TL;DR
- Microsoft is rolling out a Phone Connection setting in Copilot on Windows PC. This setting aims to make the AI assistant more personalized by feeding on your Android phone’s data and allowing you to perform common phone tasks with natural language commands.
- However, many tasks, like sending messages and setting alarms and timers, don’t seem to work as seamlessly as imagined, even though this is not a beta feature.
AI assistants are a dime a dozen these days, and companies are still figuring out the best way to make their AI assistant actually valuable for you beyond generating some emojis. Android flagships have a pseudo-native option in the form of Gemini, and Windows PCs get Copilot. Microsoft wants to be on your phone too, and the latest updates to Copilot and the companion Phone Link and Android-based Link to Windows apps attempt to bring a cross-platform AI digital assistance that lets you take actions on your phone through commands sent on your PC.
Microsoft is working towards rolling out Phone Connection on Windows, which lets Copilot on Windows PC connect to your phone and execute tasks on it through natural language commands, as spotted by Windows Latest. There is a new setting in the Windows Copilot app that says “Phone Connection,” which makes Copilot “more personalized by integrating the rich data stored on your Android, including messages and contacts.”
Microsoft says that you can also perform common phone actions on your PC, such as sending messages, setting alarms and timers, locating places using the map on your device, and more.
The report tried out a few tasks with Copilot on Windows using natural language commands. For setting a timer or an alarm, Copilot accepted the command and sent a Link to Windows notification to the connected Android phone.
The user has to click the notification to set the timer/alarm, which is slower than setting it directly on Windows. It also forces you to pick up your Android phone anyway, so you might as well set it on your phone through Gemini or the old-fashioned way.
Further, the report also mentions some hits and misses with Copilot checking for new messages. At first, the messages shown were old, possibly pointing to a syncing issue between Phone Link and Link to Windows. A reboot allowed Copilot to bring some recent messages to the fore, but those weren’t the latest unread messages either, which the Phone Link app could show. Trying to send messages through Copilot resulted in disappointment, too.
The only tasks that reliably worked were fetching contact information from your Android phone and sending location searches to your phone.
The report mentions exclusive features for Samsung phone users, such as Google Maps navigation and canceling alarms and timers, but did not test those out.
The report concludes that Phone Connection in Copilot is a promising idea that isn’t ready yet. For all the misses mentioned, you’d be better off just picking up your phone. Microsoft’s documentation for the feature suggests that the setting is being gradually rolled out and is expected to be generally available by February 2025. So, Copilot’s Phone Connection is a shipped non-beta feature that barely seems to work.
Have you received the Phone Connection feature on Copilot on your PC? How was your experience using Copilot to perform tasks on your Android phone? Let us know in the comments below!
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