Microsoft has yanked Mico from the Copilot spotlight less than a year after unveiling the anthropomorphic assistant intended to make its AI a little less soulless. As part of Microsoft's announcement that its consumer and work Copilot applications will merge, the company confirmed that the weird blob thing would shuffle out of Copilot Voice and into Learn Live, a voice-based study mode that guides users through subjects and assignments. "Mico helped us learn about warmth, expressiveness, and how people want to talk with AI," Microsoft wrote. "Those learnings are shaping Copilot going forward." "Learn is where the character has the most room to grow, with tutoring sessions that give Mico more to react to and teach through." As the update rolls out, Mico will no longer be the face of Copilot Voice. Users can still speak to Copilot and receive responses, but will be spared the blob's gurning. Mico is only the latest in Microsoft's long line of anthropomorphic assistants. There was Clippy (or Clippit), which arrived with Office 97 but had been pushed into Microsoft's desk drawer of doom by the time Office 2007 appeared. Then came Cortana, named after the character from the Halo video game franchise and pitched as a far more intelligent assistant. Microsoft introduced Cortana on Windows Phone in 2014 and brought it to PCs with Windows 10 the following year, before losing interest. Mico didn't even last a year as the face of Copilot Voice before Microsoft pulled it from the spotlight, although both the character and its Copilot "brain" live on in Learn Live. In terms of lifespans, it's easy to compare it to the catastrophic Microsoft Bob, which was launched in 1995, with the last release happening that same year. However, the product lingered a little longer and later resurfaced, hidden as digital ballast on the Windows XP installation CD for licensing and encryption. Modern digital distribution means that such a second life is unlikely to await Mico. Dave Plummer, the engineer responsible for Bob's inclusion as an encrypted blob, said: "What's ultimately important is that while Bob never got to play on the big stage, he always followed the band around and got to ride on the bus." Mico hasn't been thrown off the bus just yet. Microsoft has merely made the blob sit with the schoolchildren. ®

Anthropic's Claude Code appears to be having trouble displaying summaries of its "thinking," according to several bug reports, while the underlying reasoning tokens still cost money. According to complaints, the API has been returning empty thinking blocks for Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 5 even when users explicitly request summarized thinking. Models from several sources can display their "thinking," a process that gives models additional tokens to reason through complex problems before producing a response. Software with this capability delivers a summary that explains how it tackled a task. Some can also indulge in "extended thinking," though this capability is now deprecated. Developers often enable "thinking" in the hope that it produces better results, at the cost of additional tokens and latency. Developer Michael Hood has noticed that some of Anthropic's models are currently not always good at sharing their thinking. "As of 2026-07-16 ~15:00Z, the API returns empty thinking blocks (thinking: '', signature only) for Claude Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 5, even when display: 'summarized' is explicitly requested — including when injected directly into the raw request body," Hood recently observed. We're told this issue is under investigation but doesn't appear to be a broad, ongoing concern. It may simply be an artefact of tests that change how Anthripic displays summaries. Similar behavior involving missing thinking blocks has been reported in Claude Code for VS Code. Another bug report claims thinking block summaries are being truncated while token bills are not adjusted accordingly. "The thinking is generated (and billed) in full; a portion of the summary stream is silently dropped," the anonymous author claims. This particular claim, that customers are being billed for text not delivered, may follow from a misunderstanding of Anthropic's terms: "You are charged for all thinking tokens generated, even when collapsed or redacted," the company's documentation explains. Under that legalese, a thinking summary costs the same as the full output. And it's unclear whether bug-based truncation would change the billing picture. "Thinking has a cost: the tokens Claude spends reasoning are billed as output tokens, even when the thinking text isn't returned to you, and they count toward max_tokens alongside the response text," the company explains. To reduce spending on thinking, customers are advised to lower their budget setting or disable thinking. Separately, the Anthropic API has been seen terminating data streams during long-running thinking sessions. There have been at least seven other related API bug reports, but the streaming issue identified by developer Hector Bernstorff describes client-side defects. The Register understands this particular issue has to do with tuning network behavior, specifically to terminate or retry long running requests. Work is ongoing to balance perceived latency against the risk of requests getting stuck. "Claude Code ships updates nearly every day, and reports from the community like these GitHub issues are a big part of how we catch problems quickly," an Anthropic spokesperson told The Register. "We're grateful to the developers who take the time to file them, and we'll keep fixing things as they come up." ®

If you want to record whatever you do on a computer, send those records to OpenAI, use more ChatGPT tokens, and increase your vulnerability to prompt injection, then OpenAI has something for you. It's called Computer History, an opt-in way to record your computer interactions across apps and websites as memories organized on a timeline. Why would you want to do so? Maybe you found Chronicle, the predecessor of Computer History which compiled similar histories using screenshots, a bit too intrusive but don't mind Computer History's approach – recording input events and storing them unencrypted locally for 48 hours (or more), with a brief visit to OpenAI's servers. Maybe you're not bothered by the warning OpenAI includes in its documentation: "Computer History files can contain sensitive information. They are not encrypted by Computer History, and other programs running as your macOS user may be able to access them." Perhaps, having given OpenAI's Codex and GPT Work the run of your computer, you're already sold on the suggestion that storing your computer activity in memory files and arranging those interactions in a timeline will improve ChatGPT responses, surface opportunities for automation, and make it easier to resume prior work. Computer History is, to put it bluntly, a keylogging and event capture system. There was a time before eyeglass cameras, license plate readers, surveillance capitalism, and police drones when such snooping might have provoked an outcry from privacy advocates. But the tech industry has found it can outsource surveillance to its own customers and in so doing make the panopticon harder to protest once it becomes a personal choice. "Computer History creates an interaction-event stream from allowed apps and websites," OpenAI's documentation explains. "Events can include clicks, typing, keyboard shortcuts, app switches, and context that macOS exposes through its accessibility system. Computer History periodically turns these events into text summaries and local memory files." The AI biz makes a point of noting that Computer History does not capture screen images, microphone input, or system audio. Nor does it capture private-mode browsing. Off by default, Computer History is available for ChatGPT Pro, Business, and Enterprise users in the ChatGPT desktop app on macOS. Pro users can enable it individually; Business and Enterprise users need an admin to approve it. It's not available currently in the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, or the United Kingdom or to those accessing ChatGPT via API key or Amazon Bedrock. There are circumstances in which OpenAI suggests Computer History users might want to suspend the service if they have some scruples about capturing user activity in apps and websites without permission. "Turn it off during communications with other people unless you have their prior express consent," the company advises, perhaps in acknowledgement of legal risk. "Consider pausing it or excluding apps that contain sensitive health, financial, or personal information." Computer History interaction events are supposed to be saved locally for up to 48 hours before being deleted by ChatGPT and Codex. Events, however, get sent to OpenAI servers to generate memories, and those may be stored locally for longer periods of time and may be used in future chats that get passed back to OpenAI. "OpenAI does not retain those event files after processing unless required by law and does not use them for training," the company says. While it has opposed demands for chat logs, it has nonetheless provided chat logs in response to legal process. Computer History adds cost because it uses tokens during the summarization of activities and the creation of memory data. It also expands the prompt injection attack surface. "Computer History increases the risk of prompt injection from content in apps and websites," the company says. "For example, if you visit a website containing malicious instructions, ChatGPT or Codex might follow those instructions." But at least you get a nice timeline of your recent activity. ®

Microsoft’s consumer Copilot app and Microsoft 365 Copilot are separate no more, with a unified Copilot app beginning its rollout Thursday - minus a few features. The Windows maker and AI pusher announced the Copilot superapp rollout in a help page update Thursday, describing the move as a way to simplify its app ecosystem and make the entire Copilot-first experience “more cohesive” for both consumer and business users. “Depending on the account and device you use, you will see changes to the Copilot app including changes to appearance and functionality, such as navigation, feature availability, or sign-in experience,” Microsoft explained on the help page. The new Copilot app brings not only new branding but structural changes as well. The Copilot bot and its image generation features now live alongside the Microsoft 365 suite, files, and other content, allowing users with an account supporting the classic Office package to access their productivity software alongside Redmond's chatty LLM. Copilot users without a paid subscription, naturally, face lower usage limits and fewer features, but support for multiple accounts means users can switch between personal and work or school profiles instead of having to hop between entirely separate apps. “You can continue to chat with Copilot, create images, upload files and more for free, subject to available capacity and limits,” Microsoft said. “For higher limits to chat and create, use agents, or tackle complex multi-step tasks, purchase a Microsoft 365 subscription.” Whether the new combined app will come with nag messages is up to users to find out. What this change will look like in practice varies based on the sort of account a Copilot user had before the merger. Those who just use Copilot with a personal account “will be moved to an updated version of Copilot,” with chat history and most content transferring to the updated app. Files shared and generated with the old standalone Copilot app will be shunted to OneDrive if you’re wondering where they went. Users of Microsoft 365 Copilot, the name Redmond slapped on the Microsoft 365 (Office) app in January 2025, “may notice some updates to appearance and navigation,” so get ready to rediscover where certain options and buttons are. What Microsoft left behind Microsoft is abandoning a few features from the old Copilot apps as part of the merger: It is removing Podcasts and Group Chat and scrapping Deep Research from the consumer Copilot app, while Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers can instead use the separate Researcher feature. All of this will be effective as of August 18. Podcasts that were created or saved in Copilot will be entirely unavailable, per an FAQ page, and links to any shared podcasts will stop working. Microsoft recommends downloading any podcasts users want to save before updating to the new app, or they’ll be lost. Group chats, along with any shared content and images created in group chats, will be wiped. Microsoft recommends downloading any messages and content users want to save and tossing them in a document, as Redmond doesn’t appear to be offering an automated way to preserve them. As for Deep Research, which offered standalone Copilot app users a version of Microsoft’s chatbot able to look stuff up on the web and compile reports, those reports are being preserved in chat history for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers, while Premium subscribers can access saved research through Researcher. Researcher offers similar abilities to Deep Research, but sorry free and lower-tier users: It’s only available to premium customers now. Windows Central reported on Thursday that the rollout of the unified Copilot app is beginning now, with mobile and web coming in the initial wave and an early-access option for Windows and Mac, ahead of a broader desktop rollout expected in the middle of next month. We’ve been unable to confirm that timeline with Microsoft. ®