. While you're at it, check if Copilot is actually disabled when you close the window, or if the process is still hanging around in task manager. Sometimes that's all it is - a service that shouldn't be awake.
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