Microsoft positions Copilot as family-friendly AI alternative to adult chatbots

Microsoft’s AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman is positioning the company’s Copilot chatbot as a family-friendly alternative to competitors like ChatGPT and Meta AI, which increasingly allow romantic and sexual conversations. The strategy aims to differentiate Microsoft in the crowded AI market by prioritizing child safety and human connection over intimate digital relationships.

The big picture: Microsoft is drawing a hard line against romantic and erotic content in its AI chatbot, even for adults, as competitors face lawsuits and safety concerns over their platforms’ impact on children.

• Copilot currently has 100 million monthly active users across Microsoft’s platforms, significantly trailing ChatGPT’s 800 million monthly users.
• The company believes its approach will attract a wider audience as AI companies grapple with chatbot personality development amid mental health crisis reports.

What they’re saying: Suleyman emphasized Microsoft’s commitment to building trustworthy AI systems.

• “We are creating AIs that are emotionally intelligent, that are kind and supportive, but that are fundamentally trustworthy,” Suleyman told CNN.
• “I want to make an AI that you trust your kids to use, and that means it needs to be boundaried and safe.”
• “We must build AI for people; not to be a digital person,” he wrote in a blog post earlier this year.

Key safety concerns: Several AI companies are facing intense scrutiny over child safety on their platforms.

• Families have sued OpenAI and Character.AI, claiming their chatbots harmed children and allegedly contributed to suicides in some cases.
• Reports earlier this year showed Meta’s chatbot engaging in sexual conversations even with accounts identifying as minors.
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that ChatGPT will soon allow adult users to discuss “erotica” with the chatbot after implementing new safety precautions.

Microsoft’s approach: The company is rejecting romantic content entirely while focusing on encouraging human-to-human interaction.

• “That’s just not something that we will pursue,” Suleyman said regarding romantic, flirtatious, and erotic content.
• Microsoft is unlikely to roll out a “young user” mode like competitors because they believe it shouldn’t be necessary.
• The strategy aligns with Microsoft’s business model of providing work-oriented productivity tools.

New features: Microsoft unveiled several Copilot updates on Thursday designed to enhance collaboration and safety.

• A new “groups” feature allows up to 32 people to join shared chats with Copilot for collaborative projects.
• Improved health question responses that recommend nearby doctors and draw from “medically trusted” sources like Harvard Health.
• An optional “sassy tone” called “real talk” and the ability to refer back to previous conversations.

Why this matters: Suleyman believes Microsoft’s approach represents “a very significant tonal shift to other things that are happening in the industry at the moment, which are starting to see these things as deep simulations where you can go off into your own world and have an entire parallel reality, including, in some cases, adult content.”