(Credit: René Ramos; Microsoft; ZinetroN / Adobe Stock)
Few things gave me more pleasure than shouting to turn off my PC for the night from across the living room. No Mac user could simply say, “Hey, Cortana, shut down the computer!” It was just one of the now-defunct Cortana's many capabilities that Microsoft's new Copilot AI doesn't currently replicate.
For those who don’t remember Cortana, it was the first AI-ish voice assistant to appear on a desktop PC, beating Siri on the Mac by more than a year. In addition to shutting off your computer, Cortana could also change system settings, open apps, send emails, and answer general knowledge questions, just like Alexa or Google Assistant.
I realize that Copilot is a whole different animal than Cortana, with vastly greater knowledge and linguistic skills, but both involve voice interaction with your PC. In fact, a previous version of Copilot had some system control features that overlapped with those of Cortana. However, they are no longer available, which leads me to ask: Shouldn't Copilot, at a minimum, be able to do everything Cortana did?
Why Can't Copilot Control Your Computer?
So, what’s the starting requirement for the kind of functionality I’m looking for? A wake word.
It's true that you can get wake word functionality in Windows via the Voice Access accessibility feature. However, it's most suitable if you want to do everything on your PC via voice rather than just some things. Another difference is that Voice Access can't use AI to find answers and generate content. And unlike with Cortana, tasks like changing system settings and shutting down your computer aren't a one-command affair.
I understand that implementing device control—and especially wake word functionality—is more difficult on mobile devices since Microsoft doesn’t control the hardware features necessary to enable it. But on Windows PCs, that shouldn’t be much of a hurdle since Microsoft has a lot of influence over PC hardware requirements, such as the requirement of a TPM security chip for Windows 11 and an NPU for Copilot+ PCs.
I’m not even asking for control of various smart home devices like Cortana offered. After all, Microsoft had announced that Cortana would no longer work as a smart device controller toward the end of its life. That's fine; all I’m asking is that Copilot can control the very PC you use it on!
A Good Sign of Things to Come
Don’t get me wrong: Microsoft has added some very cool things to Copilot recently, including Copilot Vision, which uses multimodal generative AI to observe active windows (on your PC) or your surroundings (via your phone's camera); Copilot Pages, which helps you draft and save persistent documents; and Copilot Search, a supercharged Bing capability that makes its thought processes and sources more transparent than rivals. The company is even experimenting with a Copilot Personalization feature, by which the AI takes on a visual personality.
From the announcements at Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebration, it seems like my wish might soon come true. A press release on Copilot Vision states, "You’ll be able to use Copilot to search, change settings, organize files and collaborate on projects without switching between files or apps." However, that seems to pertain only to running apps the AI sees on the screen. Extend this to Windows itself, and I’ll be a happy camper.