The new Microsoft Copilot is a big departure. It shed some of its Bing-y styling and increasingly corporate vibes in favor of something warmer and friendlier, all in an effort to be more than just a work tool. It might just be a website redesign, but it feels like a shift in how Microsoft perceives the future of AI assistants.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we try to make sense of that future. Everyone seems to believe in the potential for “agentic” AI, which can use apps and devices on your behalf, but most current tech along those lines feels woefully unfinished. As they get warmer and fuzzier, though, maybe the whole Getting Things Done aspect of AI doesn’t matter so much. We try to figure out where we’re headed next and how long it’ll take to get there.

You know who else needs to figure out where we’re headed next? OpenAI, which just raised $6.6 billion and now needs to prove it can spend it wisely. We talk about that for a while, too.

Once we’re done with the AI talk, we run through the gadget news of the week, from the students building a facial recognition system into their smart glasses to Sonos’ kinda-sorta plan to come back after its app fiasco. Then we get into some breaking news about the future of WordPress, which might be the most important software on the web and which feels suddenly in a bit of flux.

In the lightning round, we say goodbye to our friend, colleague, and cohost Alex Cranz. (Alex, we love you, we’ll miss you!) We also talk about the bizarre history that led to this week’s Dish / DirecTV merger, Nintendo’s ongoing war on emulators, and Google’s nifty new web app for managing headphones.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Copilot and all things AI:

• Microsoft gives Copilot a voice and vision in its biggest redesign yet
• Copilot is killing beloved celebrities
• Read Microsoft’s optimistic memo about the future of AI companions
• Microsoft Paint is getting Photoshop-like AI fill and erase features
• OpenAI just raised $6.6 billion to build ever-larger AI models
• From The Atlantic: Shh, ChatGPT. That’s a Secret.

And in gadget news:

• College students used Meta’s smart glasses to dox people in real time
• Sonos has a plan to earn back your trust, and here it is
• Chromebooks are getting a new button dedicated to Google’s AI
• Microsoft is discontinuing its HoloLens headsets
• Automattic demanded a cut of WP Engine’s revenue before starting WordPress battle
• WordPress cofounder is paying employees to leave if they disagree with him

And in the lightning round:

• Alex Cranz’s pick: Nintendo has reportedly shut down Ryujinx, the Switch emulator that was supposedly immune
• David Pierce’s pick: Google’s Pixel Buds are now fully supported on Windows and macOS
• Nilay Patel’s pick: DirecTV and Dish are merging