Microsoft Revives Clippy’s Spirit with Mico for the AI Age

Welcome back! Microsoft just brought back a ghost from your desktop past. Its new AI companion, Mico, is part Copilot, part Clippy, and entirely an experiment in giving software a personality. OpenAI is buying up the brains that once taught Apple how to automate. Netflix is pitching AI as its new creative partner. Anthropic is moving into Office. The line between software and sidekick keeps getting thinner.

In today’s Generative AI Newsletter:
• Microsoft debuts Mico, its glowing Copilot avatar
• OpenAI buys Sky, the team that built Apple’s first automation tools
• Anthropic joins Microsoft 365, adding Claude to Copilot
• Netflix bets on AI, calling it the next creative collaborator

Microsoft has turned its AI assistant into something you can actually look at. Mico, a glowing orb with mood swings and a sense of humor, now lives inside Copilot. It shifts colors to match tone and emotion, and if you tap it enough times, it becomes Clippy for a brief moment of nostalgia and chaos.

What’s New
• Memory that remembers you. Copilot now recalls what you care about and picks up conversations where you left off.
• AI teamwork. The new Groups feature lets up to 32 people brainstorm and plan together with one shared assistant keeping track.
• Smarter help. Health responses are grounded in Harvard Health data, and a new tutor mode teaches concepts through voice, questions, and visuals.
• Better browsing. In Edge, Copilot can navigate tasks, reopen projects, and handle small web actions with less hand-holding.

Microsoft is chasing something deeper than productivity. It wants Copilot to feel like company, not code. Mico is the smiley, glowing proof of that ambition; a mascot for the era when chatbots start to act more like companions. Whether that feels friendly or uncanny will depend on how much you like being seen by your software.

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OpenAI has acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the team behind Sky, an unreleased Mac tool that turns the desktop into an AI assistant. The same founders built Workflow, the app Apple bought in 2017 and transformed into Shortcuts. Now they are back to build something even bigger, this time for ChatGPT.

What We Know
• Sky lives on your screen. It sits above your apps, understands what you are doing, and can perform tasks across the system with a simple command.
• ChatGPT is learning the same trick. OpenAI plans to weave Sky’s Mac expertise into ChatGPT so it can automate everyday workflows natively.
• The timing is telling. The deal lands just days after the launch of ChatGPT Atlas, OpenAI’s Mac-only browser, hinting at a strategy aimed squarely at Apple’s users.
• It’s also a talent play. The acquisition adds to OpenAI’s growing list of startup hires, from Statsig to Context AI and Crossing Minds.

OpenAI is moving fast to turn ChatGPT into something more than a chatbot. It wants an assistant that understands your computer the way you do. With Sky, the company gains the team that once taught Apple how to automate its devices. Now, they’ll be teaching ChatGPT how to run your computer.

Microsoft is shaking up its AI roster by bringing Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4.1 into Microsoft 365 Copilot. After years of leaning on OpenAI, the company is opening the door to a new mind. It’s presented as a flex, showing that Microsoft wants to own the full AI spectrum inside its most familiar apps.

What’s New
• Model choice: A new “Try Claude” button lets users toggle between OpenAI and Anthropic.
• Agent creation: Claude now powers custom workflows in Copilot Studio.
• Performance boost: Claude shines in financial modeling and PowerPoint design.
• Cloud connection: Anthropic still runs on AWS, giving this partnership an odd twist.

Microsoft is turning Copilot into an entire ecosystem. Each model brings its own personality, and Claude’s structured precision fits neatly into the productivity world Microsoft built decades ago. The move says less about rivalry and more about ambition. Microsoft wants the best brains working inside its tools, no matter who built them.

Netflix says it’s “all in” on generative AI, describing it as the next big leap for streaming and storytelling. The company’s latest earnings report paints AI as a creative supercharger, one that can fine-tune recommendations, optimize ads, and even shape how shows are made. CEO Ted Sarandos insists AI will “help tell stories better and faster” without replacing human creativity.

Key Highlights
• Creative use cases: AI helped de-age characters in Happy Gilmore 2 and assisted with wardrobe and set design in Billionaires’ Bunker.
• Behind the curtain. Netflix says its creators are experimenting with generative tools for scene planning and visual mockups.
• Policy in progress. The company recently published internal guidelines on responsible AI use, hoping to calm fears inside Hollywood.
• The uneasy chorus. Many creators still remember the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, where AI replicas were one of the key battle lines.

Netflix wants to cast AI as its next creative partner, but that word carries weight. To many in Hollywood, “collaborator” feels less like a teammate and more like a trespasser. Writers see it as the intern who never clocks out. Directors see it as a technician with no soul. And actors see it as a shadow that can mimic their faces without permission. Netflix calls it innovation. Hollywood calls it the start of something it’s been dreading since the first algorithm learned to edit a trailer.