Will an AI companion be your go-to for advice and support, helping you shape potential new realities in 2025?

If you’ve been thinking about AI and how it will impact your job and your future - and let’s face it, who hasn’t - you may find yourself turning to an AI personal companion for advice and support in 2025.

I’ve been tracking the rise of AI learning, coaching, mentoring and emotional and mental support apps over the last couple of years with great interest. Most are still clunky and/or siloed, and best used superficially - with a pinch of salt!

It was only a matter of time before we saw the release of an AI that gives us a sense of being better understood. Early in December, Microsoft released a preview of their voice-enabled Copilot Vision to a limited number of Pro subscribers in the US via Copilot Labs.

In a recent interview, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, described Vision as feeling like “another digital species” with “a new plane of connection” that acts “like a second brain” and a “thought partner and companion”.

There’s some background here. Suleyman co-founded DeepMind (acquired by Google in 2014) before co-founding Inflection AI in 2022, which developed Pi.ai (proclaimed the first ‘emotionally intelligent’ AI), before joining Microsoft in March this year.

We can think of this development as the next step in multimodal AI becoming ‘universal’, deepening its omnipresence. Rather than visiting various platforms or domains to use AI for different purposes, it will act as a constant companion on all of your devices, hearing what you hear, seeing what you see, and remembering what you’ve worked on.

An easy-to-talk-to assistant (with a human-like voice), helping you analyse complex data in seconds, coaching you through a difficult learning curve or role-playing an upcoming tricky negotiation. A constant resource that ‘understands’ you, acting as a friend, thought partner, sounding board or devil’s advocate, giving you advice and feedback on the fly. An AI companion that picks up on how you feel by the tone of your voice, providing you with emotional support when needed.

Essentially, your personal filter on the world that is on your team and serves your interests in any given situation.