Microsoft’s AI CEO thinks Copilot will age and ‘have a room that it lives in’

Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI CEO, has a vision of Copilot that involves it being so highly personalized that “it will age.” Microsoft has been increasingly pushing Copilot to be a personalized AI assistant, with a big redesign last year

that included a conversational voice mode. Now, Suleyman’s Microsoft AI team is launching a new Copilot virtual character that will interact in real-time with you.

“Copilot will certainly have a kind of permanent identity, a presence, and it will have a room that it lives in, and it will age,” says Suleyman on an episode of The Colin & Samir Show this week. “I’m really interested in this idea of digital patina. The things I love in my world are the things that are a little bit worn or rubbed down, and have scuff marks. Unfortunately in the digital world we don’t have a sense of age.“

Part of this idea of a permanent identity for Copilot is a new Appearance feature that Microsoft has started previewing this week. “Copilot Appearance is an experiment that gives you a new, visual way to chat with Copilot, powered by real-time expressions, voice, and conversational memory,” says Microsoft.

Suleyman gave us an early glimpse at Copilot Appearance during Microsoft’s 50th anniversary event a few months ago. It’s essentially a virtual character for Copilot, to respond to queries you have — a little like how Cortana used to animate. Copilot Appearance will smile, nod, and even act surprised depending on the conversation. Early access for Copilot Appearance is live now in Microsoft’s Copilot Labs, but it will only work for a subset of users in the US, UK, and Canada.

Copilot Appearance is the next step in Microsoft’s mission to personalize its AI assistant. Suleyman, who helped co-found Google DeepMind, joined Microsoft more than a year ago to lead a new team that handles the company’s consumer-facing AI products, like Copilot, Bing, and Edge. Suleyman has quickly turned Copilot into something that closely resembles Pi, the personalized AI chatbot he was working on at Inflection AI. Most of the Inflection AI team joined Microsoft, and Copilot was overhauled months later with its voice and vision redesign.

Suleyman also hinted that the Windows desktop might be where Microsoft turns its AI attention next. “I hate my desktop,” said Suleyman on the podcast episode. “I look at my screen and I’m like ‘shit man I have a billboard in front of me.’ It’s just so noisy, so neon, and it’s all competing for my attention. It just looks ugly.”

While Microsoft AI is improving voice and video, Suleyman says he wants a “quieter, simpler, optimized working environment” and that he’s thinking about improving his “workshop” in the future. That might be a hint at potential changes to the Copilot app on Windows in the future, or even bigger changes with Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PCs.

Suleyman said he has customized his phone UI so much to avoid distractions that it’s basically a black and white theme designed to hide things. “I use a little rose tint so everything else is noised out, most of the apps are moved to the left and right, and my home screen is really just two or three primary apps,” he said.