'Copilot will remember key details about you' for a 'catered to you' experience

And Vision will 'read' your screen and interact with the content, says Microsoft

Microsoft used its 50th birthday to announce a slew of new Copilot features, many of which will be eerily familiar to anyone who's used rival AI platforms.

"Today," wrote Microsoft AI boss Mustafa Suleyman, "we are embarking on the journey to take Copilot from an AI companion to your AI companion."

That journey includes adding a memory to the chatbot (with the user's permission) so it learns "details about your life." It's handy for improving the quality of responses, for sure, but also vaguely creepy.

We asked Microsoft if this would be an opt-in feature. A spokesperson told The Register that "if personalization is available, Copilot will remember key details about you and make your Copilot experience catered to you. You can opt out of Personalization anytime if you no longer want Copilot to remember facts about you through memory."

OpenAI added a memory feature to ChatGPT in 2024.

Other updates include Shopping, to track down the best deals "through our real-time catalog of trusted merchants," and Actions, which means Copilot can complete tasks for the user. Suleyman gave the example of "scoring the gig tickets to sorting the ride home." One could compare Actions to OpenAI's Operator functionality.

Adding to the déjà vu was the launch of Deep Research, which will allow a user to "conduct complex, multi-step research tasks more efficiently ... saving time and wading through complex tasks seamlessly."

So, a bit like OpenAI's Deep Research. Or Google Gemini Deep Research.

Copilot Vision takes the memory creepiness up a notch. The mobile app versions for Android and iOS will be helpful – they can identify and answer questions about items within the view of the phone's camera or use the camera roll.

In contrast, the native Windows desktop version, also branded under Copilot Vision, is rather more unsettling.

"It will read the screen and interact with the content," according to Microsoft. Copilot will be able to change settings, organize files, and collaborate on projects. Windows Insiders will be the first to see what the chatbot, which as recently as last week thought there were 25 years in a half-century, will do to their desktops.

A Microsoft spokesperson told The Register that while content would be transferred to the company's cloud for AI computing, "Vision sessions and content from File Search are not used for model training or ads personalization."

In addition, "Screenshots, audio, and context about what you're sharing to Copilot Vision are not stored by Copilot." Transcripts of voice conversations with Copilot would, however be stored as part of the conversation history but "can be deleted at any time."

Next up is Pages, which consolidates notes and research into a "canvas" organized by Copilot (it sounds similar to last year's ChatGPT Canvas), and Podcasts, which will generate AI-powered podcasts "that curate and deliver personalized audio content based on your interests," sort of like Google's Audio Overview feature for NotebookLM.

Because what the world needs right now is definitely more podcasts.

There is a certain irony that Microsoft should use the anniversary of its founding to announce a raft of features for its AI that resemble functions already available on rival platforms. In an interview last week with CNBC, Suleyman was reported as saying that the biz's strategy was to "play a very tight second" and enjoy lower costs and target specific use cases while others pushed the AI frontiers first.

Regardless of Microsoft's reported strategy, the announcements show that the mega-corp remains fully committed to Copilot, and its customers must prepare themselves for what is to come next. ®

Microsoft axed two employees who interrupted the corporation's 50th anniversary bash to protest the Azure giant's supply of AI to the Israeli military, it was reported.

The Windows maker told us one was fired and the other quit. "This is all the company has to share on the matter," a spokesperson said.