Microsoft has its Copilot AI in just about everything it offers in its productivity suite under the Microsoft 365 umbrella. But now, it looks like the company is going to bring it to gaming as well. Its name is pretty straightforward too, as it’s simply called Copilot for Gaming.
Unveiled as part of the official Xbox podcast on YouTube, Copilot for Gaming has more or less the same purpose as it did for work. Which is to “help you save time, find new games you’re likely to love, or even help to ease you back into a game you may have stepped away from”.
There are a few clips of Copilot for Gaming in action, somewhat. The demo shows a player speaking into a microphone getting Copilot to download and install Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition for them. Once that is done, the chatbot offers to give the player a recap of where they were last at in the game. If you’ve rage quit the game, you can also get it to provide you a strategy guide to overcome your current wall.
In a separate example, a player asked Copilot for next steps in the early stages of a Minecraft run. Further into the podcast, Copilot for Gaming was shown providing an Overwatch 2 player alternative characters to pick, as well as a post-mortem of sorts after going down during a round.
The idea here seems to be rather than having you browse gaming sites or forums to find out more about a game you’re currently playing, Microsoft is making it so that Copilot for Gaming does it for you instead. Although there’s the immediate issue of if the chatbot pulls out updated or outdated info. The company does say that it is working with games studios and content creators for that, but it’s unclear what the process – and result – will look like.
Of course, this is still in its early stages, so it will be awhile before gamers actually get to use it. When that does happen though, it will first be made available for Xbox Insiders on mobile. Microsoft’s logic here is that gamers are already comfortable with multi-device use while gaming, and pushing it out on mobile first lets Copilot for Gaming help a player without being intrusive on the screen of your console or PC gaming.
If you don’t find the idea familiar, then let me remind you that PlayStation previously was granted a patent that describes the PS5 do something similar. But regardless of which company is doing it though, I’d take anything any of these AI tell me about gaming with a pinch of salt. If you need proof, just ask any AI chatbot what each stat does in an MMORPG.
(Source: Xbox / YouTube)
