Microsoft has just unveiled the new face of Copilot — a friendly animated avatar named Mico.
Mico listens, reacts, and even changes colours to reflect your interactions. With this new animated companion, Copilot feels more like a true AI partner. It’s designed to help you think, plan, and work more efficiently, adapting to your needs, remembering past conversations, and learning from your feedback.
If you haven't used Copilot yet, it's Microsoft’s built-in digital assistant, blending conversational AI into your Windows PCs. It can adjust settings, summarise documents, organise files, and even perform tasks across multiple apps.
This isn't the first avatar Microsoft has had to assist you while working, either.
You might remember Clippy, officially called Clippit, Microsoft’s animated paperclip assistant from Office 97. Clippy was designed to help with tasks like writing letters or formatting documents, offering tips and shortcuts through an intelligent interface. While it aimed to make computing easier, many felt it was intrusive and overbearing, leading Microsoft to retire it in Office 2007.
However, if you're wishing for Clippy to make a reappearance, you can tap on Mico repeatedly, and it will eventually transform into the infamous paperclip.
With the arrival of Mico, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, has said, "Instead of AI that replaces human judgment, we’re building AI that empowers your own – helping you make better decisions, spark your creativity, deepen your connections.
"Here’s the simple idea I keep coming back to: technology should work in service of people. Not the other way around. Ever.
"That’s the principle behind Copilot. In this, it’s not just a product – it’s a promise. A promise that AI can be helpful, supportive, and deeply personal. It’s built around your creativity, your productivity, your relationships. I often say you should judge an AI by how much it elevates human potential, not just by its own smarts."
To use Mico, follow these steps:
- Make sure you have Copilot installed/up-to-date and voice mode enabled.
- Launch Copilot and enter voice mode: you should see the Mico avatar appear
- If you find Mico to be too distracting, then you can easily toggle it off while you work
Mico is only available in the US, with a wider rollout expected in other regions down the line.
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It's also important to note that Mico is only compatible with Windows 11 devices.
By some estimates, 5 million Britons are still relying on Windows 10 despite the vulnerabilities now baked into that operating system. This means if you're using your laptop or desktop PC for online banking, financial spreadsheets, family photos, or other personal data, cybercriminals are much more likely to unearth a new loophole in Windows 10.
If you avoid the switch to Windows 11, you'll miss out on new Windows features, which will be exclusive to the Windows 10 successor moving forward | MICROSOFT PRESS OFFICE Microsoft will continue to offer free security updates to any Windows 10 user who signs-up to OneDrive cloud back-up. If not, there's a one-off £22 charge to ensure your device remains protected. The Redmond-based company clearly wants you to upgrade to Windows 11 sooner rather than later, despite offering this temporary reprieve.
If you avoid the switch to Windows 11, you'll miss out on new Windows features you'll miss out on new Windows features, which will be exclusive to the Windows 10 successor moving forward.
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