It’s been almost 30 years since Microsoft’s Office assistant, Clippy, first graced our screens as an annoying paper clip. When Clippy’s worrisome outages ended with Office XP in 2001, Microsoft tried to resurrect the assistant’s spirit with Cortana on Windows Phone. Ten years ago, the technology was still not available, but now Microsoft is ready to try again with Mico, a up-to-date character in Copilot voice mode.
“Clippy walked so we could run,” jokes Jacob Andreou, vice president of product and development at Microsoft AI, in an interview with Edge. Microsoft has been testing Mico (rhymes with “pico”) for several months, as a virtual character that responds in real time when you talk to it. Mico is now enabled by default in Co-Pilot Voice Mode, where you can also disable the bouncing ball.
“You can see it, he reacts when you talk to him, and if you say something sad, you will almost immediately see his facial expression,” Andreou explains. “All the technology falls into the background and you just start talking to this cute little ball and build a connection with it.”
Mico will be available at launch exclusively in the US, and this up-to-date Copilot virtual character will also exploit Copilot’s up-to-date memory feature to be able to reveal facts it has learned about you and the things you are working on.
Microsoft is also adding a live learning mode to Mico that will turn your character into a Socratic teacher who “guides you through concepts rather than just giving you answers.” It even uses interactive whiteboards and visual cues, and looks like it’s aimed at students preparing for final exams or anyone trying to practice a up-to-date language.
Mico fits into the goal of giving Copilot an identity, as Microsoft CEO of artificial intelligence Mustafa Suleyman mentioned earlier this year. “The co-pilot will definitely have some lasting identity and presence and a room to live in, and it will age,” Suleyman said in July.
Mico is also playing a key role in Microsoft’s up-to-date initiative to get people talking to their computers. The software developer is running ads on TV promoting its latest Windows 11 computers as a “computer you can talk to.” Microsoft tried to get people to exploit Cortana on Windows 10 computers a decade ago, but those efforts ended with the shutdown of the Cortana app on Windows 11 a few years ago.
Mico is certainly much more powerful than Clippy or Cortana, but Microsoft will still have to overcome many of the same challenges in trying to convince people that talking to a computer or phone isn’t weird. Like Cortana and Clippy, Mico will also have its own Easter eggs, again trying to get people to talk to the AI assistant.
“It’s funny that you mention Clippy. When you can taste Mico, an Easter egg appears. If you poke Mico very, very quickly, something special might happen,” Andreou teases. “We all sort of live in Clippy’s shadow.”
Correction, October 23: Microsoft’s draft blog post mentioned that Mico will be available in the US, UK and Canada at launch. It is only available in the US.