Is Copilot the new Clippy?

Remember Clippy? If you were using Microsoft Office in the late '90s or early 2000s, you probably do. That animated paperclip had a knack for popping up at the worst times, offering help you didn’t ask for. Clippy was Microsoft’s first attempt at digital assistance, it was well-meaning but ultimately annoying.

Fast forward to today, and Microsoft has introduced Copilot, an AI-powered assistant designed to enhance productivity and streamline workflows. But is Copilot just Clippy with better tech, or is this a real game-changer?

Introduced in Office 97, Clippy was supposed to help users by offering tips and shortcuts. In theory, great, but in practice, not so much. Clippy’s suggestions were often irrelevant, its timing was bad, it was resource hungry and interrupted workflows, and when a user was idle, Clippy would knock on the screen to get your attention, most annoying. Clippy quickly became the office joke rather than a productivity booster. Microsoft retired Clippy in 2007, and no one really missed it. That said, Clippy was an early glimpse into AI-driven user support. It lacked intelligence and adaptability, but the idea behind it (software that proactively assists) was ahead of its time.

Between Clippy and Copilot, there was Cortana. Launched in 2014, Cortana was Microsoft’s attempt at a voice-activated digital assistant built into Windows and integrated with Bing and Office 365. While Cortana had a slick interface and the sci-fi appeal of having the same name as a character from the Halo video game series, it struggled to find its place. Cortana tried to do too much, like managing calendars, setting reminders, searching the web, and controlling smart home devices, but never truly excelled at any of it. With competition emerging from other assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa, Cortana gradually faded from relevance. Microsoft eventually repositioned it for enterprise use before quietly stepping back altogether.

Enter Copilot. Unlike Clippy and Cortana, Copilot isn’t a one-size-fits-all assistant with pre-written prompts. Powered by Large Language Models including OpenAI’s GPT-4, along with a proprietary Microsoft model, it understands context, generates high-quality text, automates repetitive tasks, and even provides creative solutions. In Word, Copilot can draft entire documents. In Excel, it analyses data and suggests insights. In Teams, it summarises meetings and provides action points. It’s not just a helper, it could be seen as a productivity partner.

The biggest difference? Copilot learns and adapts. Clippy followed simple rules, Cortana had identity issues, but Copilot uses AI to understand what you need and deliver results tailored to your work. And while Clippy became a meme and Cortana became forgettable, Copilot has been widely embraced, especially by professionals looking to save time and boost efficiency. By the way, I used VS Code with Copilot to build my 3-year goal planning tool. If you're interested, you can check it out here: https://kingsford.coach/tools/3yr-goal-planning-tool.

So, is Copilot the new Paperclip? Not quite. While all three aimed to assist users, Copilot is what Clippy and Cortana always aspired to be, smart, seamless, and genuinely useful.

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