If you missed it, Microsoft recently announced its new "Hey, Copilot" feature. If that gave you immediate flashbacks to its Windows 10-era "Hey, Cortana," or even the "Start Listening" phrase from Windows Vista, then you likely already know what this feature will do.

It's part of something called "Copilot Actions" that will allow the AI assistant to do tasks around your computer. If you want something done, the idea is that you say "Hey, Copilot," and it'll light up. You can then explain what you want done, and Copilot will do it for you. However, I have a nasty feeling that, much like Windows Vista's voice activation and Cortana, the idea of saying "Hey, Copilot" to your PC isn't going to be used as much as Microsoft may hope.

Microsoft Copilot is definitely the best opportunity for voice commands to work...

I won't deny that it sounds good on paper

So, I want to lay the foundation real quick. I agree with Microsoft's decision to allow Copilot to control stuff on your operating system. In fact, I named it one of the features Copilot has to nail just under two years ago. And I still stand by what I said back then: the idea of letting Copilot find a setting or troubleshoot a problem by researching online sounds really handy.

The problem I have is more focused on the "Hey, Copilot" part. The company wants us to talk to our computers and verbally ask it to do things. And while I don't think it'll take off, I do think now is the time for Microsoft to try the concept another time.

What I didn't like about prior efforts is that the voice recognition system didn't truly parse what you were asking. It would take what you said, try to apply one of its pre-programmed commands, and then run with that. If you ask it to do something it wasn't specifically programmed to respond to, it wouldn't know how to handle it.

Now that we have LLMs, that's no longer an issue. Now it can break down precisely what you're trying to do, then give you the solution to fix your particular problem. So I don't blame Microsoft for giving voice commands another try with the power of LLMs.

...but I still don't think it'll take off

The problem isn't the computer understanding me, it's speaking to it

Okay, so I'll admit it. In a vacuum, talking to your PC sounds awesome. The concept is reminiscent of sci-fi movies or scenes with hackers where they'll say something like "computer, backtrace that connection," and it'll reply with a verbal affirmative before getting the job done.

However, we're not cyberpunk agents or commanders of an AI-powered spaceship. We're tired, frazzled, and somewhat impatient people slaving away at a PC. And when you're in that state, you're going to opt to boot up Copilot and type what you want in the box instead of speaking out loud. Because talking to yourself in your office just feels off somehow.

Granted, this is fantastic for accessibility. If Microsoft can really nail the "Hey, Copilot" feature, it'd let people who struggle to type verbalise what they want to do or say, and have the AI do all the heavy lifting. But in terms of regular use? I don't see myself using it. In fact, it reminds me of when ChatGPT first released the conversation feature, where you could speak to the AI and it'd do its best to give you the impression of a 1-to-1 conversation with a human being. It was fun on the first day, but afterward, I didn't want to chat on my phone anymore. I just wanted to type whatever it is I was thinking.

I don't think this time is the charm, either

Whenever Microsoft has made progress in its speech recognition systems, it has then tried to implement a feature that lets you talk to your PC. And while I won't argue that it's amazing for accessibility, I really don't think people will generally want to have a conversation with Copilot, no matter how cute it'll try to look doing so. I won't deny that LLMs have definitely revolutionised how people can speak to an AI, and Copilot should be far better at understanding the user's needs than something like Cortana; however, at the end of the day, you're still talking to your PC. And people don't really wanna do that.