Microsoft, Turning 50, Dials up Copilot Actions to Stay in AI Game

The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
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Microsoft, Turning 50, Dials up Copilot Actions to Stay in AI Game

The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)
The Microsoft logo during the Hanover Fair 2025 (Hannover Messe) in Hanover, Germany, 31 March 2025 (reissued 03 April 2025). (EPA)

Thousands of people swooned in a dark conference hall that felt more like a rock concert when a Microsoft product manager demonstrated the company's latest feature: how to sum numbers in Excel, with the click of a button.

"It was literally like Mick Jagger walked out," said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's consumer chief marketing officer, who started as an intern.

That was more than 30 years ago. On Friday, the day Microsoft turned 50, the company's leaders and staff gathered at its Redmond headquarters to remember the software maker's glory days while trumpeting what they hope will bring it into the future: more powerful artificial intelligence.

Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, is gaining a host of new features to make it more proactive. The version for consumers will start remembering personal facts about them. It will offer birthday reminders or support ahead of a presentation, or consumers can opt out, Mehdi said in an interview.

Copilot likewise will personalize podcasts and shopping recommendations, and it will let consumers task their AI to book events for them, or send a friend a gift while checking in for guidance. "It frees you up," said Mehdi.

Microsoft is hardly first to roll out action-taking or "agentic" software. As with rival systems, the AI will work best on popular sites where Microsoft has done some behind-the-scenes technical work, like with 1-800-Flowers.com and OpenTable, Mehdi said.

Mehdi recalled days when Microsoft was smaller and growing. He said CEO Bill Gates could devour three books' worth of information from one day to the next, at a time when the co-founder still worked on Microsoft software. Mehdi watched Steve Ballmer, Gates' eventual successor, chant "developers, developers, developers!" in a sweat-drenched shirt to rouse a crowd into the ".net" era.

Microsoft went from top of the pack to badly bruised in a high-profile lawsuit that US antitrust enforcers brought against it in 1998. Years later, younger companies and startups, among them Alphabet and ChatGPT creator OpenAI, beat it to the punch on key AI developments.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's current CEO, is not standing still. The leader who turned Microsoft into the No. 2 cloud powerhouse challenged his executives at an internal summit this week, recalled Mehdi: "How do we rethink the way that we build the software?"

Microsoft is iterating on its chatbot technology in a crowded field that includes Elon Musk's xAI and Anthropic. It has added Copilot to its heavily used productivity suites for business while giving consumers a distinctive version.

"It's warm; it has that personality," said Mehdi. Some users have taken to this, while others find it asks too many questions, he said.

"When we get to now be more personalized, we can start to get smarter," Mehdi said. "We're part way through that journey."



Trump Extends Deadline for TikTok Sale by 90 Days

FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Trump Extends Deadline for TikTok Sale by 90 Days

FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

President Donald Trump announced Thursday he had given social media platform TikTok another 90 days to find a non-Chinese buyer or be banned in the United States.

"I've just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days (September 17, 2025)," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, putting off the ban for the third time.

A federal law requiring TikTok's sale or ban on national security grounds was due to take effect the day before Trump's January inauguration.

The Republican, whose 2024 election campaign relied heavily on social media, has previously said he is fond of the video-sharing app.

"I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok," Trump said in an NBC News interview in early May. "If it needs an extension, I would be willing to give it an extension."

TikTok on Thursday welcomed Trump's decision.

"We are grateful for President Trump's leadership and support in ensuring that TikTok continues to be available for more than 170 million American users," the platform said in a statement.

Digital Cold War?

Motivated by a belief in Washington that TikTok is controlled by the Chinese government, the ban took effect on January 19, one day before Trump's inauguration, with ByteDance having made no attempt to find a suitor.

TikTok "has become a symbol of the US-China tech rivalry; a flashpoint in the new Cold War for digital control," said Shweta Singh, an assistant professor of information systems at Warwick Business School in Britain.

Trump had long supported a ban or divestment, but reversed his position and vowed to defend the platform -- which boasts almost two billion global users -- after coming to believe it helped him win young voters' support in the November election.

The president announced an initial 75-day delay of the ban upon taking office. A second extension pushed the deadline to June 19.

He said in May that a group of purchasers was ready to pay TikTok owner ByteDance "a lot of money" for the video-clip-sharing sensation's US operations.

Trump knows that TikTok is "wildly popular" in the United States, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday, when asked about the latest extension.

"He also wants to protect Americans' data and privacy concerns on this app, and he believes we can do both things at the same time."

The president is "just not motivated to do anything about TikTok," said independent analyst Rob Enderle. "Unless they get on his bad side, TikTok is probably going to be in pretty good shape."

Tariff turmoil

Trump said in April that China would have agreed to a deal on the sale of TikTok if it were not for a dispute over his tariffs on Beijing.

ByteDance has confirmed talks with the US government, saying key matters needed to be resolved and that any deal would be "subject to approval under Chinese law."

Possible solutions reportedly include seeing existing US investors in ByteDance roll over their stakes into a new independent global TikTok company.

Additional US investors, including Oracle and private equity firm Blackstone, would be brought on to reduce ByteDance's share in the new TikTok.

Much of TikTok's US activity is already housed on Oracle servers, and the company's chairman, Larry Ellison, is a longtime Trump ally.

Uncertainty remains, particularly over what would happen to TikTok's valuable algorithm.

"TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand -- it's simply not as powerful," said Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester.

Despite the turmoil, TikTok has been continuing with business as usual.

The platform on Monday introduced a new "Symphony" suite of generative artificial intelligence tools for advertisers to turn words or photos into video snippets for the platform.