It looks like Microsoft is hopping on the AI voice assistant bandwagon. On Tuesday, the tech monolith announced a refresh to Copilot, its Windows AI assistant platform. Updates include voice and vision capabilities, a virtual news presenter mode, and more natural speech support.
Copilot’s Newly Updated Features
The most compelling new feature of the update is AI voice functionality. This allows you to have conversations as though you were speaking to a real person. Responses are fast. And, if you want to change topics mid-conversation, you can even interrupt the assistant.
At the heart of Copilot are four oddly-named voices: Wave, Meadow, Grove, and Canyon. Wave is an upbeat “male” voice with a distinctive British charm. Grove, on the other hand, is a “female” voice that sounds as though it’s just recovered from a head cold. Meadow could be the long-lost sister of Apple’s Siri, and Canyon has a much deeper register and calmer “male” sound.
I tried these new voice features as part of my research for this article, and Copilot lives up to Microsoft’s claims. I found the assistant to be surprisingly intuitive and pleasant to chat with.
We’ve tested other AI chatbots before, but, for me, the Copilot experience was pretty slick. At times, it felt like I was chatting with a human. That’s not to say that the experience was devoid of odd inflections or other tell-tale signs of AI. It wasn’t.
A Step Toward the Future for Microsoft
Microsoft’s Copilot update comes at a time when voice-based AI is gaining momentum across the tech space. According to the company, the update is a single step in a much larger AI-focused plan.
“This is the beginning of a fundamental shift in what’s possible for all of us,” writes Microsoft AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, in the official Copilot announcement. “With our latest updates to Copilot, you are seeing only the first careful steps in [Microsoft AI’s] direction.”
As inspiring as Suleyman’s words are, Copilot is up against AI heavy-hitters like Apple, Meta, Google, and ChatGPT. The latter rolled out its own AI voice assistant just last month. Even with the update, Copilot doesn’t appear to be at that level just yet.
And while it’s likely that the Copilot will see some increased usage as a result of these new features, how much is yet to be determined. One thing is certain, however: Microsoft is in for a tough fight. Especially if it wants Copilot to compete with the other AI assistants currently dominating the space.