Microsoft’s holiday Copilot ad is wrapped in empty promises

Microsoft is at it again with Another round of ads Shows people talking to Copilot AI on their computers. This time, it’s holiday-themed, including an appearance by the Big Man in Red. the 30-second TV commercial It asks if you’re “Ready for the Holidays” and features actors in several festive home settings asking Copilot for some help with everything from holiday lighting and cooking to large-scale outdoor decorations.

Just like Last time I tested Copilot Vision and Voice ModeI make a list of all the claims in the Microsoft ad and check them twice. Or as many times as I can before I hit the noggin.

in New advertisementCopilot offers to help a homeowner make their smart home more festive when asked to “Show me how to sync holiday lights to my music.” The user clicks through the cloud-connected smart lighting controls on a website called relicloud As the co-pilot says, “Let’s go through this together.” The ad quickly cuts to the house lights pulsing to the tune of Vampire Weekend’s classic Christmas song “A-Punk.”

Relecloud is not a well-known smart home company like Philips Hue or Govee. In fact, it’s not real work at all. It is one of the fictional companies used by Microsoft Published case studies (See also: a company). I’m inclined to think that its use here refers to simulating all of Copilot’s advertised actions, but a Microsoft rep insists that’s not the case. says Nicci Trovinger, General Manager of Windows Marketing Edge“All Copilot responses are actual responses provided by Copilot to the scenarios presented and questions asked at the time. Responses have been shortened for brevity to match the length of the creative point, consistent with standard advertising practices.”

I ran this test with Copilot in two ways: one using a still image of the lighting interface from the ad, and the other using the Philips Hue Sync app. Copilot made its best guess as to where I should click on the image from the ad, highlighting the “Sync Mode” drop-down menu with its on-screen cursor, but it struggled to take me much further. He often told me that he had something highlighted when it wasn’t, and he would hallucinate a green “Apply” button that was actually just a preset color of green lighting.

The co-pilot’s answers were very confusing when I presented a fully configured app for my Philips Hue lights. It selected the Hue Sync app and initially told me, correctly, to click the Music tab and the Start Light Sync button. But then I hallucinated about buttons that weren’t there, and it directed me to entertainment zones I had already set up, and kept telling me that it highlighted things on my screen when it wasn’t. Copilot’s indicator highlighting feature is useful, but it usually only does so when you ask for it, and is very slow to respond. It often stays on your screen long after Copilot has moved on to other tips.

Some other prompts in the ad went unanswered, including “Help me figure out these instructions” and “Turn this recipe on my screen so it feeds 12 people.”

“14!” Another actor intervenes, most likely his partner.

We don’t see what’s on the screen in these cases, so for instructions, I tried the Ikea co-pilot view Calax rack 2×4 – Classic with assembly guides available online. The co-pilot continued to identify the nails as screws or nails. It often detects page numbers as step numbers, making any attempts to follow along more chaotic.

Scaling up the recipe for a huge gathering is a common holiday practice in my Italian-American family. I tried to show the co-pilot Recipe for stuffed mushrooms from Sip a feast. I’ve admitted that going from a serving size of six to 14 would require doubling each ingredient about 2.3 times, but he usually only does a few calculations before expecting me to do the rest or trying to move on to another topic by asking me a question. When I noticed that the site had options to scale the recipe, she mistook the “2x” and “3x” buttons for plus and minus buttons that would allow me to order exactly 14 servings, and she kept insisting that that was what those buttons were for. They are not. Then, as a last ditch effort, I asked him to calculate each component and explain it to me in a document. The co-pilot told me he would do it, and then did nothing.

The final example in the ad is the homeowner with the smart lights asking, “Can you read the HOA guidelines and make sure I’m not breaking any rules?” A fabricated document titled “HOA Guidelines” and an image of a giant inflatable reindeer in front of a house encroaching on neighboring properties appear on the screen. The image also appears to be AI generated; Microsoft’s Trovinger confirmed that “both the reindeer yard ornament image and the HOA guidelines document were created for the purpose of advertising and are designed based on references.”

The co-pilot asks the actor in the ad to “set the inflatable reindeer so it doesn’t cross into the neighbor’s yard.” When I showed Copilot a screenshot of the document and image from the ad, he was able to spot the line that said “Large inflatables cannot cross your property line.” But the co-pilot only gave me questionable answers about whether the reindeer were too far away or not. It seems to be guessing that the reindeer may To push boundaries, but often defer to my judgment.

There is another claim in the ad. It’s jolly old Saint Nick himself, asking the co-pilot why toy production is down. In the ad, the co-pilot says it’s because elves consume too much hot cocoa. But this may be due to management’s insistence on integrating AI into the workflow.

I have to hand it to Microsoft’s marketing team for including this, which feels like an admission that the entire ad campaign is selling a fantasy. Believing that Copilot can do what Microsoft says it can — or that any of its AI assistants can do — is like believing in Santa Claus.