As a part of Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to implement artificial intelligence into basically everything, the company is preparing to introduce its AI Copilot into your Xbox experience to give you gaming advice, help you remember where you left off last time you played, and perform other tasks.
Announced today, Copilot for gaming will be rolled out for Xbox Insiders through the Xbox mobile app sometime soon for testing. If you’re not already aware, Copilot is Microsoft’s existing AI chatbot (that replaced Cortana in 2023) that’s already integrated into Windows. The gaming version will have a handful of features at launch. You can ask it to install games on your Xbox for you (a process you can already do now just by pushing a single button on the app), and you can also ask it about your play history (in case you forgot what you were doing last time you played), achievements, library, or for a recommendation of what to play next. You’ll also be able to speak to Copilot for Gaming directly on the Xbox app while you’re playing, and it will serve you answers in the same way Copilot currently does when asked questions via Windows.
Probably the biggest use-cases touted by Microsoft available at launch is Copilot as a gaming assistant. You can already ask Copilot questions about games any time on PC, such as how to beat a boss or solve a puzzle, and it will source answers via Bing from various online guides, websites, wikis, and forums. Soon, you’ll also be able to ask it those same questions on the Xbox app.
“Our goal is to have Copilot for Gaming source the most accurate game knowledge — so we are working with game studios to make sure the information Copilot surfaces reflects their vision, and Copilot will refer players back to the original source of the information.”
Unshockingly, Microsoft does not intend to limit itself to just these Copilot functions. In a press briefing, Microsoft spokespeople discussed other future possibilities for Copilot in video games, including as a walkthrough assistant to explain basic game functions, remember where items where left in a game, or tell you where to find new ones, or as a helper in competitive games that could offer strategy suggestions and tips in real-time to counter opponents’ moves, or explain how and why an engagement unfolded the way it did. Though it was emphasized that these were both just ideas they were toying with, the presentation made clear that Microsoft is insistant on finding ways to integrate Copilot closely with regular Xbox gameplay. And Microsoft confirmed to me that it will eventually work with not just first-party studios, but third-party studios for integration into their games as well.
With that in mind, I asked Microsoft if Copilot gaming would be opt in or opt out of use, or if users could opt out of having their data used to train it. The answer is that yes, Xbox Insiders can opt out during the preview, but the door was left open for Copilot to be mandatory in the future. Here’s what a spokesperson said:
“During this preview on mobile, players will be able to decide how and when they want to interact with Copilot for Gaming, whether it has access to their conversation history, and what it does on their behalf.
“As we preview and test Copilot for Gaming with players early, we will continue to be transparent about what data we collect, how we use it, and the choices players have around sharing their personal data.”
IGN understands that Copilot is not being limited to just player-focused usage, and that Microsoft will be providing an overview on plans for developer use in a session at the Game Developers Conference on Monday next week.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
