The Microsoft AI Newscaster
No sooner do we get the news that there's likely a new AI strategy on the way from Microsoft, at least on the consumer side, does news leak out about one such effort. As Tom Warren scoops:
Microsoft is working on an overhaul of its Copilot mobile app that includes a new feature that will transform the AI assistant into a virtual news presenter. Multiple sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell me that the software giant has been testing a completely redesigned Copilot app in recent weeks that looks unlike any of Microsoft’s other apps.
The Copilot redesign surfaces topics you can choose from based on your own interests or your history of asking Copilot questions. The AI assistant might offer to generate a story for you one day, ask if you to do a workout the next, or simply surface the latest sports scores without you having to ask for them.
Clearly, Microsoft is trying to create an app that will pass "the toothbrush test" – that is, something you'll come back to once or twice a day, every day. The current Copilot app for mobile is actually highly-rated, but it's clearly not a daily driver of usage that Microsoft is looking for – given that it's essentially just a skin for ChatGPT, it sort of begs the question why it exists, as there's already a ChatGPT app, of course. It seems like Microsoft is trying to come up with a reason for Copilot to exist, for consumers, at least.
The interface is card-based, with AI-generated imagery to entice Copilot users into using the app more. While the chatbot system is still very much in place, you can scroll through a list of topics and suggestions without ever having to type to Copilot.
Will that entice users to use the app more? Why? More enticing:
Copilot will even read the news to you, rattling off snippets of headlines and information from publications as if the AI assistant were a real news presenter. Music accompanies this particular mode, and the AI presenters sound as if they’re radio presenters reading the daily news. Microsoft does warn that “there may be mistakes” and the interface lets you skip between news headlines and access links to the news articles Copilot is referencing.
It’s not clear when Microsoft plans to launch this new version of Copilot for iOS and Android, but sources tell me it’s already very usable and feels polished. The interface looks similar to Pi, the AI assistant that Inflection AI created. Microsoft hired Google DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman as the CEO of its new AI division earlier this year, along with a large number of Inflection AI staff.
Inflection AI’s Pi bot lets you choose a voice when you first start using it, and the new Copilot app prompts you to select a voice, too. Pi is also based around suggesting topics of conversation, with a focus on being more of a personal assistant. It’s clear that Suleyman is pushing Copilot toward this personal assistant functionality on the consumer side.
Ah yes, I thought this sounded and looked familiar – while I only used Pi a couple of times before it was shut down, it does seem as if Suleyman has at least partially recreated his old Inflection product under the Microsoft 'Copilot' banner. Perhaps that's a decent enough idea if one of the key problems for Inflection's Pi was top-of-funnel and not retention.
Of course, there are no shortage of AI apps and services doing similar things already. Google's 'Gemini Live' also has you select a voice and presumably can do similar things, though needs to be prompted to do so. (And Google's NotebookLM "podcast" feature seems interesting.) Ditto with OpenAI's voice functionality, which was finally just rolled out – though given that's using OpenAI's data, it's not going to surface up-to-date news, so it makes sense for Microsoft to leverage their own unique capabilities in that way.
I'm also reminded of Particle, a new AI startup still in beta testing, which is quite good at surfacing news and summarizing it back to you, verbally. It's very well done and is built around the same topic-based interest graph idea.
I think keeping the 'Copilot' branding is probably okay for such a product – your copilot on staying up to date? For your day? – but there's a risk that people just conflate it with the enterprise versions of Copilot (not to mention the decidedly worse branded 'Copilot+ PCs' – which also just may recall the Recall nightmare for Microsoft in consumer AI, thus far – I still think they may need to totally reboot that effort). So perhaps another name would suit such a product better.
Mainly I'm curious if Microsoft is able to pull something off on the consumer front here. And if they can do so with or without OpenAI's models. This was an expensive cup of coffee Microsoft bought to try...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler