Microsoft’s, $MSFT, AI chatbot will have ‘photographic memory’ of everything you do on a PC, per MW.
The software giant revealed a new class of AI-imbued personal computers on Monday as it faces intensified competition from Big Tech rivals in promoting generative AI technology that can compose documents, create images, and act as a lifelike personal assistant at work or home.
The announcements, made ahead of Microsoft's annual Build developer conference, focused on integrating its AI assistant, called Copilot, into the Windows operating system for PCs, where Microsoft already has the attention of millions of consumers.
New features will include Windows Recall, giving the AI assistant what Microsoft describes as “photographic memory” of a person's virtual activity. Microsoft promises to protect users' privacy by allowing them to filter out what they don't want tracked and keeping the tracking on the device.
It's a step toward machines that “instantly see us, hear us, and reason about our intent and our surroundings,” said CEO Satya Nadella.
“We’re entering this new era where computers not only understand us, but can actually anticipate what we want and our intent," Nadella said at an event at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
The conference, which starts Tuesday in Seattle, follows major AI announcements last week from rival Google and Microsoft's close business partner OpenAI, which built the AI large language models that power Microsoft's Copilot.
Google unveiled a retooled search engine that periodically places AI-generated summaries over website links at the top of the results page. They also showcased a still-in-development AI assistant, Astra, that will be able to “see” and discuss things shown through a smartphone’s camera lens.
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI introduced a new version of its chatbot last week, featuring an AI voice assistant with human-like qualities that can chat about what someone is wearing and even try to assess a person’s emotions. The voice was so similar to Scarlett Johansson's portrayal of an AI character in the sci-fi movie “Her” that OpenAI removed it from its collection on Monday.
