Microsoft has designed an animated face for Copilot, its ubiquitous AI Assistant. Is Mico, whose name rhymes with "pico", going be a worthy successor to Clippy, the highly annoying paperclip that tried to be helpful, but often came across as an infuriating distraction? Or will we love chatting to it?

Rather surprisingly in the three years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene none of the LLMs that we regularly interact with have been given an avatar or a face. Now Microsoft has unveiled an  optional visual persona for Microsoft Copilot, hence "MiCo", in the October 2025 Copilot Fall Release, to serve as an expressive AI persona.

Introducing Mico, Jacob Andreou, Corporate Vice President of Product and Growth for Microsoft AI said suggests that the innovation will enhance the experience of interacting with Copilot, making it more personal:

You can see it, it reacts as you speak to it, and if you talk about something sad you’ll see its facial expressions react almost immediately. All the technology fades into the background, and you just start talking to this cute orb and build this connection with it.

Even though Mico is primarily designed for voice interactions with Copilot, this video provided by Microsoft is silent and we will have to wait to find out what its voice sounds like.

Mico will also use a new memory feature inside Copilot to "remember" facts it has learned about you and the things you’re working on adding to the idea of have a personal helper who understands you.

Andreou himself referred to Clippy, the Office Assistant in the form of an animated paperclip in early versions of Microsoft Word, in an interview with The Verge stating:

"Clippy walked so that we could run."

However there are some important differences. Clippy was pro-active and would pop-up uninvited with comments like:

"I see you're writing a letter. Would you like help?"

which broke the user's flow. It was difficult to disable and many users found it a frustrating distraction.

By contrast, Mico is optional and waits for the user to engage with it first. And if developers attitude to their interaction with ChatGPT and Gemini is anything to go by, the chances are that it will be a welcome enhancement that will reinforce the idea that Copilot has a friendly and understanding persona.

Microsoft is also adding a Learn Live mode to Mico that will turn the character into a "Socratic tutor" that “guides you through concepts instead of just giving answers” using interactive whiteboards and visual cues. It will be interesting to see how this works with different groups of users.

Initially Mico will be available only in the USA.

More Information

Human-centered AI

Meet Mico, Microsoft’s AI version of Clippy (The Verge)

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