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It's not a terrible name either. Assistant would be better, but they can't use that name[1] of course... I'm having a hard time thinking of something else that instantly communicates this idea of an intelligent subordinate aide that doesn't have negative associations.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant



Personally, I think Microsoft wastes the name "Cortana" on their mediocre Google Assistant competitor. I haven't really seen Copilot do much copiloting, it mostly seems to answer questions and follow instructions. Maybe Windows 12 will be different, but I kind of doubt it.


It’s not just negative associations. I believe GitHub had a blog post where they went into why they chose copilot.

The answer was more of subtly conveying its output needed to be checked




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