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Microsoft’s latest Copilot refresh puts a deliberately playful face on Windows 11 AI: an animated avatar called Mico that appears in Copilot’s voice mode, changes color and shape to signal listening or thinking, and is explicitly designed as an optional, friendlier way to make voice-first interactions less awkward for non‑technical users. The announcement is as much about product psychology as it is about capability: Microsoft pairs Mico with major Copilot features — long‑term memory, shared Copilot Groups, a “Real Talk” mode that can push back, and Learn Live tutoring flows — in a Fall release that begins rolling out to U.S. consumers first and expands the assistant’s role across Windows, Edge and mobile surfaces.

A cute yellow blob named Mico with a glowing blue halo, listening in the Copilot UI.Background​

From Clippy to Copilot: a short lineage of Microsoft’s assistants​

Microsoft has experimented with anthropomorphic helpers for decades — from the Microsoft Bob-era Rover to the infamous Office Assistant “Clippy,” and later Cortana. Those efforts taught the company clear lessons about interruptive personality and user trust. The new avatar, Mico (a contraction of Microsoft Copilot), is explicitly framed as a modern, permissioned evolution of that lineage: intentionally non‑photoreal, opt‑in, and scoped for specific voice-first and tutoring contexts rather than as an ever-present desktop interloper.

Why Microsoft is doubling down on voice and personality​

Voice and multimodal AI continue to be awkward social experiences for many users. Microsoft’s bet is that adding non‑verbal cues — an animated avatar that signals when the assistant is listening, thinking or ready to act — lowers social friction and makes hands‑free sessions (study, group planning, guided help) feel more natural. The decision is strategic: personality can increase engagement and retention, and when paired with expanded capabilities (shared sessions, memory and agentic actions), it helps Microsoft lock Copilot deeper into everyday workflows.

What Mico is — and what it isn’t​

Design and interaction model​

Mico is an animated, abstract avatar that appears when you use Copilot in voice mode or on the Copilot home surface. It reacts with color shifts and shape changes to indicate status — listening, thinking, acknowledging — and supports simple touch interactions (tap the avatar for playful responses). Microsoft intentionally avoided photorealism to reduce emotional over‑attachment and to remain clearly an interface layer rather than a human surrogate. The avatar is optional and can be disabled for users who prefer a text‑only or silent Copilot.

The Clippy echo — deliberate and small​

Reviewers noted an easter‑egg wink to Clippy: repeated taps in preview builds can briefly morph Mico into a small Clippy‑like form. Microsoft positions that as a playful nod to its history, not a revival of the old intrusive assistant. The product teams emphasize that Mico is purpose‑bound (tutoring, group facilitation, voice sessions) and not meant to replicate Clippy’s interruptive behavior.

Where Mico appears and how it’s controlled​

Mico is enabled automatically in Copilot's voice command mode in the initial rollout, but users can turn off the animated avatar if they prefer. The rollout begins in the United States with other countries to follow in subsequent waves. Microsoft pairs Mico with explicit controls around Copilot’s memory and connectors so that the avatar’s friendly presence does not obscure consent and data usage.

The broader Copilot Fall release: features that matter​

Microsoft shipped Mico as the most visible element of a larger set of Copilot changes. These additions reshape Copilot from a single‑query assistant into a persistent, collaborative, and more opinionated companion.

Headline features​

  • Copilot Groups — Shareable Copilot sessions for up to 32 participants where everyone interacts with the same assistant, and Copilot can summarize, propose options, tally votes, and split tasks.
  • Long‑term Memory & Connectors — Copilot can remember user preferences and project details and connect (with permission) to OneDrive, Outlook, Gmail, Google Drive and Google Calendar to ground responses. Memory management UIs allow viewing, editing and deletion.
  • Real Talk — An optional persona that will push back on inaccurate or risky assumptions, designed to reduce the “yes‑man” tendency in conversational models.
  • Learn Live — Voice‑enabled, Socratic tutoring flows with visual whiteboards for guided help and study sessions. Mico serves as a friendly anchor in these scenarios.
  • Edge Actions & Journeys — Permissioned, multi‑step agentic tasks in Microsoft Edge (booking, form completion, resumable Journeys) that Copilot can perform when explicitly authorized.
  • Health Grounding — Copilot returns health answers grounded in vetted publishers and includes flows to surface clinicians by specialty and preference.
Each feature is opt‑in, and Microsoft positions these as gradual, staged rollouts to U.S. consumer users before broader availability.

Why Mico might actually be useful​

1. Lowers the barrier for voice-first computing​

Many users find talking to a blank screen awkward. A visual, animated anchor that signals when the assistant is listening or thinking helps users judge timing and reduce the anxiety of “speaking into a void.” That matters in tutoring sessions, multi‑step help flows, and family scenarios where non‑technical users might otherwise avoid voice controls.

2. Supports richer, shared workflows​

Copilot Groups turns one‑on‑one prompts into a shared workspace — useful for family trip planning, classroom collaboration, or small team brainstorming. An avatar that cues participation and attention in a group session can improve conversational flow and coordination.

3. Clarifies state during multimodal tasks​

Multimodal features such as Learn Live and Vision-enabled instructions (Copilot Vision) perform better when users understand whether the assistant is listening or processing. Mico’s non‑verbal cues provide that clarity without requiring constant textual confirmations.

4. Purposeful, not pervasive​

Microsoft’s stated design intent was to avoid past mistakes: Mico is role-focused (learning, voice sessions, group facilitation), optional, and built with memory controls. That purpose-first approach reduces the risk of the avatar becoming a generic interruption vector.

The trade-offs and real risks​

No matter how polished the design, Mico’s arrival magnifies the trade‑offs already present in Copilot’s evolution.

Privacy and data‑access concerns​

Mico’s helpfulness depends on context: Copilot’s memory and connectors let the assistant recall preferences and recent activity. That convenience has a cost. Persistent memory, cross‑account connectors, and agentic actions increase the amount of personal data the assistant can access and use — creating more surface area for accidental data leakage, misconfiguration, or policy mismatches between personal and enterprise accounts. Microsoft has promised controls, but defaults, telemetry practices, and cross‑service data flows will determine actual risk.

The attention economy and emotional design​

Animated personalities can manipulate attention. Nonverbal cues and a friendly face tend to increase engagement, sometimes beyond rational utility. Design elements that make users feel comfort or familiarity risk producing excessive trust in Copilot’s outputs — a critical problem when answers relate to health, legal, or financial choices. Mico’s non‑human styling is a mitigation, but emotional signals still influence user perception.

Governance and enterprise controls​

Enterprises and regulators will demand granular admin controls: disabling eye‑catching features for regulated users, controlling connectors, and auditing memory stores. Microsoft has signaled enterprise gating for some features, but the staggered rollout and SKU differences mean governance gaps are likely during expansion. IT teams must plan policies and pilots rather than wait for defaults to be safe.

The “anchoring” problem: persona vs. veracity​

Mico adds warmth; Real Talk aims to add pushback. But persona and factual accuracy are orthogonal. A friendly or opinionated avatar does not guarantee fewer hallucinations or safer outputs. The company’s improvements to grounding and model variants are necessary but not sufficient — robust third‑party audits and transparent provenance are still required to make outputs reliably usable for high‑stakes decisions.

Practical checks: what to verify before enabling Mico and Copilot features​

When a platform grants an assistant memory and cross‑account access, users and admins should treat enablement as a deliberate choice, not a default.
  • Confirm whether the feature is enabled for your account and region (initial rollout targets the United States).
  • Open Copilot’s Memory settings and review stored items; proactively delete anything you do not want remembered.
  • Audit connectors (OneDrive, Outlook, Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar): disconnect services that are not essential.
  • If you care about workplace controls, check your organization’s admin center for Copilot gating options and disable Mico or agentic Actions for regulated SKUs.
  • For households or classrooms, run a short pilot with Learn Live and Groups to see whether the avatar improves or distracts from learning outcomes.

Recommendations for power users, admins and everyday consumers​

  • For power users who find Mico distracting: disable the avatar in Copilot voice mode and continue to use text or voice without animation. Microsoft built toggles for this use case.
  • For privacy‑conscious consumers: keep connectors off by default, limit memory retention, and use Copilot in short, session‑bound interactions rather than persistent, memory‑enabled modes.
  • For IT professionals: treat the Copilot Fall release as a platform change, not a cosmetic update. Draft explicit policies for connectors, memory, and agentic Actions; stage pilots for supervised rollouts; and communicate clear guidance to end users. Audit logs and data residency details must be part of procurement decisions.
  • For educators and family organizers: pilot Learn Live and Groups with clear guardrails. Mico may lower social friction and help novices use voice features, but learning outcomes are still the metric that matters.

Product strengths: where Microsoft gets it right​

  • Purpose‑driven design: Mico is scoped to specific use cases (tutoring, group facilitation, voice sessions) rather than being an always‑on desktop pet. That reduces the most common complaint about past assistants.
  • Opt‑in and control: Memory UIs, connector consent, and toggles for avatar and persona reflect lessons learned from earlier failures like Clippy. The product surface includes deletion and viewing tools for remembered data.
  • Integrated, multimodal vision: Pairing the avatar with Copilot Vision, Edge Actions and shared Groups creates genuinely new workflows rather than mere cosmetics. That integration is what could make Copilot stick in daily tasks.

Weaknesses and open questions​

  • Defaults matter: Even with opt‑in controls available, default settings and the onboarding experience will shape adoption and risk. If defaults favor convenience, privacy and governance will suffer.
  • Cross‑service complexity: Connectors to Google services and Microsoft cloud storage raise questions about data flows between accounts and how Copilot attributes sources in answers. Clear provenance and export controls are needed.
  • Regulatory and international differences: Europe, the U.K., and other jurisdictions have different privacy and AI regulatory expectations; Microsoft will need to adapt behavior, defaults and documentation per market. The U.S.-first rollout buys time but not immunity from later policy headaches.
  • Behaviour at scale: Pilot and preview feedback is positive on some fronts, but large‑scale use often surfaces new edge cases — particularly when group sessions, cross‑account connectors and agentic actions interact. Monitoring and rapid iteration will be critical.

The cultural angle: why people groaned — and why that’s not the whole story​

The initial online reaction to Mico has echoes of the Clippy era: hardened Windows users see an animated blob and groan. That reaction is culturally rooted in decades of skepticism about anthropomorphized UI. For many enthusiasts, the idea of a “cute” assistant on the desktop feels like a regression.
But Microsoft is not primarily targeting power users with Mico. The avatar is designed for mainstream, sometimes anxious users — people who are intimidated by technology or who find voice interactions socially awkward. In that audience, the same animation that elicits groans among enthusiasts could meaningfully increase adoption and engagement. The real test is whether the avatar improves outcomes (faster problem resolution, better tutor retention, smoother family collaboration) without undermining privacy and trust.

Final analysis: calculated experiment, not a gimmick — but governance will decide the result​

Mico is a carefully engineered UI experiment layered on top of a much larger product bet: turning Copilot into a multimodal, memory‑enabled companion across Windows, Edge and mobile. The design choices — non‑human visuals, opt‑in enablement, memory UIs, and gradual rollout — demonstrate that Microsoft internalized lessons from Clippy and Cortana.
Yet success is not guaranteed. The technical gains (Groups, memory, Actions) are real and could provide tangible productivity improvements. The behavioral hazards — attention capture, overtrust, privacy exposure — are equally real and require active mitigation through conservative defaults, clear user controls, and enterprise gating.
If Microsoft prioritizes transparency, easy deletion and robust admin controls, Mico can be a pragmatic way to make voice assistance approachable for millions of users. If engagement metrics override governance and defaults favor convenience, the company risks repeating old mistakes at a larger scale. The next phase of public rollout, real‑world telemetry and user testing will decide whether Mico becomes a helpful companion on Windows 11 or another nostalgic footnote in the history of UI personalities.

Quick checklist: what to do today​

  • Disable Mico if you find the avatar distracting.
  • Review Copilot Memory and delete anything unnecessary.
  • Audit connectors and disconnect nonessential cloud accounts.
  • For admins: pilot features with a small group, define policies for connectors and Actions, and monitor behavior.
Mico is more than a bouncy blob — it is the visible hinge of a much broader Copilot strategy that will change how people interact with Windows 11. The decision to adopt it should be deliberate: weigh convenience against control, and treat this as a platform shift that requires governance rather than a superficial UI tweak.

Source: TweakTown Microsoft reveals bouncy new AI companion for Windows 11 - Mico - and almost everyone groans
 

Microsoft’s new Copilot avatar, Mico, is Microsoft’s most visible attempt in years to give artificial intelligence a friendly face — a deliberately abstract, non‑photoreal visual companion designed to make voice and group interactions feel less awkward while avoiding the intrusive mistakes that made Clippy a UX pariah. Early previews and company messaging frame Mico as an optional, role‑scoped UI layer for voice-first tutoring and small‑group facilitation that sits on top of the Copilot engine, paired with clearer memory controls, connectors to user data stores, and new agentic capabilities in Edge.

Copilot UI with a colorful gradient blob and winking chat icon in a meeting room.Background​

From Clippy to Copilot: what changed​

Microsoft’s history with anthropomorphic helpers is long and instructive. The Office Assistant era ended with a clear lesson: users reject interruptions and personality without purpose. Today’s Copilot sits on far stronger technical ground — large, multimodal models, persistent memory, and permissioned connectors — but the same human factors risks remain. Microsoft’s public design statements and preview coverage underscore that Mico was built explicitly as a purpose‑first persona, not an always‑on companion, with opt‑in controls and scoped scenarios aimed at preventing the “pop‑up nuisance” problem that sank Clippy.

The strategic bet​

Mico is part of a broader Copilot effort to make voice interactions natural and to expand Copilot from a single‑user Q&A box into a persistent, social assistant that can remember context, facilitate groups, and perform permissioned actions on the web. The strategy trades some of the cold efficiency of faceless automation for the cognitive and social affordances of personality — signaling listening, reducing the awkwardness of speaking to a silent interface, and helping teachers, students and small teams stay coordinated during voice sessions.

What Mico is — design, intent and interaction model​

A deliberately non‑human avatar​

Mico appears as a small, animated, amorphous shape that shifts color and form to indicate states such as listening, thinking, and acknowledging. Microsoft intentionally avoided photoreal faces or humanoid bodies to reduce the risk of emotional over‑attachment and the uncanny valley. The avatar is a UI layer — an expressive skin on Copilot’s conversational engine — and not a separate intelligence. Early previews show tactile interactions (tapping changes shape and color), which are meant to be playful and informative rather than manipulative.

Purpose‑first personality​

Unlike Clippy, which surfaced across many apps unsolicited, Mico is role‑scoped to specific use cases: Learn Live (a Socratic tutoring mode), Copilot Groups (shared sessions for planning and study), and long voice sessions where nonverbal cues help users orient the conversation. The persona is opt‑in, and UI toggles allow users to disable the avatar entirely if they prefer a text‑only Copilot. Those two design choices — scope and control — are the core defensive measures against the historical pitfalls of early anthropomorphized assistants.

The Clippy wink​

Preview builds reportedly include a small easter egg: repeated taps can briefly morph Mico into a Clippy‑like paperclip. Company messaging frames this as a low‑stakes, nostalgic nod rather than a return to intrusive behavior. Because the feature was observed in early previews, it should be considered provisional and subject to change.

The Fall Copilot release: features that matter​

Mico is the most visible element, but the release bundles several consequential features that materially change Copilot’s role.

Key additions​

  • Copilot Groups: A shared Copilot session that lets multiple people (commonly reported as up to 32 participants in previews) interact with a single assistant that summarizes, tallies votes and proposes action items. This shifts Copilot into a collaborative facilitator role.
  • Real Talk mode: An optional conversational setting that encourages the assistant to challenge or show reasoning instead of reflexively agreeing, intended to reduce sycophancy and improve critical thinking.
  • Learn Live: Voice‑enabled, guided tutoring flows that use Copilot’s conversational abilities to scaffold study sessions in a Socratic style.
  • Long‑term memory with controls: Copilot can remember facts about users, projects and group context — with visible memory management that lets users view, edit, and delete stored memories. Connectors to OneDrive, Outlook and consumer Google services are opt‑in.
  • Edge Actions & Journeys: Agentic browser features that permit Copilot to perform multi‑step tasks (bookings, reservations) when explicitly authorized, and to group browsing into resumable workspaces. These agent actions increase automation but also raise governance questions.

Rollout and packaging​

The rollout began as a staged U.S. consumer preview and is server‑gated by Copilot package versions; early distribution was tied to Copilot app package series beginning with identifiers in the 1.25095.x family for Insider builds. Availability and feature parity will vary by ring, region and Microsoft 365 subscription level. Administrators and procurement teams should not assume uniform availability outside preview channels.

Technical constraints, controls and verification​

Memory, connectors and enterprise governance​

The update exposes explicit memory controls and places connectors behind opt‑in permission grants. That architecture is designed to make personalization both useful and auditable: Copilot will only access private data when authorized, and users can manage what Copilot retains. For enterprise adoption, administrators must validate how Copilot memory maps to existing compliance tools for eDiscovery, retention policies and data residency. Early documentation and previews promise visible memory controls and connector consent flows, but final enterprise semantics (retention windows, exportability, audit trails) must be verified against the official admin documentation before production enablement.

Agentic actions: convenience versus brittleness​

Edge Actions reduce friction by letting Copilot execute multi‑step web tasks, but agentic automation is brittle: web layout changes, partner site quirks and edge cases can cause failures with downstream consequences (failed bookings, misdirected payments). Systems that perform actions on behalf of users require rigorous confirmations, visible logs, rollback mechanisms and conservative defaults before enterprise or financial use.

Accessibility and parity​

Visual avatars increase social cues for sighted users but may be less usable for people who rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation. Microsoft’s documentation indicates opt‑out toggles exist, but enterprises should insist on verified keyboard and screen‑reader parity and alternative cues for voice‑only workflows before enabling Mico broadly. Accessibility parity is a compliance and equity issue as well as a usability one.

Risks and ethical considerations​

Privacy, regulation and memory scope​

Persona‑driven assistants that store group context and private documents invite regulatory scrutiny. Health workflows touch HIPAA concerns in the U.S.; memory and consent attract GDPR‑era scrutiny in Europe. Microsoft’s emphasis on opt‑in connectors and visible memory controls is a necessary baseline, but reviewers and auditors will likely demand provenance metadata, auditable logs and conservative defaults for minors and sensitive domains. Organizations should expect regulatory guidance to evolve alongside deployments.

Hallucination and persuasive error​

Modes like Real Talk are designed to increase criticality and to reduce blind agreement, but disagreement without provenance can be dangerous if a system confidently asserts wrong counterarguments. In high‑stakes areas (medical, legal, financial), outputs must be treated as starting points and paired with clear citations and verification pathways. Without transparent provenance, a personable voice plus confident but incorrect claims is a vector for persuasive misuse.

Attention, engagement, and behavioral design​

A smiling animation can increase engagement and time‑on‑task, which is commercially attractive, but defaults matter. If persona features are enabled by default or tuned toward engagement metrics, the charm of Mico could morph into a distraction or a persuasive lever that reduces user skepticism. Microsoft’s opt‑in posture and memory controls are safeguards, but enforcement in telemetry and UX defaults will determine outcomes at scale.

Practical guidance: what to do now​

For everyday users​

  • Use Mico for focused, bounded tasks where non‑verbal cues help (study sessions, group planning).
  • Treat Copilot outputs as assistive starting points; verify facts and request citations for any high‑stakes claims.
  • Disable the avatar if it’s distracting: Copilot → Settings → Voice mode → toggle Avatar off. Preview UI shows such toggles exist.

For educators​

  • Pilot Learn Live on non‑critical materials and rework assessment policies to account for AI assistance.
  • Confirm age‑appropriate defaults and parental controls before permitting school‑managed accounts to use voice or group features.

For IT and security teams​

  • Run a controlled pilot to validate memory semantics and connector behavior with compliance tooling.
  • Restrict connectors via policy and apply least privilege to email, calendar and drive access.
  • Configure SIEM alerts and audit logs for agentic Actions and require explicit confirmations for critical operations.
  • Verify eDiscovery and retention behaviors for Copilot memory and voice transcripts before enterprise enablement.

Metrics that should determine success​

For Mico to be more than a viral mascot, Microsoft and IT teams should publish or monitor measurable signals that prove the persona adds durable value:
  • Task completion uplift: Do voice sessions with Mico complete tasks faster or with fewer clarifying turns than faceless voice?
  • Trust calibration: Do users calibrate confidence appropriately (i.e., consult citations or doubt when warranted) when Mico is enabled versus disabled?
  • Safety signals: Rates of harmful or incorrect recommendations in Learn Live, group sessions, and health queries — and time to remediation.
  • Privacy audits: Documentation of memory retention windows, exports, deletion guarantees and eDiscovery semantics.
Without transparent reporting on these dimensions, persona design risks being a surface‑level delight rather than a measurable productivity improvement.

Competitive and cultural context​

The Mico experiment sits in a broader industry trend: vendors are testing a spectrum of persona degrees — from faceless utility to photoreal avatars and emotional “companions.” Microsoft’s positioning aims for a middle path: social cues without photorealism, opt‑in controls and enterprise‑grade governance. The company’s ecosystem reach (Windows, Office, Edge, mobile) means a single persona can appear across far more touchpoints than most competitors — increasing both the potential utility and the governance burden. Cultural nostalgia (the Clippy wink) is smart PR, but nostalgia alone cannot substitute for demonstrable improvements in accuracy, safety and administrative control.

Final assessment — can Mico succeed where Clippy failed?​

Mico is a smarter, more cautious experiment than Clippy ever was. It is built atop powerful models, explicit opt‑in consent flows, visible memory controls and scoped roles that directly address the interruptive, contextless problems of the 1990s. Those architectural and UX changes are meaningful improvements.
Yet the decisive work lies beyond animation. The success factors are operational, not aesthetic:
  • Conservative defaults and clear, discoverable controls for memory and connectors.
  • Robust provenance and citation UI in opinionated modes like Real Talk.
  • Enterprise admin tooling that provides auditable logs, eDiscovery compatibility and least‑privilege connector policies.
  • Accessibility parity and usable fallbacks for assistive‑technology users.
  • Rigorous testing and conservative rollout of agentic Actions until automation is demonstrably reliable in real‑world web conditions.
If Microsoft enforces these disciplines and measures outcomes with transparent metrics, Mico could become a durable, helpful face of Copilot rather than a short‑lived curiosity. If the company prioritizes engagement metrics or easter‑egg virality over governance, the industry risks relearning lessons that Clippy taught decades ago. The avatar alone will not determine the outcome — the invisible scaffolding of privacy, provenance, auditing and accessibility will.

Microsoft’s Mico is a purposeful experiment at the intersection of psychology and productivity: a small, playful visual cue attached to a larger, consequential shift in how assistants remember, act and socialize. The immediate advice for users and IT leaders is practical and conservative — pilot, verify, restrict, and demand auditable behavior. The long view depends on execution: charm will bring users in, but governance will determine whether they stay.

Source: Toronto Star Microsoft hopes Mico succeeds where Clippy failed as tech companies warily imbue AI with personality
 

Microsoft’s new Copilot avatar, Mico, is the most visible symbol of a larger strategic pivot: turn a reactive Q&A engine into a socially aware, voice-first assistant while avoiding the UX mistakes that made Clippy infamous. The rollout bundles Mico with group sessions, a “Real Talk” mode that will push back rather than agree reflexively, long‑term memory with explicit controls, and browser agent capabilities — a set of features that lift Copilot from a single‑user chatbot to a persistent collaborator across Windows, Edge and mobile. Microsoft frames these changes as human‑centered AI and emphasizes opt‑in controls and scoped use‑cases; independent reporting and preview coverage confirm the mechanics and the staged U.S. rollout.

Three teal blob characters with Real Talk and Learn Live speech bubbles on a soft aqua background.Background / Overview​

Microsoft introduced Mico and a broad Copilot refresh at a Copilot‑focused event and in coordinated blog posts announcing a fall consumer release. The company positions Mico as an optional, abstract animated avatar that appears primarily in voice interactions and Learn Live tutoring flows; it is explicitly non‑photoreal to avoid the uncanny valley and emotional over‑attachment. The Copilot updates also include:
  • Copilot Groups — shareable sessions where many people can interact with the same assistant.
  • Real Talk — an opt‑in conversational mode that can challenge user claims and show more of its reasoning.
  • Learn Live — voice‑enabled, Socratic tutoring and study flows.
  • Long‑term memory and connectors — persistent personalization with user‑facing controls for view/edit/delete.
  • Edge Actions & Journeys — permission‑gated agentic behaviors for multi‑step web tasks.
Multiple independent outlets reported the same core claims and timing: initial availability is staged and U.S.‑first, with additional English markets following in preview phases. Reporters at major outlets observed previews of Mico and the accompanying features during the announcements.

What Mico is — design, intent and where it sits in Copilot​

A deliberately non‑human persona​

Mico is a compact, animated, amorphous avatar that uses shape, color and short animations to indicate states such as listening, thinking and acknowledging. Microsoft’s stated design intent is explicit: keep it non‑photoreal, tactile and optional so the avatar helps reduce the social friction of speaking to a silent interface without encouraging emotional dependence. The company promotes Mico as an interface layer — visual feedback atop Copilot’s reasoning engine — not a separate intelligence.

Purpose‑first personality​

The single most important product change from the Clippy era is scope. Where Clippy wandered across apps and interrupted work, Mico is framed for role‑specific scenarios:
  • Voice sessions (desktop and mobile) where nonverbal cues tell you Copilot is listening.
  • Learn Live tutoring sessions that favor Socratic prompts and scaffolding rather than just handing answers.
  • Copilot Groups for shared planning, studying and decisions among friends or small teams.
This purpose‑first framing is central to Microsoft’s pitch: personality must be earned and useful, not decorative.

The Clippy wink — playfulness, not resurrection​

Preview builds and early demos reportedly include a playful easter egg: repeated taps on Mico can briefly morph it into a Clippy‑like paperclip. Microsoft presents this as a low‑stakes cultural nod, not as a return to the persistent, unsolicited assistant model. Treat this behavior as preview‑observed and provisional — it appears in staged builds and may change before general availability.

Technical features and verified claims​

Below are the most load‑bearing technical claims from Microsoft’s announcement and independent reporting, cross-checked across corporate and press sources.
  • Mico is enabled in Copilot’s voice mode and is optional. Microsoft’s Copilot blog describes Mico as “expressive, customizable, and warm” while emphasizing that the visual presence can be disabled by users. Independent outlets that observed the announcement corroborate the opt‑in posture.
  • Copilot Groups supports up to 32 participants in consumer previews. This participant cap was repeatedly reported by Reuters and The Verge and appears in preview documentation; treat precise caps as subject to tuning during rollout.
  • Real Talk is an opt‑in mode to show reasoning and challenge assumptions. Microsoft’s messaging and multiple reports confirm the new conversational style that intentionally avoids sycophancy and can push back on user claims. The exact internal mechanics of provenance display and chain‑of‑thought transparency remain implementation details under refinement.
  • Long‑term memory with management controls is available. Copilot will persist certain user facts and preferences and expose UI controls for editing and deletion; Microsoft emphasizes conversational memory management and explicit consent. Independent reporting confirms these controls as central to the release.
  • Edge Actions & Journeys provide agentic, permissioned web tasks. Microsoft described these features as multi‑step actions (bookings, reservations, form fills) that require explicit confirmation. Reporters noted potential governance complexity here; administrators should verify audit trails and confirmation flows before enabling wide access.
  • Rollout is staged and U.S.‑first. Coverage shows previews and staged deployments beginning in the United States; additional markets (UK, Canada and others) follow in waves. Administrators and procurement teams should not assume immediate availability across regions or SKUs.
A number of preview‑level details (exact tap thresholds for the Clippy easter egg; internal package IDs observed in Insider rings) were surfacing in staged builds. These are useful lead indicators but are provisional; confirm final behavior in Microsoft’s official release notes and admin documentation.

Why Microsoft is adding personality now — strategy and human factors​

Voice and multimodal AI interactions are awkward for many users: people hesitate to talk to a silent, faceless interface and can misread latency or silence as failure. An expressive visual anchor like Mico reduces that social friction by signaling states — listening, thinking, ready — so the interaction feels more natural and discoverable. Microsoft couples that psychology with a business logic: personality increases retention and the likelihood that Copilot becomes the habitual interface to personal files, calendars and the web. But the company stresses a middle path: a friendly look that remains purposeful and constrained.
From a product design angle, the risk landscape is well understood: personalities that interrupt, over‑validate, or obscure provenance create annoyance, bias reinforcement, or worse. Microsoft says it is designing Mico to be supportive — not sycophantic — and pairs visual cues with stronger memory UI, confirmation flows for agent actions, and conservative safety defaults for health and other sensitive domains. Independent reporting and analysts echo this as the right set of tradeoffs — but emphasize execution will determine outcomes.

Governance, privacy and regulatory implications​

The feature set materially expands where Copilot touches personal and group data. That shift raises governance needs that cannot be solved by a cute animation alone.
Key governance considerations:
  • Memory governance and consent: Long‑term memory lowers friction but also increases risk. Organizations must be able to audit, export, and delete memory entries; Microsoft public documentation emphasizes edit/delete controls, but admins should validate retention semantics before production rollouts.
  • Connector scoping and least privilege: Copilot’s connectors to email, calendar and cloud drives are powerful. Enterprises should restrict connectors by policy and allow only necessary scopes to reduce exposure.
  • Agentic actions audit trails: When Copilot can perform multi‑step browser tasks, SIEM integration, confirmation gating, and human review logs become essential. Confirm whether executed actions create durable audit records and how rollbacks are handled.
  • Health and education compliance: Learn Live’s tutoring flows and the health grounding features invite HIPAA considerations (in the U.S.) and education policy concerns in school deployments. Microsoft indicates health flows are grounded in vetted sources; administrators must still treat outputs as assistive, not diagnostic, and ensure appropriate human oversight.
  • Regulatory scrutiny and child safety: Regulators and civil society are watching persona‑driven assistants, especially where children and teens interact with chatbots for emotional support. Microsoft’s emphasis on opt‑in, transparent memory controls and conservative defaults is necessary but should be validated through independent audits and documented test results.

Accessibility and inclusion​

Visual, tactile avatar interactions must have functional parity for keyboard and screen‑reader users. If Mico’s interactions are primarily visual, Microsoft must provide equivalent controls and ARIA semantics to maintain accessibility parity. Early documentation references opt‑out toggles and settings, but organizations should confirm full keyboard, voice and assistive‑technology support before broad enablement. Accessibility validation should be part of any pilot program.

Risks and practical mitigations​

Mico’s arrival expands both utility and risk. Below are the principal hazards and practical mitigations for IT leaders and power users.
  • Risk: Unclear defaults lead to surprise memory collection.
  • Mitigation: Configure conservative default memory settings; require explicit opt‑in for long‑term personalization at account or tenant level.
  • Risk: Agentic web actions cause unintended data exfiltration or financial transactions.
  • Mitigation: Lock agent capabilities to admin‑approved sites and require explicit second‑factor confirmation for sensitive transactions.
  • Risk: Avatar increases attention/engagement metrics at the cost of productivity or wellbeing.
  • Mitigation: Make Mico opt‑in at policy level; provide a single shared toggle for appearance features across managed devices.
  • Risk: Education misuse and academic integrity drift when Learn Live supplies answers without process evidence.
  • Mitigation: Pilot Learn Live on non‑graded content; pair With plagiarism detection and assignment designs that require process documentation.

How IT teams and educators should pilot Mico and Copilot features​

  • Run a small, representative pilot group that includes accessibility users, legal/compliance reviewers and a cross‑section of productivity profiles.
  • Validate memory semantics: test view/edit/delete flows and document retention windows.
  • Restrict and test connectors with least‑privilege policies (email, calendar, drive).
  • Simulate agentic Actions on staging sites and confirm SIEM/audit trail fidelity and rollback behavior.
  • Test Learn Live on non‑critical curricula; assess accuracy, pedagogy and alignment with academic integrity policies.
  • Confirm region and SKU availability before procurement; staged rollouts mean behavior varies by ring and region.

The product tradeoffs — strengths and where caution is warranted​

Strengths​

  • Human factors‑aware design: Mico’s non‑photoreal, purpose‑scoped approach addresses the two big UX failures of Clippy: interruption and lack of clear utility. Microsoft’s emphasis on opt‑in controls is a positive step toward user choice.
  • Integration across surfaces: Coupled with Edge agentic features and connectors, Copilot becomes more useful for end‑to‑end tasks — summarization, booking, and synchronized group work — reducing context switching.
  • Governance tooling stated as a priority: Microsoft explicitly highlights memory controls, confirmation flows for Actions, and opt‑in connectors in its messaging. If delivered well, these are practical mitigations for many privacy concerns.

Risks and unknowns​

  • Execution complexity: The technical and policy plumbing — auditable logs, eDiscovery semantics, robust removal workflows, and fault tolerance for Actions — matter far more than the avatar itself. These operational controls will determine whether Mico helps or obscures risk.
  • Accessibility parity: If visual cues are not matched with robust assistive alternatives, the avatar may create second‑class experiences for people using screen readers or keyboard navigation.
  • Emotional and behavioral effects: Even with non‑photoreal design, persona‑driven AI can influence user behavior subtly (validation loops, time spent). Microsoft’s civic‑minded framing helps, but outcomes will depend on defaults and telemetry incentives.
  • Regulatory follow‑up: Health, education and child‑safety regulators are actively investigating AI companion risks; deployments in these domains should be conservative and closely monitored.

What winning looks like — metrics Microsoft (and customers) should publish​

For Mico to become durable and not merely viral, Microsoft ought to publish or enable customers to measure:
  • Task completion and accuracy improvements for voice sessions with Mico vs. faceless voice.
  • Rates of user opt‑out for appearance/memory features (a signal of annoyance vs. utility).
  • Provenance and citation fidelity rates for Real Talk and health outputs.
  • Accessibility compliance reports showing keyboard and screen‑reader parity.
  • Audit and eDiscovery throughput and retention guarantees for memory and voice transcripts.
If Microsoft couples aesthetically pleasing design with transparent metrics and operational controls, Mico can be a pragmatic template for humane AI interfaces. If engagement metrics or viral marketing priorities overshadow governance, Mico risks becoming an attractive veneer on unresolved safety and privacy challenges.

Conclusion​

Mico is more than a mascot; it is a visible expression of Copilot’s strategic shift from an on‑demand answer box to a persistent, social assistant that remembers, acts and — now — emotes. The design choices are sensible: non‑human visuals, opt‑in controls, role‑scoped use cases, and explicit memory management are direct responses to the failures of Clippy’s era. But the shape of success is operational, not aesthetic. The critical tests are conservative defaults, rigorous auditability, accessible interactions, and honest measurement of outcomes.
For Windows enthusiasts, educators and IT leaders, Mico’s arrival is a practical invitation to pilot thoughtfully: enable what adds value, lock down what’s sensitive, demand provenance, and insist on parity for assistive technologies. The next 6–12 months of staged rollouts, enterprise pilots and independent audits will show whether Mico becomes the helpful interface Microsoft promises or a charming distraction that conceals deeper governance gaps.

Source: Goshen News Microsoft hopes Mico succeeds where Clippy failed as tech companies warily imbue AI with personality
 

Microsoft’s Copilot just got a personality: a floating, expressive avatar called Mico, plus a suite of social, memory, and voice-first features that collectively reshape how Copilot will behave on Windows, in Edge, and on mobile. The Fall Release — unveiled during Microsoft’s Copilot Sessions in late October 2025 — bundles a visual companion, a “real talk” conversational style, long‑term memory and connectors to third‑party consumer services, collaborative group chats for up to 32 people, a voice‑led Socratic tutor called Learn Live, and deeper integrations that push Copilot from a reactive answer engine to a persistent, proactive assistant.

A friendly Copilot UI on a laptop displays Real Talk nonverbal indicators with avatars and learning tools.Background / Overview​

Microsoft presented the Copilot Fall Release at a public Copilot Sessions event in Los Angeles on October 22–23, 2025, positioning the update as part of a broader move toward “human‑centered AI.” The company framed the release as a shift from transactional, single‑session interactions to persistent, contextual companions that remember context, collaborate with multiple people, and respond in voice and vision modes across Windows and the Edge browser.
This is a high‑visibility consumer push that touches three product axes simultaneously: interface (Mico and conversational styles), platform (Edge as an “AI browser,” Windows voice integration), and data/utility (memory, connectors, proactive actions). The change is strategic: it aims to make Copilot feel personal and social while embedding it deeper into everyday workflows.

What Microsoft Announced: Feature Snapshot​

  • Mico — an animated, emotive avatar for Copilot’s voice interactions. Described as expressive, customizable, and warm, Mico provides nonverbal cues (facial expressions, shape and color changes) while you talk to Copilot. Microsoft frames it as optional and configurable, though some reporting indicates it will appear by default in voice mode on certain platforms.
  • Copilot Groups — shared Copilot sessions that support up to 32 people in a single conversation, with the assistant summarizing threads, proposing options, tallying votes, and helping split tasks. Sessions are link‑based and intended for friends, classes, or project teams.
  • Memory & Personalization — long‑term, user‑managed memory that can retain project context, preferences, and facts across sessions, with UI controls to view, edit or delete remembered items. Microsoft emphasizes explicit controls and opt‑in connectors.
  • Real Talk — a new conversational mode that is designed to adopt a more collaborative, sometimes challenging stance: it adapts to user tone, can push back on assumptions, and aims to be less sycophantic than earlier assistant styles. Microsoft says real talk is intended to spark growth and connection while remaining respectful.
  • Learn Live — a voice‑enabled, Socratic tutoring experience for guided learning: questions, visual cues and interactive whiteboards help students and learners work through concepts rather than just receiving answers.
  • Connectors & Proactive Actions — opt‑in links to OneDrive, Outlook, Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar to enable natural‑language searching across accounts, plus “Proactive Actions” that propose next steps or surface relevant info based on recent activity. Some of these features require a Microsoft 365 Personal/Family/Premium subscription.
  • Edge: AI Browser Mode, Journeys & Actions — Copilot Mode in Edge can look at your open tabs (with permission), summarize content, compare information, and take actions like booking hotels or filling forms. Journeys organize past browsing into storylines you can return to.
  • Model Strategy — Microsoft is increasingly integrating its in‑house MAI models (examples cited include MAI‑Voice‑1, MAI‑Vision‑1, and MAI‑1‑Preview) alongside other model partners to power voice, vision, and reasoning capabilities within Copilot.
Availability initially targets the United States, with rollout to the U.K., Canada, and additional markets in the following weeks. Specific features such as Groups, Learn Live, and health tools are U.S.‑first.

Why Mico? Design Intent and UX Tradeoffs​

A modern Clippy: nostalgia with control​

Microsoft deliberately invoked the clippable nostalgia of Clippy with Mico’s playful animations and an Easter egg that can briefly transform the avatar into a Clippy‑like paperclip. But the company’s stated intent is to avoid the intrusive, attention‑seeking behavior that made Clippy infamous: Mico is billed as optional, customizable, and designed to create nonverbal social signals to smooth voice interactions. That choice reflects lessons learned: anthropomorphic UI elements can increase engagement and comprehension, but must be deployed with clear opt‑out controls.

Nonverbal cues reduce social friction​

Talking to a silent UI is awkward; a responsive avatar that nods, changes color, or looks concerned can reduce friction and help users know the assistant is listening or processing. That is the UX rationale behind Mico — for voice flows and learning sessions it can make conversations feel less mechanical and more like a dialog. Early coverage underscores the design goal: reduce friction for voice and create a “warm” presence that supports tutoring flows and longer vocal interactions.

Design tradeoffs​

  • Positive: better social cues, clearer listening feedback, potentially improved usability for hands‑free scenarios.
  • Negative: potential distraction, emotional manipulation risk (an upbeat avatar can influence user trust and decisions), and increased surface area for visual accessibility issues or annoyance on shared devices.

Privacy and Safety: Memory, Connectors, and Group Chats​

Microsoft emphasizes user control: memories are editable and deletable, connectors are opt‑in, and some features require being signed in and aged 18+. But these controls do not eliminate risk; they change the attack surface and the social dynamics of using Copilot.

Memory & Personalization — convenience vs. persistence risk​

Long‑term memory is a major step toward a genuinely useful assistant: Copilot can retain project context, preferences, and facts so you don’t have to repeat yourself. That convenience is powerful for workflows, but it raises questions:
  • What exactly is stored, for how long, and where (device vs. cloud)?
  • Which teams or admins see these memories on shared devices or corporate systems?
  • How are memories grounded and audited when they influence recommendations?
Microsoft’s published guidance stresses UI controls and edit/delete functions, but independent verification of backend retention policies and retention windows remains necessary. Users should proactively review the Memory & Personalization dashboard and periodically purge sensitive items.

Connectors — cross‑account search raises permission complexity​

Connectors to Gmail, Google Drive, Outlook, and OneDrive unlock cross‑account search but require explicit consent. This is functionally useful (one natural-language search across multiple clouds) but can also surface private data if granted too broadly. Users should:
  • Audit which accounts are connected.
  • Use per‑connector permissions rather than blanket authorizations.
  • Avoid connecting work and personal accounts on the same profile unless separation is intentional.

Groups — collaboration convenience and shared responsibility​

Shared Copilot sessions introduce a new collaboration model where the assistant holds a single, shared context. Copilot can summarize, tally votes, and split tasks — features ideal for group planning — but link‑based sessions behave like access tokens. Best practices include:
  • Treat session links as sensitive (don’t post them publicly).
  • Avoid sharing passwords, private medical details, or personally identifying data in group chats.
  • Understand that anything said in the group can be used to shape the session’s memory unless you explicitly remove it.

Health-related outputs: grounding vs. liability​

Microsoft says Copilot for Health will ground answers in credible sources (examples include Harvard Health) and help users find doctors. Grounding is essential, but it is not a substitute for professional medical advice. The company has limited these tools to U.S. availability for now, reflecting extra legal/regulatory complexity around health guidance. Users must treat the assistant’s medical suggestions as informational rather than authoritative and verify with licensed clinicians.

Trust, Manipulation, and the Ethics of Personality​

Adding a personable face to an AI assistant is not just a UI decision — it’s an ethical design choice. Avatars influence perceived authority and empathy, which can make users defer to machine suggestions more readily.
  • Emotional influence: Animated faces and empathic language can increase user trust even when the underlying model is uncertain. Designers must ensure the avatar does not over‑signal confidence.
  • Pushback vs. persuasion: The new real talk persona is meant to challenge users respectfully, which can be valuable. But a confrontational tone can also alienate or inadvertently gaslight users if the model’s reasoning is flawed.
  • Ad voice and monetization: Microsoft has experimented with ad‑style features in Copilot — contextual placements beneath responses with conversational summaries — and anthropomorphic assistants can make sponsored content feel more persuasive. Transparency and separation between organic and paid content are vital.
The company’s stated approach is “human‑centered AI” with controls and opt‑ins; however, the ethical effectiveness of these controls will depend on default settings, clarity of consent, and how easily users can exercise control in practice.

Technical Verification: What We Can Confirm Today​

  • The Fall Release was announced during Copilot Sessions in Los Angeles on October 22–23, 2025.
  • Mico — Microsoft introduced an animated avatar named Mico for Copilot voice interactions; some outlets report it appears by default in voice mode while Microsoft materials emphasize it as optional/configurable. This is a point of public reporting divergence and should be checked in your device’s Copilot settings if you have the update.
  • Groups supports up to 32 participants in shared Copilot sessions.
  • Memory & Personalization, Learn Live and Real Talk are newly announced features; availability is U.S.‑first for many components, with phased rollout elsewhere.
  • Microsoft mentions in‑house models such as MAI‑Voice‑1, MAI‑Vision‑1, and MAI‑1‑Preview as part of its model stack.
Where reporting diverges — for instance, the exact default state of Mico — users should verify directly in their Copilot app settings (or consult Microsoft’s official product pages) because press coverage sometimes paraphrases or simplifies technical rollout defaults.

Practical Guidance for Windows Users (Short, Actionable)​

  • How to check Mico and voice settings:
  • Open Copilot (Windows taskbar or Copilot app), go to Settings or Voice & Appearance, and look for the avatar/appearance toggle to enable or disable Mico. If you see the avatar in voice mode and want it off, switch the visual presence setting to off. If your UI differs, check the Copilot help page inside the app for exact steps.
  • Manage Memory & Personalization:
  • Visit Copilot’s Memory dashboard to review items Copilot has saved. Edit or delete entries you don’t want stored. Periodically clear memories tied to sensitive projects or personal data.
  • Control Connectors:
  • Only connect accounts you trust. Revoke access for connectors you no longer use, and avoid mixing work and personal accounts when possible.
  • Use Groups safely:
  • Treat group invite links like private tokens; set clear group rules about what to share; avoid posting secrets or credentials in shared sessions.
  • Verify health/legal guidance:
  • When Copilot gives medical, legal, or other high‑stakes advice, look for source attributions and confirm with qualified professionals. Don’t rely solely on a conversational model for decisions with legal or health consequences.

Strategic Analysis: What Microsoft Gains — and What It Risks​

Strengths and opportunities​

  • Stickiness through memory and connectors. By storing long‑term context and enabling cross‑account search, Copilot becomes more useful over time and harder to replace. This is a classic platform strategy: increase switching costs by making the assistant the repository of your ongoing projects and preferences.
  • New collaboration model. Shared AI sessions for groups can speed decision making, planning, and classwork. For social uses — planning trips, group projects, or study sessions — Copilot Groups provides genuine utility.
  • Edge as an AI browser differentiator. Actions and Journeys could reposition Edge as a productivity browser with built‑in execution capability (bookings, form filling), which helps Microsoft compete with AI features in rival browsers.
  • Human‑centered branding. Mico and real talk help Microsoft sell a softer, more human assistant that can be framed as trustworthy and useful rather than purely attention‑grabbing.

Risks and downsides​

  • Privacy and regulatory friction. Memory + connectors + group chats create many compliance vectors (data residency, HIPAA for health cues, GDPR consent semantics, children’s privacy rules) that can be costly and legally sensitive in some markets. Microsoft’s U.S.‑first rollout suggests caution around regulatory complexity.
  • Design ethics and manipulation. Avatars amplify emotional responses. If defaults are set to favor Mico in voice mode, some users may be nudged into over‑trusting Copilot’s outputs. Clear, discoverable controls are essential.
  • Hallucination and liability. Even with grounding in curated sources for health queries, models can hallucinate or misinterpret context. Real talk that challenges users is valuable only if the model’s reasoning is reliably correct; otherwise it risks confusing or misleading people.
  • Security of group sessions and connectors. Link‑based access and broad cross‑account connectors require robust safeguards: session expiration, link revocation, per‑participant controls, and transparent logs of who joined and what the assistant stored.

How This Fits the Market and Competition​

Anthropomorphized assistants and companion‑style experiences are increasingly common across competitors: OpenAI’s ChatGPT offers more voice and persona options, Google uses Gemini and integrated visual/voice experiences in Bard and Chrome, and specialized apps have cultivated millions of users by selling character‑driven AI. Microsoft’s advantage is deep Windows and Edge integration plus an ecosystem (Outlook, OneDrive, Office) that makes connectors and memory especially sticky. But cultural acceptance of an avatar like Mico will depend on how well Microsoft balances charm with control and avoids replicating the engagement‑maximizing pitfalls of social media design.

Final Assessment: Useful — but Check the Defaults​

Microsoft’s Copilot Fall Release is ambitious and productively focused: it addresses real friction points (voice awkwardness, repeated context, collaborative note chaos) and adds features that promise real productivity gains. Mico is the visible face of that effort — a design experiment meant to humanize voice AI while reducing friction in vocal workflows. Meanwhile, Groups, Memory, Learn Live, and Edge Actions are practical features that can materially change how people use Copilot in everyday tasks.
At the same time, the release raises predictable privacy, security, and ethical questions. Users should assume persistence (memory) and sharing (groups) change the calculus of what to say to an assistant. Administrators, privacy teams, and everyday users will need to verify settings, manage connectors carefully, and treat health/legal outputs as starting points rather than definitive answers. Microsoft’s stated emphasis on controls and opt‑in consent is necessary but not — by itself — sufficient; defaults and discoverability will determine whether the experience is empowering or intrusive.

Bottom line​

The Copilot Fall Release is Microsoft doubling down on personalization and social AI: a human‑facing avatar in Mico, group collaboration for up to 32 participants, memory that makes the assistant a persistent partner, and voice‑first learning and browsing features that show a clear product direction. The rollout is pragmatic — U.S. first, features staged — but its success will hinge on execution: transparent defaults, robust consent flows, and reliable grounding of high‑stakes responses. For Windows users and IT pros, the immediate priorities are simple: learn the new Copilot settings, audit memory and connectors, treat group links as sensitive, and verify any health or legal guidance with qualified experts. If Microsoft threads that needle, Copilot could become both more personal and genuinely more productive; if not, Mico risks becoming another well‑intentioned but contentious UI experiment.

Source: bgr.com Microsoft Copilot Just Got Its Own Version Of Clippy And New Collaborative Chats - BGR
 

Microsoft’s awkward paperclip mascot has been given a new lease on life — not as a standalone help feature but as a playful Easter egg inside a very modern, voice-first AI persona called Mico, the new visual face of Microsoft Copilot, and the internet has predictably exploded with amusement, nostalgia, and suspicion.
In a short, viral clip shared by Microsoft’s CEO, the company’s corporate VP of product and growth for Microsoft AI demonstrated Copilot’s voice mode avatar Mico reacting in real time to tone and emotion — and, after repeated prods, transforming into the iconic Clippy paperclip. The reveal is more than a meme: it symbolizes Microsoft doubling down on embodied AI assistants while trying to learn from decades of user pushback about intrusive interface agents. The rollout is staged (initial availability is limited), the animation is intentionally cute, and the reaction online is a mixture of delight, mockery, and fresh privacy anxieties.

Neon Copilot UI with a smiling gradient orb wearing glasses and a 'Mico' card.Background​

The Clippy legacy: from Office 97 to cultural memory​

Clippy — officially named Clippit — debuted as the default Office Assistant bundled with Microsoft Office in the late 1990s. The assistant’s design and behavior were intended to make help feel friendly and contextual, popping up with suggestions like “It looks like you’re writing a letter. Would you like help?” What followed was one of the clearest examples in UI history of good intentions colliding with poor execution: users found the agent intrusive, contextually noisy, and often incorrect.
Clippy lived through multiple Office releases as a visible emblem of early attempts to humanize software assistance, and it was widely phased out as Microsoft rethought the approach to help and discoverability. The Office Assistant remained in shipping Office suites through the early 2000s and was removed from the primary Office UI with the release of Office 2007. Since then, Clippy has survived as a meme, a nostalgic callback, and an occasional Easter egg inside Microsoft products.

Why the return matters now​

We live in an era where large language models and multimodal AI systems can generate conversational responses, hold voice chats, and remember context across sessions. Companies are experimenting with how to present these capabilities: as faceless services, as logos, or as personified avatars. Microsoft’s Mico — a warm, reactive orb with facial expressions and color changes — is an explicit answer to that question. The Clippy moment is a wink to the past but also a test of whether embodied avatars can be useful without being annoying or manipulative.

What Microsoft actually showed: Mico and the Copilot update​

Mico — design, behavior, and role​

Mico is a compact, animated avatar designed to live in Copilot’s voice mode. It’s intentionally stylized rather than humanlike: a floating, emotive form that changes color, expression, and shape based on conversation tone. During Microsoft’s Copilot updates, product leadership emphasized that Mico is meant to react subtly — crying a little when you mention something sad, perking up during excitement, or donning “study glasses” in a learning mode.
Key characteristics of Mico:
  • Expressive reactions tied to voice input and conversation context.
  • Customizable appearance and interactions designed to make voice conversations more comfortable.
  • Primarily tied to voice-mode interactions, not a replacement for existing text-based Copilot behavior.
  • Easter-egg transformation into Clippy after repeated taps — a deliberate nod to Microsoft’s UI past.

Feature set introduced with the Copilot fall release​

The Copilot update that introduced Mico bundled a number of new capabilities aimed at making the assistant more actionable and collaborative:
  • Voice-centric companion — Mico appears by default when users switch Copilot into voice mode (availability and defaults vary by region).
  • Memory and personalization — Copilot’s memory features can save preferences and contextual details to make follow-up interactions smoother.
  • Learn Live — an interactive tutoring mode where the avatar uses whiteboards, visual prompts, and guided steps to teach topics rather than simply providing answers.
  • Group sessions — Copilot expanded collaborative support with group chats or shared sessions where Copilot can summarize, assign tasks, and mediate discussion.
  • Edge and cross-platform integrations — deeper Copilot integration with the browser and productivity apps so the assistant can help across workflows.
These capabilities signal Microsoft’s intention to make Copilot feel less like a search box and more like a multi-modal companion that can listen, remember, and act.

Availability and rollout nuance​

Microsoft’s rollout for Mico and the associated Copilot features is staged. Early previews and product messaging focused on the U.S. market, with planned expansion to other English-language regions over time. Reports on exact regional availability vary: some outlets observed pilot coverage in Canada and the U.K. as well, while official guidance framed the launch as deliberately staged. The avatar is enabled by default in voice mode for regions where it is available, but Microsoft positions it as optional and user-configurable.

The Clippy Easter egg: nostalgia as product strategy​

The repeated-tap transformation into Clippy is a shrewd bit of product theater. It accomplishes several goals at once:
  • It seizes a powerful cultural reference that every tech-literate adult recognizes: the paperclip that annoyed a generation of Office users.
  • It signals self-awareness: Microsoft is acknowledging its past mistakes with agent-style assistance while saying, implicitly, “we’ve learned.”
  • It invites social sharing and virality — the kind of playful, meme-friendly content that spreads on social platforms and draws attention to a larger product update.
The Clippy comeback is deliberately limited to an Easter egg rather than a default persona. That nuance matters: Microsoft is trying to get people talking about Copilot without forcing an overtly retro UI on a skeptical user base.

Technical underpinnings (what’s been announced and what’s inferred)​

Microsoft has described Mico and the broader Copilot improvements in product posts and interviews, but the company has not published full architectural blueprints for the avatar’s runtime. That leaves room for cautious inference about the technologies likely involved.
What Microsoft has said or demonstrated:
  • Mico reacts in real time to voice — implying a pipeline for speech-to-text, sentiment/affect analysis, and expression mapping to on-screen animation.
  • Copilot’s memory features are integrated with the avatar, allowing the assistant to recall user-provided facts across sessions.
  • Some voice and dictation features across Windows are being moved to on-device small language models (SLMs) to improve latency and privacy for certain flows.
Reasonable inferences:
  • The voice stack likely combines on-device speech processing for basic latency-sensitive tasks with cloud-based large models for deeper reasoning and long context.
  • Visual animations for Mico are probably driven by simple rule-based mappings from interpreted conversational signals (emotion, intent, function) to expression states — this is effective and low risk compared with trying to synthesize photorealistic faces.
  • Memory persistence will rely on Microsoft’s existing account and consent model for Copilot, which raises the usual questions about where data is stored, how it’s encrypted, and how long it’s retained.
What’s not verifiable yet:
  • The specific large model family or sizes used for Mico’s “personality” and reasoning, and the precise data sources used to tune any persona behaviors. Those details have not been publicly enumerated.

Why Microsoft is taking this approach​

Mico sits at the intersection of three corporate imperatives:
  • Product differentiation — In a crowded market of LLM-infused assistants, a distinctive visual identity gives Copilot something consumers can immediately recognize and talk about.
  • Emotional UX — Microsoft is betting that an expressive, modest avatar will make voice interactions feel safer and more relatable than faceless text responses.
  • Business integration — Copilot is being pushed as a cross-platform assistance layer across Windows, Edge, Office, and mobile apps; an avatar makes the assistant feel continuous across those contexts.
There’s also marketing calculus: bringing Clippy back as a controlled Easter egg is guaranteed to drum up headlines and social attention, which helps position Copilot in the public conversation without requiring a major UX shift for users who dislike embodiment.

What’s good about Mico and this direction​

  • Improved discoverability: A visual avatar in voice mode gives people a clear cue that the assistant is listening and responding.
  • Emotional signaling: Subtle facial expressions can make feedback feel more immediate and human, which helps in sensitive conversations (e.g., when dealing with stress or frustration).
  • New learning affordances: The Learn Live mode — an interactive tutor that uses visuals and guided steps — exploits multimodal strengths that pure text assistants struggle with.
  • Team collaboration: Group session features can make Copilot genuinely useful in meetings and brainstorming, where summarization and task-splitting are valuable.
  • Opt-in personalization: Memory features, when properly controlled, can reduce friction by remembering preferences, calendars, and long-term projects.
These are legitimate product improvements when implemented with attention to user control and transparency.

Real risks and open questions​

No product decision occurs in a vacuum, and the Mico/Clippy comeback raises multiple legitimate concerns for Windows users, IT administrators, and regulators.

Privacy and data governance​

  • Memory persistence means Copilot stores personal details. The security, retention, and deletion policies for that memory are crucial but not fully transparent to end users in all reports.
  • Telemetry creep: A voice-first assistant that listens to spoken interactions can generate more sensitive metadata and content logs. Users and enterprises need clarity on what is stored locally versus in the cloud.
  • Default-on risk: In regions where Mico is enabled by default in voice mode, users may be surprised to discover that an expressive avatar is active unless they explicitly opt out.

Psychological and behavioral risks​

  • Humanization effects: Avatars elicit social responses. People may attribute empathy or authority to Mico that the system does not deserve, which can amplify undue trust.
  • Addictive or attention-seeking behavior: If avatars are later tuned to optimize engagement, there’s a risk of designing for stickiness rather than utility.

Security and enterprise considerations​

  • Data exfiltration: Integrations that let Copilot act on behalf of users (e.g., editing documents, posting messages, making bookings) need strict authorization guardrails to prevent unintended actions.
  • Compliance and regulation: Enterprises must evaluate Copilot memory and agentic actions against industry regulations (healthcare, finance) and internal data-handling policies.

Long-term UX risk​

  • Nostalgia as a crutch: Leaning too heavily on Clippy nostalgia can distract from deeper design issues. Nostalgia generates headlines but doesn’t solve core problems like accuracy, context understanding, or privacy controls.

Practical guidance for Windows users and admins​

Microsoft intends Mico to be optional and configurable — but defaults matter. Below are practical steps any Windows user or administrator should consider now.
  • Check availability and defaults:
  • Confirm whether Mico (or the Copilot voice avatar) is enabled in your region and on your devices. Microsoft is staging the rollout, so not all users will see the same options immediately.
  • Manage Copilot appearance and voice:
  • Open the Copilot app or the Copilot interface in Windows/Edge, navigate to Settings or Appearance, and look for voice or appearance toggles to disable the avatar or voice-mode activation.
  • Audit Copilot memory:
  • Find Copilot’s memory/privacy panel and review what’s being stored. Use any available controls to edit, export, or delete memory records.
  • Control voice activation:
  • Disable “always listening” or push-to-talk features if you prefer manual activation. Look in both Copilot settings and Windows privacy/voice access settings.
  • For enterprises:
  • Evaluate Copilot settings at the organizational level. Use device management policies and conditional access rules to control who may use Copilot voice features on corporate assets.
  • Monitor updates and policy changes:
  • Because features and regional rollouts can change, periodically check official Microsoft support channels or Windows update notes for the latest controls.
Note: product menus and settings can change with subsequent releases; the steps above are guidance based on early rollouts and common Copilot settings patterns.

Industry context: Microsoft vs. the rest​

Microsoft’s approach reflects a broader industry debate about how to present AI assistants. Some firms opt for minimal visuals and clear indicators of automated behavior. Others, including smaller AI startups, experiment with more anthropomorphic or flirtatious avatars. Microsoft is positioning Mico as intentionally modest — expressive but not humanlike — trying to capture the benefits of personality while avoiding the pitfalls of realistic avatars.
This is also a competitive play: as Copilot becomes a default assistance layer across Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365, the company benefits if users start perceiving Copilot as a helpful partner rather than a confusing add-on. Embodied identity — Mico — is part brand, part UX experiment.

The final calculation: novelty, nostalgia, and responsibility​

Bringing Clippy back as a cameo inside a modern assistant is a brilliant marketing flourish and a safe way to acknowledge history. It gets attention without committing Microsoft to resurrecting a full-time, intrusive agent. At the same time, the rest of the Copilot package is materially significant: memory, Learn Live tutoring, group collaboration, and deeper app integrations are substantive features that could genuinely alter daily workflows.
That said, there’s a striking difference between a cute avatar and the underlying systems that store, act on, and analyze user data. The benefits of Mico’s design — discoverability, emotional signaling, and teaching affordances — hinge on robust controls for memory, transparent defaults, and enterprise-grade safeguards.
If Microsoft balances novelty with discipline — keeping anthropomorphic features optional, ensuring explicit user consent for memory, and providing clear enterprise controls — Mico could be a useful evolution in how assistants interact with people. If it becomes a default conduit for broad telemetry collection and agentic actions without clear boundaries, the Clippy resurrection may be remembered as a nostalgic PR stunt with unintended privacy consequences.

Conclusion​

The paperclip’s return — brief, playful, and perfectly memeable — tells a larger story about how the tech industry is grappling with the form of AI as much as the function. Microsoft’s Mico is an experiment in friendliness: an emotive face for an assistant that can speak, remember, teach, and collaborate. The Clippy Easter egg is the punchline that turns news coverage into conversation, but the substance is the Copilot update itself: new memory features, group collaboration, and voice-first learning tools that could change workflows.
For Windows users, the practical advice is clear: treat the avatar as the tip of a larger system. Check your Copilot settings, control memory and voice activation, and evaluate whether the convenience trade-offs are worth the data trade-offs. For Microsoft and the broader industry, the real test is whether avatars like Mico can deliver honest utility without exploiting the social instincts they deliberately trigger. If the company gets that balance right, the paperclip’s comeback will be both clever and consequential. If not, the ghosts of interface mistakes past will be a vivid reminder that friendly design is only as good as the policies and controls that back it.

Source: Mashable India Watch Microsoft Resurrects Clippy Back From The Dead After 21 Years; Internet Is Wilding
 

Microsoft’s Copilot has a new face: a small, animated avatar called Mico that Microsoft positions as an expressive, optional companion for voice-first interactions, part tutor and part visual cue — a deliberately non‑human “blob” designed to make conversations with Copilot feel warmer while leaving control, memory and privacy settings in users’ hands.

Pastel Copilot UI mockup with friendly blob avatars, chat prompts, and memory/privacy toggles.Background / Overview​

Microsoft introduced Mico as the headline element of a broader Copilot “Fall” update that reshapes Copilot from a single‑query chatbox into a persistent, multimodal assistant with voice, memory, education and collaboration features. The update bundles:
  • Mico, an animated, color‑changing avatar that signals listening, thinking and response states in Copilot’s voice mode.
  • Learn Live, a voice‑enabled, Socratic tutoring flow where Copilot guides learning rather than simply delivering answers.
  • Copilot Groups, linkable shared sessions where a single Copilot instance can facilitate collaborative planning and summarization for many people. Early reports show preview participant caps reported around 32 people. fileciteturn0file2turn0file17
  • Long‑term memory and connectors, an opt‑in memory system plus permissioned connectors to email, files and calendars with user controls to view, edit and delete stored items. fileciteturn0file1turn0file5
  • Real Talk, an optional conversational mode that deliberately pushes back and surfaces reasoning instead of reflexive agreement. fileciteturn0file2turn0file17
Microsoft rolled these features into staged consumer previews beginning with a U.S.‑first rollout; other English markets were slated to follow in subsequent waves. The Copilot Fall release was publicly announced around October 23, 2025 in Microsoft’s coordinated materials and early hands‑on reporting. fileciteturn0file6turn0file19

What exactly is Mico?​

Design and role​

Mico (pronounced MEE‑koh) is a deliberately non‑human, abstract avatar: a small, blob‑ or flame‑like floating face that uses subtle animations, color shifts and tiny accessories (for example, “study glasses” in Learn Live) to indicate Copilot’s conversational state — listening, thinking, acknowledging — and to provide non‑verbal feedback during voice sessions. The avatar is designed to be tactile on touch devices and to be optional so that users who prefer a faceless assistant can turn it off. fileciteturn0file5turn0file10
Microsoft frames Mico not as a second intelligence but as an expressive UI layer atop Copilot’s reasoning engine — a visual anchor intended to reduce the social friction of talking to a silent interface and to make long voice conversations feel more natural. That visual anchor is particularly important for the company’s voice‑first tutoring and group features. fileciteturn0file0turn0file16

Core behaviors and interactivity​

Mico responds to conversational tone and input by changing color, posture and simple facial expressions. On touch devices it supports taps for playful responses and light customization. In early previews, repeated taps on Mico produced an Easter egg that briefly morphs the avatar into a paperclip reminiscent of Clippy — an explicit nostalgia wink rather than a resurrection of Clippy’s old intrusive help model. That morphing behavior has been observed in preview builds and is presented by Microsoft as a low‑stakes flourish, not a return to the always‑on desktop sprite of the 1990s. Treat the Clippy moment as provisional; it has appeared in staged demos and preview builds but is not described as a primary product mode. fileciteturn0file2turn0file9

How Mico fits into Copilot’s functional changes​

Mico is most visible, but it sits on top of several functional changes that materially alter how Copilot behaves and where it appears:
  • Learn Live: a guided tutoring flow that favors Socratic questioning, whiteboard‑style visual scaffolding and stepwise problem solving rather than handing out finished answers. Mico serves as the tutor’s visual anchor in these sessions.
  • Copilot Groups: shareable, collaborative sessions meant for friends, classes and small teams. Copilot can summarize discussion, tally votes and split tasks; preview reporting indicates support for up to 32 participants but the exact limit and behavior may vary by channel and stage of rollout. fileciteturn0file17turn0file2
  • Memory & connectors: opt‑in long‑term memory that can remember preferences, ongoing projects, and other user‑approved facts with UI affordances to view, edit and delete those memories. Connectors to OneDrive, Outlook, Gmail, Google Drive and calendars are permissioned and require explicit consent. Microsoft emphasizes user controls to prevent always‑on background collection. fileciteturn0file5turn0file18
  • Real Talk & agentic features: an optional “Real Talk” persona will surface chain‑of‑thought‑style reasoning and challenge assumptions, while Edge gains agentic Actions and Journeys that let Copilot perform multi‑step web tasks with explicit authorization. These are presented as opt‑in capabilities to limit surprises. fileciteturn0file3turn0file16

How to access and control Mico (practical steps)​

  • Join the Copilot preview or ensure Copilot is updated on a supported device and signed in to a Microsoft account during the rollout. Availability started in the United States and expands by region in staged waves.
  • Use Copilot’s voice mode or enter a Learn Live session to see Mico appear; it is enabled by default in voice mode for initial preview users on supported platforms.
  • To disable Mico, open Copilot or Copilot settings and toggle the avatar or visual appearance off — Microsoft explicitly provides the avatar as an opt‑out UI layer.
  • Manage Copilot’s memory and connectors from the Copilot privacy and memory controls: view, edit or delete stored items and revoke connectors to third‑party services. Opt‑in before Copilot stores long‑term memories. fileciteturn0file1turn0file18

Why Microsoft built Mico — product psychology and strategy​

Microsoft’s stated rationale centers on human‑centered AI: the company is aiming to reduce social friction around voice and multimodal interactions by adding a visible, nonverbal cue that tells users when the assistant is listening, processing or ready to act. The design choices address two lessons learned from earlier experiments like Clippy:
  • Personality must be purpose‑bound. Mico is scoped to voice, Learn Live tutoring and group facilitation rather than appearing across all apps unsolicited.
  • Users must have agency. The avatar is optional and the memory system is opt‑in with visible controls to prevent surprises.
Strategically, a friendly, recognizable avatar increases engagement and helps Copilot differentiate in a crowded assistant market. It also supports Microsoft’s broader effort to make Copilot a persistent collaborator across Windows, Edge and mobile, not only a question‑and‑answer box. fileciteturn0file0turn0file16

Comparing Mico to Clippy — same family, different rules​

Clippy and Mico share a superficial resemblance only in cultural memory; functionally they could not be more different.
  • Clippy (Office Assistant of the late 1990s) was intrusive: it popped up across Office applications with preprogrammed, context‑poor tips and was widely disliked for interrupting workflows. It was removed in Office 2007. Mico is deliberately scoped, opt‑in, and tied to modern multimodal intelligence. fileciteturn0file9turn0file3
  • Clippy lacked transparency and controls. Mico is paired with memory controls, opt‑in connectors, and toggles to turn the avatar off — explicit design decisions aimed at avoiding the earlier mistakes.
  • The Clippy Easter egg in Mico is a nostalgia nod, not a behavioral rollback. In previews, tapping Mico repeatedly briefly morphed it into a paperclip but did not change Copilot’s underlying interaction model; it remained a cosmetic wink. That behavior appears to be limited to preview channels and may change. fileciteturn0file2turn0file12

Strengths: what Mico brings right now​

  • Lowered social friction for voice: Non‑verbal cues help users feel the assistant is responsive; this makes long voice sessions, tutoring and hands‑free use more comfortable.
  • Purposeful persona: Tethering the avatar to specific modes (Learn Live, Groups, voice) avoids the “always‑on” annoyance that doomed Clippy.
  • User controls and consent: Opt‑in memory, visible editing/deletion, and permissioned connectors provide practical privacy and governance measures that Clippy never had.
  • Educational potential: Learn Live’s Socratic scaffolding represents a meaningful shift from answer delivery to guided learning, which could improve comprehension and long‑term retention for students.
  • Collaboration features: Copilot Groups and shared sessions extend Copilot from solo assistance to group facilitation, enabling new workflows for planning and study.

Risks and open questions​

  • Privacy and memory governance. Even with opt‑in controls, long‑term memory across devices and connectors raises questions about accidental data retention and enterprise/tenant separation in workplace deployments. Users should audit memory settings and connectors carefully.
  • Emotional attachment and manipulation. Although Mico is non‑human and intentionally abstract, expressive avatars can still create perceived social presence; this is a concern in contexts with vulnerable users (children, people prone to anthropomorphizing software). Microsoft’s intent is to reduce that risk, but the psychological effects require monitoring.
  • Safety and hallucination. Features like Real Talk and agentic Actions reduce blind trust by surfacing reasoning and requiring explicit authorization for multi‑step tasks, but Copilot’s grounding and citation behavior remain crucial, especially for health and legal guidance. Microsoft has emphasized health grounding and citations as part of the release, but users should treat sensitive guidance as starting points rather than final advice. fileciteturn0file3turn0file16
  • Usability tradeoffs. Animated avatars can be distracting in professional contexts or low‑bandwidth environments; the opt‑out toggle mitigates this but discovery and default settings still shape adoption patterns.
  • Regional rollout variability. Early availability is U.S.‑first and preview behavior (including Easter eggs and participant caps in Groups) has varied across builds; reported limits and behaviors may change during expansion to other markets. Treat preview numbers (for example, “up to 32 participants”) as reported during previews rather than final, universal caps. fileciteturn0file6turn0file17

Practical guidance for users and IT administrators​

  • For individuals: test Mico in voice mode and Learn Live with privacy settings off initially; if the avatar distracts, use the appearance toggle to switch to text‑only Copilot. Review and clear any memories you don’t want Copilot to retain. fileciteturn0file5turn0file18
  • For parents and educators: treat Learn Live as a teaching tool that can scaffold problem solving, but supervise sessions and ensure kids’ accounts and memory settings enforce appropriate privacy controls. Consider disabling expressive visual cues in classroom settings if they prove distracting.
  • For IT and privacy officers: map Copilot memory and connectors against organizational policies. Confirm how memory data is stored and isolated for Microsoft 365 tenants and educate employees on the UI controls to view, edit and delete remembered items. Validate whether specific Copilot features require paid Microsoft 365 subscriptions before large‑scale deployment. fileciteturn0file18turn0file17

Product‑level and regulatory implications​

Mico and the Copilot Fall release are emblematic of a broader industry trend: adding personality to AI while attempting to bake in consent, transparency and purpose. This approach may reduce regulatory heat in some jurisdictions by foregrounding user control, but anthropomorphized assistants still attract scrutiny related to safety, children’s use, data portability and accountability. The combination of memory, agentic web actions and social features means product teams and regulators will be watching for:
  • Clear, discoverable consent flows for memory and connectors.
  • Audit trails and accountability for agentic actions performed by Copilot in Edge or third‑party services.
  • Usability research reporting on emotional attachment and deceptive anthropomorphism.

Final appraisal​

Mico is a carefully calibrated attempt to humanize Copilot without repeating the mistakes of the past. The avatar’s non‑human design, opt‑in scope, and bundled privacy controls represent meaningful improvements over the Office Assistant era. In practice, the value of Mico will hinge on three factors: how well Copilot’s voice and memory primitives perform at scale, whether the educational and group features genuinely increase productivity without becoming distracting, and whether Microsoft maintains transparent controls and robust grounding for sensitive content.
The Clippy Easter egg may generate headlines and nostalgia, but the real story is the underlying shift: Copilot is evolving into a social, memory‑enabled assistant that can teach, coordinate and act — and Mico is the visible cue Microsoft hopes will make those interactions feel less mechanical and more human‑centered. Treat early preview claims (participant caps, Easter egg behavior, rollout timing) as provisional; verify availability and precise behavior when features appear in a local region and production build. fileciteturn0file6turn0file12

Mico’s introduction signals a pragmatic design gamble: give the assistant a warm, customizable face while keeping the controls in users’ hands. If those controls hold and the underlying safety and privacy mechanisms scale, Mico could be a useful, less‑annoying chapter in the long story that began with Clippy — otherwise, the history books will note that a charming avatar wasn’t enough to fix the deeper questions about how people and AI should cohabit the desktop. fileciteturn0file0turn0file5

Source: Trusted Reviews What is Copilot Mico – The modern Clippy explained
 

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