Microsoft Tests a Face for Copilot: Meet the New Virtual AI Character

Microsoft has started testing a virtual character for his AI assistant known as “Copilot Appearance”. So the AI gets a “face” in the form of a kind of artificial figure to react to the user’s input.

Microsoft gives his AI copilot a face

Anyone who still knows the Office Assistant Clippy knows that Microsoft always provides the users of their software to the side of their software that they should support in their interaction with the programs. Clippy became known primarily for his appearance at inappropriate moments with often just as inappropriate tips for office users.

In Windows Copilot, the Ki-Chatbot from Microsoft, which is increasingly positioned as a personal assistant, is now supposed to embody the Ki-Bot as a “copilot appearance” (copilot “appearance”?) The verge. Basically, it is a kind of “small white cloud with face”, the shape and facial expressions of which change, while the user interacts with the AI under Windows.

Tests start to a very limited extent

It is still expressly an experiment that is now available in Microsoft’s Copilot Labs for a few users from the USA, Great Britain and Canada – only in English. According to Microsoft’s AI boss Mustafa Suleyman, the “Ki-Clippy” should be able to react to the ongoing conversation with copilot with different facial expressions, changes and actions.

The system works with “real-time facial expressions”, language and a kind of conversational memory, so use a memory thanks to which it knows what the users have made before. The virtual figure is intended to make the use of Copilot more personal and function as a kind of identity of the AI assistant. The AI generated reactions of the “Copilot Appearance”, for example, include a surprised, joyful or questioning facial expression, the change in shape to a heart and a number of other expressions. It remains to be hoped that the new embodiment of AI ultimately enables more productive results than Clippy in his time..