We don't store any of the material with Copilot Vision, so once you close the browser after your session, it all just disappears. It will be removed completely. But I'm thinking about if and how I can introduce it in the future, because a lot of people want that experience. If you could just say, “What was that photo I saw online the other day?” What kind of meme was that?' I guess we'll have to look at it one day.
However, at this time the Copilot Vision tool is transitory. We will have to experiment over time and see what makes sense in that regard.
What about the privacy risks that arise when people otherwise share sensitive information with Copilot?
We store the log files you generate as a result of your conversation in the most secure manner, according to the highest standard of Microsoft security. And we keep that, because of course you want the conversation history.
You also introduce Think Deeper, which helps Copilot tackle tougher problems. This is based on OpenAI's o1 model, also known as Strawberry, right?
It's like Strawberry, yes. There's an OpenAI model that we've tailored to our more consumer purposes, and we've made it work in a way that's more consistent with our AI companion theme.
What are the differences?
OpenAI's is much more focused on purely mathematical and scientific problem solving. And what we've tried to do is make it focus on side-by-side comparisons and some kind of consumer analysis, things like that.
Or if you're stuck on a difficult problem or want to think through something, it can really do a side-by-side comparison or analysis at scale.
Are people at Microsoft already using this new version of Copilot?
Yes, everyone uses it. A few days ago we became generally available across the company. So everyone uses it and gives a lot of feedback. Our feedback channels have been absolutely slammed. It's a lot of fun.
People will remember Clippy, Microsoft's last AI helper for Windows. Do people see parallels there?
Ha, well, I saw Bill Gates the other day, and he was like, do you realize you've been giving this whole AI thing the wrong name? It should be called Clippy. I thought: dude!
But I mean, it just shows you how amazing people like Bill are. People who look ahead not just two years, but twenty years.
Are the new features a step towards so-called AI agents, which do useful chores on a computer?
Yes, absolutely. The first phase is for AI to process the same information you process: seeing what you see, hearing what you hear, and consuming the text you consume. The second phase is [AI having] a long-term, persistent memory that creates a shared understanding over time. And the third phase is AI's interaction with third parties by sending instructions and taking actions – to buy things, book things, make a schedule. And we have these two features in an experimental R&D mode that we're working on.
