Microsoft’s new AI “Copilot for Gaming” struggles to justify its existence – Ars Technica
We’re still a ways off from the conversational AI “partner” teased last year.
Last year, Microsoft showed off a pair of concept videos highlighting how “real-time conversations with your AI companion copilot” might one day provide personalized guidance and companionship while playing a solo game of Minecraft. Now, Microsoft is announcing that it will roll out “Copilot for Gaming” as an “ultimate gaming sidekick” that will be available via mobile app preview for Xbox Insiders starting in April.Unfortunately, the current version of Microsoft’s gaming “copilot” seems to fall well short of last year’s demo, providing some bare-bones automation of functions that can mostly be achieved pretty easily today without the aid of AI. The new app feels less like a revolutionary new use case for conversational AI and more like a glorified, Xbox-branded version of Apple’s Siri.Watching a short, livestreamed demo of the new Copilot for Gaming app, my reactions quickly shifted from “that’s kind of neat” to “wait, is that it?” That process started from the very first moment, when a player asked, “I want to get back into Age of Empires… Can you install it?” Conversational installation prompts could be a bit more convenient than simply clicking the handful of buttons needed to start a game install without AI, but it’s not the most exciting use case to lead off with.The same goes for the demo’s conclusion, where Copilot notes that “your friends are online” and suggests that the player “hop in to Sea of Thieves on cloud gaming.” Again, this seems like the kind of thing any Xbox player could pull off for themselves without any help from Copilot. And while Microsoft insists that AI will help these game recommendations be individually tailored to each player, most players should be able to figure out their next game for themselves without a marketing-adjacent AI message pushing it on them.While playing Age of Empires, the player in our demo asked about “the best way to take out the beast,” a query that brought up a small text snippet with tips for how to do just that. There’s definitely some value in consulting a text guide this way rather than spending a minute or two searching out the same information using current online resources. But that benefit depends heavily on Copilot understanding both your question and the answer fully, without retreating to hallucinations that could have no bearing on the actual game.The same could be said for the demo player asking Copilot to “tell me about the real Frankish siege of Tyre,” simulating the experience of gaming while sitting next to a college professor. This seems like the kind of thing a Copilot-less player could easily look up on their own when the game is done, sacrificing some multitasking convenience for the assurance that an AI isn’t potentially making up details about a historical event.The most intriguing part of the current Copilot for Gaming demo came when Copilot offered “a recap of where you left off” to fill the time during installation. The AI voice then proceeded to go into specifics about how the player’s last fight “didn’t go as planned” when “your base was destroyed by the beast.”This is a feature that could be genuinely useful for lapsed players who return to a game after a monthslong break, only to find that they’ve forgotten what led them to their current save point. It’s also a feature that Microsoft says depends on an AI-powered, personalized “understanding of where players are at in the game and what they’re doing.”For the most part, though, the current demonstrated benefits of Copilot for Gaming are not much more than conveniences, saving you the hassle of pausing your game for tasks that would take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes without AI. While those perks are nice enough, they’re a far cry from the promise of the fully integrated conversational gaming partner Microsoft first teased ten months ago.That kind of full-featured AI gaming companion was relegated to a part of the presentation for “forward-looking explorations” that show off “concepts” of what a later version of Copilot might be able to do in the future. In addition to a Minecraft session that played out like an interactive FAQ (complete with inane newcomer questions like “is that a zombie?”) that forward-looking demo also included some new examples of potential AI integration for Overwatch.There were some promising moments in that Overwatch demo, such as when Copilot suggested a new hero selection that gelled well with both the player’s current teammates and the player’s play history on the current map. Copilot also was able to respond to questions like “how did I die so fast?” with the kind of specific tips a real-world gaming coach might give (“You stayed in the fight too long after your teammates were down”).If Microsoft can pull off that kind of easy, adaptive discussion of live gameplay in the future, we could see ourselves happily chatting with Copilot during our everyday gaming sessions. For now, though, we can’t see as much point in a version that simply automates a few minor gaming hassles.Ars Technica has been separating the signal from
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