Mico is Microsoft's Clippy for the AI age (www.engadget.com)

Microsoft has introduced Mico, an “expressive, customizable and warm” visual avatar for Copilot’s voice mode — think Clippy reimagined for the AI era. The animated blob listens, reacts and changes color in response to user interactions, providing an optional visual presence that Microsoft says will support users while “pushing back” respectfully when needed. Mico is also integrated into a new Learn Live feature aimed at students: as a Socratic tutor it guides learners through concepts rather than supplying answers, using questions, visual cues and interactive whiteboards to scaffold understanding. The avatar is rolling out by default in the US, UK and Canada but can be disabled. For the AI/ML community, Mico is notable as a push toward multimodal, socially-aware agent interfaces that combine speech, animation and pedagogical strategies. Technical implications include richer human-agent grounding (timing of reactions, affective cues, and color/gesture mappings), adaptive tutoring behavior (Socratic questioning and interactive canvas control), and UX/alignment tradeoffs around when an agent should “push back.” It highlights growing interest in personalized, embodied assistants and raises questions for researchers about evaluation metrics for trust, effectiveness in learning, and safe behavior of expressive AI companions.