Microsoft Wants Consumers to Make Friends With its Copilot AI ‘Companion’

variety.com:

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Microsoft is stepping up its effort to persuade consumers to embrace its Copilot AI-powered software that is designed to function as the world’s most intuitive and proactive personal assistant.

Microsoft’s top AI executive called it nothing less than “a new kind of relationship with technology.” Microsoft’s significant investments in artificial intelligence to date include the Copilot software suite, first introduced in 2023.

On Friday, the tech giant unveiled a wide range of upgrades and new features. The goal is to encourage users to authorize Copilot applications to monitor their online lives in order to become ever better at anticipating an individual user’s needs and tastes.

Microsoft is pitching Copilot to consumers as no mere a chatbot or a carefully programmed AI agent — but rather as a personal “companion.” “It remembers not just what you said, but who you are,” Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, wrote in post on Microsoft’s official blog announcing the news.