Microsoft to let consumers tailor AI assistant to their needs

Microsoft Corp., determined to hold its ground in artificial intelligence, will soon let consumers tailor the Copilot digital assistant to their own needs.

The chatbot will be able to record user preferences – such as favorite foods or movies or past vacations – and carry that knowledge into future conversations. The functions, rolling out in the coming months, echo efforts by rival chatbot makers to bake personalization into their products.

“Copilot will understand you in the context of your life, and show up, on your terms, in the right way at the right time,” Mustafa Suleyman, who leads Microsoft’s consumer AI work, said in a blog post on Friday.  

The Redmond, Washington-based company earns the vast majority of its revenue from sales to businesses and is racing to build out Copilot-branded AI tools in its portfolio of corporate software. Chief Executive Satya Nadella recruited Suleyman to build out an AI franchise for consumers.

Suleyman, who co-founded Google’s DeepMind, has said that making chatbots useful beyond transitory conversations requires the ability to adapt to users’ tastes and needs. 

Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced last month that its Gemini assistant would be able to draw on individuals’ search history. OpenAI customers can feed interests and preferences into ChatGPT. Amazon’s Alexa+, which is starting to roll out to Echo smart speaker owners, can draw on shoppers’ purchase and video streaming histories.  

Microsoft says users will have the ability to choose which types of information Copilot recalls, or opt out of personalization entirely.  

Friday’s announcement was timed to a celebration for employees held at Microsoft headquarters to mark the software maker’s 50th anniversary.