Windows Copilot Will Be Better Than Cortana, Experts Say

Microsoft is making artificial intelligence (AI) the centerpiece of Windows, and experts say the move could change how you do everything with the operating system.

Windows Copilot will be an AI chat interface built into Windows. The software will perform tasks like summarizing documents, suggesting music, offering tech support for your PC, and answering questions you might ask a search engine or AI chatbot. The company is clearly hoping that Copilot will erase memories of Cortana, its previous, and sometimes unloved, assistant. 

"Cortana was Microsoft's attempt at a mobile voice assistant," tech analyst Bob Bilbruck, the CEO of Captjur, told Lifewire in an email interview. "Copilot is a true AI technology actually built into the complete technology stack as part of the application and platform. It's not limited like Cortana was, and it's cross-platform now with Azure. So it will be able to assist in all operations, applications, and platforms that Microsoft offers. It's true assistive intelligence built into and integrated with the complete technology stack."

Your New Copilot

The latest version of Microsoft's AI tools will arrive in an upcoming preview version of Windows. The chatbot will live in an icon in the taskbar that resembles a loop of blue ribbon. If you click the icon, you will open a chat interface sidebar to type questions. 

"Just like you would with Bing Chat, you can ask Windows Copilot a range of questions from simple to complex," Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer, Windows and Devices, wrote on the company's website. "If I want to call my family in Cyprus, I can quickly check the local time to make sure I'm not waking them up in the middle of the night. If I want to plan a trip to visit them in Cyprus, I can ask Windows Copilot to find my family flights and accommodations for mid-winter break."

Copilot will be handy because Microsoft has built technology that integrates AI into all Windows operations, Bilbruck said. 

"Copilot is part of this, and it will [help] users in every way possible to assist them using the software and the platform they are using at the time," he added. "It will assist in the intelligence of whatever operation or app they are using, thus enhancing the things and the speed of doing those things. It also will assist in intelligent task management and scheduling."

This isn't the first time Microsoft has tried to stuff a virtual helper into an operating system. Cortana uses the Bing search engine to perform tasks such as setting reminders and answering questions for the user.

"Cortana, while groundbreaking at its inception, was restrained by the technological limitations of its time," AI expert William Lam said in an email. "It occasionally struggled with intricate commands, and its integration within the Windows ecosystem wasn't as fluid as desired."

But Lam said that Copilot is designed with advancements in AI and machine learning algorithms, making it superior in adaptability and precision. 

"While Cortana did provide basic assistance and voice control, Copilot will take it a step further," he added. "It offers an immersive conversational experience, decoding complex requests and facilitating multi-step tasks."

AI Everywhere

Microsoft is among the many companies rushing to integrate AI into their products. Google recently announced that its Workspace suite of products is getting a raft of AI enhancements. 

Google's generative AI is coming to Sheets, Slides, and Meet under the new Duet AI for Google Workspace. In Gmail, Google Docs, and Slides, you will soon get a Duet AI side panel called "sidekick." The feature can be launched next to your profile avatar in the top-right corner, and it analyzes your email or document. In Google Slides, for example, it can create speaker notes for each slide.

If you've tried using assistants and been frustrated with the results, the new generation of AI helpers will likely be much more functional. For example, Cortana didn't have real intelligence built into it, Bilbruck pointed out. Instead, it was based on a database of canned responses. 

"Copilot actually has generative AI built into it, which means it will get more intelligent over time and improve the functionality and usefulness of the application—thus making the operations, applications, and platforms that it is integrated with more useful, powerful, and self assistant over time," he added.