Dedicated "AI Partner": Microsoft Copilot Releases Memory, Actions, and Other Important New Features

Microsoft has recently released a series of new AI assistants for its Copilot Microsoft's AI Division has made a major update to its AI tool, aiming to transform it from a general-purpose AI tool to a "personal AI companion" that's closer to the user through enhanced personalization and task execution capabilities. In the announcement, Mustafa Suleyman, head of Microsoft's AI division, compared the vision to founder Bill Gates' early ambition to "put a computer in every home, on every desk," hinting at Copilot's centrality to Microsoft's future strategy.

The core idea behind these updates is to make Copilot more aware of its users and able to proactively offer help. Microsoft believes that the AI assistants of the future will be highly personal, so the Copilot experience will vary from person to person.

Key feature updates for Copilot

Microsoft detailed several new features designed to realize its vision of a "personal AI partner."

Memory and Personalization

Copilot has added a new Memory feature. With user authorization, Copilot can record user preferences, important information (e.g. favorite foods, movie genres, birthdays and interests of friends and family, etc.). Based on these memories, Copilot aims to provide more relevant suggestions and reminders.

Microsoft emphasizes that users have full control over this, and can manage the information that Copilot remembers through the settings interface, or even turn off the feature altogether. Nevertheless, this feature will undoubtedly lead to discussions about user privacy and data security. How to provide deeply personalized services while ensuring that user data is not misused will be a key challenge for Copilot, and will have a direct impact on user acceptance of the feature.

Additionally, Microsoft is exploring experimental features to personalize Copilot's appearance, allowing users to portray their AI partners for added interactive fun.

Actions

"The Actions feature allows Copilot to go beyond being an information provider and perform specific tasks on behalf of the user. With a simple chat command, users can ask Copilot to make a restaurant reservation, buy tickets to an event or pick out a gift for a friend.

The feature is designed to work through integrations with third-party sites and services. The first partners announced by Microsoft include well-known platforms such as 1-800-Flowers.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Kayak, OpenTable, Priceline, Tripadvisor, Skyscanner, Viator and Vrbo. The launch of this feature marks Copilot's attempt to catch up or even surpass existing voice assistants in terms of usability, but its effectiveness will depend heavily on the breadth, accuracy and security of the integration.

Copilot Vision

The Vision feature, previously available in Copilot for the web, has been extended to mobile (iOS and Android) and Windows operating systems.

• Mobile Vision: Allows users to scan their surroundings in real time through their phone's camera and ask Copilot questions. For example, analyzing the health of plants, getting advice on decorating, and more. It can also analyze pictures stored in photo albums.
• Windows Native Apps Vision: The new Windows-native Copilot app, which can be invoked with the Alt+Space shortcut, will have screen-reading and interaction capabilities. Users will be able to work with multiple apps or files and have Copilot understand what's on the screen and provide assistance such as searching for information, modifying settings, organizing files, and more. This feature is expected to improve multitasking efficiency for Windows users, but there are concerns about system resource usage and potential compatibility issues.Vision will be rolled out to Windows Insiders first.

Pages

"The Pages feature is designed to help users sort through the chaos of notes, data, and research, and Copilot brings this scattered information together on a canvas to organize, simplify, and assist users in the process from first draft to final edit. This seems to be a new approach to content creation and information management.

AI Podcasts

Copilot has added the ability to generate AI-driven podcasts. Based on the user's interests or the content provided (e.g., research reports, specific websites), Copilot can generate personalized audio podcasts that can be used to analyze comparison options (e.g., vacation plans, home buying decisions) or explain specific topics. Users can also interact with Copilot to ask questions as they listen. This offers a new and potentially easier way to consume information, but the quality and depth of the content generated remains to be seen.

Shopping Assistant (Shopping)

Copilot will play the role of a personal shopping assistant, helping users research products, make comparisons, offer suggestions, and be notified of price reductions and promotions, and even allow users to make purchases directly from within the app. This makes Copilot even more relevant in the e-commerce space.

Deep Research

"Deep Research" is a new feature that claims to efficiently handle complex multi-step research tasks Copilot can find, analyze, and integrate information from web resources or large numbers of documents and images, aiming to drastically reduce research time. This could be a very attractive feature for professionals or students who need to work with complex information, and its effectiveness and accuracy will be key to evaluation.

Copilot Search

Copilot Search, integrated into Bing's search engine, will combine the power of traditional search with generative AI. It will cross-check information from multiple sites to provide more detailed, comprehensive answers directly on the Bing search results page, complete with cited sources and suggestions for further exploration. This is another move by Microsoft to use AI to improve its core search business.

Rollout plan and outlook

Initial releases of these new features have begun rolling out and will gradually expand availability over the coming weeks and months, with the exact timing varying by platform, market and language, Microsoft said. The company will continue to collect user feedback and make adjustments and optimizations.

This series of updates to Copilot demonstrates Microsoft's determination to accelerate its layout in the field of AI assistants in an attempt to occupy a more advantageous position in the competition with rivals such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and so on through in-depth personalization and stronger action capabilities. However, the actual experience of these features, the implementation of user privacy protection, and the reliability of third-party integration will ultimately determine whether Copilot can truly become an indispensable "personal AI partner" for users.