#CLIPY DIGITAL ASSISTANT HOW TO#

That may be good if you are writing your very first letter, but if you aren’t (as most users weren’t) it became “infuriating”. 1) A lack of functionalityĬritics of Clippy say his real problem was that he was “optimised for first use.”Ĭlippy’s most popular action was to say “It looks like you’re writing a letter” and offer to help. That being said, we can learn more from Clippy’s mistakes than his successes-from a design, conversation development and purely human perspective. As a virtual assistant that would respond to certain context and be continuously available, he carved new ground in the digital assistant space, which is only fully being explored and realised today.

#CLIPY DIGITAL ASSISTANT HOW TO#

His designer would later admit, “people f*****g hate him” TIME magazine named it one of the worst inventions of all time and when Bill Gates publicly announced Clippy’s retirement in 2001, the crowd gave a standing ovation.įor many, Clippy taught us how to hate conversing with a computer-lessons you have to take into account when you design digital humans for a living, like we do at FaceMe.īut what actually went wrong with the sentient stationary, and what lessons can we all learn as AI-powered digital assistants quickly become the preferred channel for customer interactions? What went wrong with Clippy?įirst, let’s just say that Clippy was a pioneer. Clippy’s future was neither long nor bright.

Clipy digital assistant