Why does it always have to be a button?

There will be a new button on a PC keyboard - that’s the latest news from Microsoft.

The announcement from Microsoft triggered the Twitter “edit” button déjà vu. It was the biggest news in October 2022 when the announcement from Twitter (the thing now referred to as X) proclaimed that there would be an “edit” button, allowing you to edit Tweets if you pay $4.99 a month. At that time, I compared this revolutionary feature with Cyborg Cockroaches. Since I am not paying anything to Twitter, I have no idea if this earth-shattering feature is still in place or not. We know that the cockroaches are.

According to the news, the pressing of this magic button (called the Copilot Key) will launch an AI chatbot. As described by a Microsoft executive, this button will be the entry point to the world of AI on PC. It is the latest desperate continuation of the introduction of Copilot last summer. As noted then, it is a voodoo trick to resurrect Clippy.

Consider the new button as a reminder of a bad hangover, but let's start the new year on an optimistic note.

There are many companies that are trying hard to innovate. I think it is an appropriate recurrent pattern to review what's happening at the bleeding edge of innovation.

I have written a lot about how search hasn’t evolved for the last 20 years, and it is nice to see startups trying to change that.

The first one doing this is Perplexity. In the words of its founders, the company 'was founded on the belief that searching for information should be a straightforward, efficient experience, free from the influence of advertising-driven models. We exist because there’s a clear demand for a platform that cuts through the noise of information overload, delivering precise, user-focused answers in an era where time is a premium.'

I asked Perplexity, 'Why is the sky blue?' and quickly got a simple answer, which started with 'The sky appears blue due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering.' It continued with a few paragraphs of content with references and suggested a few related questions.

Compared to Google search, Perplexity returns the answer with few reference links. Google provided a little bit of summary and a never-ending list of links. The top links on Google were the same as the links on Perplexity.

The next company is Metaphor. Its stated mission is 'We're building the future of search'. The geekiness of the founders is nicely summarized when describing how the system works: 'The Metaphor API retrieves the best content on the Internet using embeddings-based search.'

The same query about sky color, results in a list of links, which are similar to Google and Perplexity. Metaphor is meant to be more so a plugin into your own AI project than a replacement for Google’s search page.

Then we have Andi, which introduces the chatbot-like interface with the promise where 'Andi is an AI search chatbot that's accurate, ad-free and privacy-focused. It uses a new type of search engine powered by generative AI combined with live data and semantic search technology. Instead of just links, Andi gives you answers - like chatting with a smart friend.'

All of these companies are trying to re-imagine the user interface and bring back the simplicity that once drew users to Google's homepage many years ago.

I wish these startups all the best in 2024 and wish for them to become a recurrent pattern in years to come.