Can Microsoft Win the AI Race? I Want to Try These Copilot Features First

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As a part of its 50th anniversary celebration this month, Microsoft rolled out several updates to its Copilot AI , including additional vision, shopping, research, and podcast features. But what interested me most was the firm's discussion of how Copilot will remember what you tell it and offer a more personalized experience, becoming "Your AI Companion."

These new features are meant for the consumer versions of Copilot, with most things rolling out first on the web version , followed by the iOS and Android apps. Some features are specific to the Windows app , but I was surprised to see that many of the new features are not in that app yet. In passing, Microsoft mentioned some new features for the Microsoft 365 enterprise version of Copilot, but I expect we'll hear more about that at next month's Build conference.

In his opening remarks, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about "democratizing" AI just like it did with the PC. Microsoft is "not defined by what we build, but what we enable others to build," he said. That include a demo of "vibe coding" with GitHub Copilot to recreate the BASIC Interpreter for the Altair in just a few minutes. 

"Microsoft started out as a tools company 50 years ago, and is now a platform company where everyone can be a developer," according to Nadella. Upcoming developer tools include agent mode, MCP support, Copilot code review, and tools for building multiple agents. 

"Welcome to the era of AI companions and of Copilots," added Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. "Everyone is about to have a world expert in their pocket, a teacher, a creative sounding board, a project manager, a researcher, a chief of staff. It's a truly magical amount of capability working for you."  

New Copilot features are the "very first glimmers of what this is going to feel like in practice."

Suleyman showed off Copilot creating "magazine-style cards" that illustrated options for planning a birthday party, and Actions, where Copilot can do things such as buying tickets, making reservations, or ordering a ride home.   

Actions should work with most websites, although Microsoft highlighted partnerships with 1-800-Flowers.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Kayak, OpenTable, Priceline, Tripadvisor, Skyscanner, Viator and Vrbo. In practice, Actions will do a lot of things for you in the background, but you still have to manually do things like CAPTCHAs and approving the use of your credit card. (This certainly makes sense to me; I wouldn't trust the technology completely yet.) There are lots of other programs that fill out forms now, so I'm interested in how much deeper this goes.

I'm perhaps most interested in trying out the Deep Research feature. This lets you analyze and combine information from online sources or large amounts of documents and images. Some competitive AI services have added this recently, and I've been quite pleased with the results, so I'm curious to try the Microsoft version.

Within Bing, Copilot search now can cross-reference information across sites, which Microsoft says will deliver more comprehensive responses, complete with cited sources. Once you gather the data, Pages within Copilot can put it into a "canvas" that you organize, with Copilot turning it into a document that you can continue to edit.

Other features include gathering information and turning it into a podcast, with simulated voices.

The mobile and Windows versions of Copilot now include a Vision feature that was introduced in web version last year. The Copilot mobile app will analyze real-time video from the camera, as well as photos stored on the device, doing things such as explaining which plants need watering or giving you tips for decorating your office.

The Windows version will be able to read the screen and interact with its content, doing things such as searching for information, organizing files, and changing settings. An interesting demo showed Copilot teaching the user how to make certain edits in the Photos app. To me, the more apps this supports, the more useful it will be. It can now be brought up through a Copilot key if you have one, by hitting Alt+Space, or via voice commands. The Vision features should be rolling out to the Windows Insider program now, with a broader rollout later.

Suleyman mentioned that the Microsoft 365 Copilot will be getting new Researcher and Analyst agents, things that use the new resonating models, but these features weren't demoed. Again, I expect we'll see more of this at Build.

'Your AI Companion'

In the long run, the bigger change is Microsoft's plan to turn Copilot AI into "Your AI Companion." The idea is that Copilot will understand the details of your life (such as the names of your family members and your pets), your likes and dislikes, and projects or tasks you are working on.  

"I think there are going to be as many Copilots as there are people using them," Suleyman said. "Each will have its own style and tone, and of course, its own name." 

Copilot will remember everything it has done for you, and all you have told it, so it will adapt to your needs, even changing its tone to match you. Microsoft made it clear that users can opt in or out of this and view and remove anything it remembers.  

Other things to make it more personal include letting you design just by asking what the Copilot looks like, even going so far as showing it looking like video game characters or even "Clippy," the old Office assistant.

Suleyman acknowledged that this vision of creating AI companions has a long way to go, with "many, many years to come on this journey."

This vision is far from unique to Microsoft, and the individual features aren't all that new either. Other AI companies have been rolling out research and vision features over the past few months. But because so many people already interact with Windows, Microsoft 365, and its developer tools, Microsoft has an opportunity to better integrate Copilot functions with the other tools we already use. There's clearly a lot more to be done.