There's a new Clippy in town

Once upon a time there was Clippy, Microsoft Office’s ‘assistant’. It was intended to be helpful and make the lives of Office’s users easier. In reality, Clippy proved to be a nuisance, interrupting people’s workflows and often providing unhelpful advice.

Today, there’s a new Clippy in town. It goes by many names, but is commonly known as AI.

AI is the ‘in’ thing at the moment. It seems everyone is rushing to incorporate it into their products. However, few are stopping to question if it brings true value to its end users.

Far too many of these integrations bring back memories of Clippy. AI tools seem to popup inconveniently and get in the way of our natural workflows. For example, every time I log in to one of Google’s Workspace tools I seem to need to interact with AI reminders just to dismiss them. These interruptions affect my experience, and usually not in the positive way they were intended (much like Microsoft’s Clippy).

I appreciate there’s a lot of buzz around AI at the moment. I know many people are finding value in the tools it provides. However, it is not always helpful, even if it is increasingly becoming always present.

If you’re going to incorporate AI into your service or app, please make it less intrusive. Learn from the past mistakes of Clippy.