Remember Cortana? Most may not remember the personal assistant that Microsoft baked into Windows. Even though it was rather mediocre, Cortana actually provided better Windows functionality than Microsoft’s new lovechild Windows Copilot.
Included in Windows 10, Cortana was Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. It was a voice-activated tool designed to help users in various ways. Core functions included asking Cortana for directions, to add entries to a Calendar, open Windows apps or look up the weather forecast.
A tiny group of users liked Cortana. The vast majority ignored it and a small group of dedicated users tried various hacks to remove Cortana from their devices.
Microsoft announced the end of Cortana support this year. It was clear for a while that Cortana did not play a big role anymore in Microsoft’s plans and the deprecation of the app and service sealed its fate.
Now there is Windows Copilot and AI. Windows Copilot is not Cortana 2.0. At this time, it is mostly Bing Chat as a sidebar in Windows. Microsoft did highlight that Windows Copilot would support Windows-specific features, but it never published a full list and gave only a few basic examples.
Tip: you can disable Windows Copilot in Windows easily.
Cortana vs. Windows Copilot
Let’s start with Cortana. The personal assistant reacted to specific voice commands. Microsoft has an entire Help page on its website — still — that lists some of these.
Here is a selection of what you could use Cortana for:
- Open Windows applications and Settings.
- Look up Calendar information, including finding time to meet with someone.
- Looking up Meeting information, including booking meetings.
- Find out about people in an organization.
- Make lists and set reminders.
- Get definitions and answers to questions.
- Make calculations, including currency conversions.
- Get weather information.
- Look up the latest news.
- Control and play music.
- Get directions.
Windows Copilot supports just a few of these options and some new ones. Microsoft describes Copilot’s Windows-specific functionality in the following way:
Need to enable Bluetooth or connect a new pair of headphones? Copilot can help. Not sure of the best way to capture a screenshot? Ask Copilot to do it for you. Copilot in Windows can change the way you use your PC and inspire you to try new things that you may not have thought of before. It is where productivity and creativity meet.
Microsoft improved Copilot to add at least some of the promised features. You may now ask Copilot to launch a Windows app and it will do so.
The process is somewhat complicated though. Write “open firefox” and press Enter to send the command to the AI. It will then process it in the cloud, which may take a couple of seconds, to return a “dialog box” in the end. You need to activate this box to start the program.
You can also open Start, type firefox and press Enter to launch the application this way. This is faster and does not require an Internet connection.
Similarly, Windows Copilot may open the Settings app or control, very specific, devices, such as Bluetooth. When asked to open the wireless Settings, Copilot returned a button to open the Settings and another to turn on Bluetooth. Not exactly what the command wanted.
Windows Copilot supports some of the other features that Cortana supported. You can get the weather forecast, get directions, or to make calculations.
The AI produces strange answers sometimes. When asked about next week’s appointments, it returned information about typical pregnancies.
News is another weakness of Copilot, as it has no real-time access at the time. When you ask the AI about recent events, e.g., latest Football or Soccer scores, you will inadvertently end up with old information. The weather report is accurate, however.
Copilot’s weaknesses and flaws
Windows Copilot has certain weaknesses and flaws that make it less of an ideal assistant or partner on Windows.
Two of the main issues are that it requires an Internet connection for all of its functionality and that it lacks access to (most) real-time information.
The Internet requirement delays certain commands, including the opening of programs on the system. In fact, users still need to click on a button to launch a program, provided that Windows Copilot identified it correctly.
A better approach would be to process certain commands locally. It makes no sense to send the “open app” command to the Internet to return a button that the user needs to click to launch it.
Another issue is hallucinations. The AI may sometimes return information that is not accurate or unrelated to the user’s request.
Closing Words
Microsoft’s work on Windows Copilot continues; this is a good thing, as it needs work to become a useful tool for some users. Right now, it loses out against the deprecated Cortana in many regards.
The fact that most Windows users ignored Cortana or did not like it does not help make a case for Windows Copilot either.
Only time will tell whether Windows Copilot will become a useful tool for Windows users and administrators, or if it will land on Microsoft’s growing pile of deprecated services in the next couple of years (only to be replaced with the next big thing).
Now You: do you use digital assistants or AI tools?
Thank you for your article.
You have to wonder why Microsoft releases new features/packages so early in their development. Yes, Microsoft may appear as being innovative by being first out with a new concept, enabling them to get lots of valuable feedback from the public which could be useful in shaping its future development, but equally, it lays itself open to criticism and ridicule from the public, reacting to Microsoft’s hype over its half-baked ‘crippleware’. Microsoft’s innovation, once again, is seen as being less than useful and, well, just a pathetic joke.
Once they do get around to improving it and re-release it in later and improved revisions, they then have to re-sell it to the public all over again as something better, great and wonderful. Whether or not it is great and wonderful at this point is probably unimportant, as the public’s perception of the product is now so affected by its premature release that Microsoft, with its reputation further tarnished, has to, once again, drag its reputation back from the brink as it tries to win back the disaffected users and attempt compete with the inevitable competitors who, by then, are probably doing the same thing, but better. cf. Edge browser. Microsoft certainly doesn’t seem to make life easy for themselves. If only they could create something that REALLY WORKED…. and THEN release it… maybe then we’d be genuinely impressed and look on them with, perhaps, a little more respect…
… or maybe we wouldn’t…
I don’t know why I should be not be more positive about some of these wonderful Microsoft innovations. Possibly I have been influenced too much over the years by the many entertaining, caustic comments that are posted at the end of Martin’s articles. Perhaps that is what is making me just a little biased. Maybe Microsoft actually isn’t all that terrible after all and the cause of my poor attitude is Martin’s fault for writing so critically and ‘pointing the finger’ at Microsoft’s shortcomings. Yes, that must be it – it must have been Martin’s fault, all along! 🙂
Happy Christmas, Martin.
(I know it’s early, but at least Christmas has been fully-tested, popular with the public and is not a Microsoft creation! 🙂 )
Merry Christmas to you as well. Microsoft is currently in “we need to put AI into everything asap” mode. It is good for the stock price, but the products are often mediocre because of a lack of testing and quality management.
Windows Copilot has improved since its beginnings, but it is still not a great solution for anything that has to do with Windows.
It should not be too difficult to add a local layer to the app that speeds certain things up. The opening of apps should not be that exuberant. I’m still waiting for a true troubleshooting helper powered by AI that doesn’t just look up solutions on the Web that may or may not work.
Anyway, I continue to keep an eye on all AI developments 🙂