Microsoft officially turned 50 years old on April 4. To commemorate the occasion, the company held an event to talk about AI.
More specifically, it was about Copilot.
Heading up the presentation about the latest features of Copilot was Mustafa Suleyman, Executive Vice President and CEO of Microsoft AI. In the almost hour-long show, which had a brief interruption by employees protesting the action of the company, Suleyman spoke about Copilot's upcoming features, such as being able to do tasks for users, whether it's buying event tickets, making dinner reservations, or buying gifts.
The AI is also going to get customizations to make it more unique to the user.
"So what if co-pilot had an appearance and you could shape and form to be whatever you want," Suleyman said. "We're in the very early stages of this thinking, and we're still experimenting, but we're super excited about the possibilities."
At this time in the presentation, Suleyman begins talking to Copilot itself on the display screen behind him. He then asks Copilot to change form, which it does. After the little back and forth with the AI, Suleyman goes on to say that Copilot's appearance could transform into anything, including the once-hated and now beloved mascot for Microsoft, Clippy.
This caused the crowd in attendance to applaud and cheer for the return of the living paperclip.
"Whatever floats your boat, we'll work with it," he said. "Maybe something entirely out of your imagination. We see the potential for endless possibilities here, and I really think that these Copilot appearances could be the beginning of a fresh and delightful way for you to make co-pilot truly yours."
One of the many returns of Clippy.
It's clear that Microsoft gets the humor surrounding Clippy. The paperclip buddy first appeared in Office 97 and would offer some suggestions when a user began a certain task, like writing a letter. Clippy didn't win over fans and eventually was removed from Microsoft Office back in 2001, although it would still show up in the software in different ways until Office 2007.
Microsoft wasn't completely over Clippy, even though its software users were at the time. The company made different references and even April Fool's jokes about Clippy over the years. Microsoft Office Labs even released a game in 2012 featuring the paperclip called Ribbon Hero 2: Clippy’s Second Chance, which was a humorous way to show off some of the features of Microsoft Office 2010.
Then in 2021, the official Microsoft Twitter account told its followers that if the tweet received more than 20,000 likes, it would add Clippy to Microsoft 365.
If this gets 20k likes, we’ll replace the paperclip emoji in Microsoft 365 with Clippy. pic.twitter.com/6T8ziboguCJuly 14, 2021
As of today, that tweet has more than 146,000 likes.
Clippy did come back, but only to replace the paperclip emoji.
