Microsoft: 'ever present' AI assistants are coming

 Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistants with “really good long-term memory” are about a year away, according to Microsoft's head of AI, Mustafa Suleyman.

Products which can recall conversations, projects and problems will encourage users to invest more time and share more of their personal history with them, he said in an exclusive interview .

“I think we’re moving to a fundamentally new age where there will be ever present, persistent, very capable co-pilot companions in your everyday life,” he added

Critics have voiced strong concerns around this level of integration, including data security, privacy, the possibility of AI tools giving bad advice or wrong information, or displaying inbuilt bias towards the person they are supposed to be helping.

But AI supporters argue that in order to be truly useful, these tools have to be deeply embedded into our lives: that they can only be really helpful if they know the history and context behind what they are being tasked to do.

For example, an AI diary manager can only organise your diary if it can access that diary, edit it, and retain information about your activities.