Microsoft AI head Mustafa Suleyman explains how the company is tracking adoption for its AI assistant called Copilot

Microsoft AI head, Mustafa Suleyman , recently spoke at the company’s 50th anniversary celebration about how Microsoft tracks the progress of its AI assistant , Copilot. He explained that his team measures things like daily and weekly users, how widely Copilot is being used, and how much people are engaging with it. However, Suleyman’s main focus is on something different. He said, “I really, really focus the team on SSR, the rate of successful sessions.”

In the past, when customers didn’t give real-time feedback, companies measured success by how much time people spent using products, like on social media, or how many problems the product solved. “Now, we actually get to learn from the anonymized logs and extract the sentiment,” said Suleyman, who joined Microsoft a year ago after leading Inflection AI, a startup.

Suleyman explained that Microsoft now uses an AI model to help figure out the sentiment behind users' interactions with Copilot. This helps measure SSR.

“Over the last four months, it’s gone up dramatically, and that’s what we optimize for,” he added. He, however, didn’t share exact numbers or other specific metrics for Copilot’s performance.


New features for Copilot
Last fall, Microsoft introduced a new, friendlier voice for Copilot and added a feature to analyze web pages for users. Recently, the company also showcased new features for Copilot, like personalized podcasts, a tool to help with researching tough questions, and the ability for Copilot to be customized to each person and conversation.

When asked what he would like Copilot to look like, Suleyman said, “I would definitely go for something that was cutesy,” adding, “like a little Furby-type thing.”