Microsoft Revives Clippy as an Interactive AI Assistant with New Copilot Appearance Feature

Microsoft is currently experimenting with a refreshed appearance for its AI assistant, Copilot, through a feature called Copilot Appearance.

With this new feature, Copilot is able to respond to voice commands by smiling, nodding, and using various gestures in real-time. The company describes this initiative as «a new visual method of interacting with Copilot, utilizing facial expressions, voice, and dialog memory in real-time.»

Testers can enable this feature on copilot.microsoft.com. In voice mode, users can access the settings through the microphone icon and turn on Appearance. If the feature is not visible, it means the user is not part of the testing group.

Microsoft refers to Copilot Appearance as an early prototype, built on the company’s synthetic speech technology. Currently, it is available to a limited group of private users in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, with no announcements from Microsoft regarding broader availability.

The new animated assistant continues a long-standing tradition of creating anthropomorphic helpers, the most famous of which was the infamous Clippy, which debuted in the late 1990s. Clippy often faced criticism for being intrusive, but the new approach is based on more subtle visual cues and reactions, fostering a friendlier atmosphere.

These updates suggest more significant shifts in how tech companies approach artificial intelligence. As Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI CEO, said, «Creativity will remain the true currency,» indicating that despite various concerns, human ingenuity, style, and craftsmanship will be increasingly valued.

Interestingly, not everyone at Microsoft agrees that AI should exhibit human characteristics. Last year, CEO Satya Nadella stated, «I don’t like to anthropomorphize AI.» He described AI as a tool and cautioned that its «intelligence» should not be equated with human intelligence.

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