MS Clippy Is Coming To Halo Infinite Season 2. No, Really

Microsoft might be best known for the Windows operating system, but its second-biggest and most successful software is arguably Office, especially Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (though some might argue that Azure is today's Number Two). Designed to catapult the likes of WordStar and its kin into oblivion, MS Office brought the concept of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) to the masses, letting the mouse do most of the talking. However, that "ease-of-use" also brought some complexity, which gave birth to the notorious Clippy assistant that remains the butt of many jokes to this day. Strangely enough, Clippy is making a return, thankfully in a passive and silent way.

Clippy was a bit ahead of its time and predated today's personal smart assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. The helper suggested the next actions one should take in Office software based on what they were typing or doing, hoping to save them from having to navigate through a sea of menus and options. Given how bloated Microsoft Office was getting at the time, the assistance was arguably necessary.

In practice, however, Clippy turned out to be more than just annoying — it was downright disruptive. The digital paperclip would pop up in the middle of things, breaking your flow and concentration. More importantly, it failed to be smart, suggesting things you were already doing and making you go through hoops to accomplish tasks that would have otherwise involved only a few clicks. It's really no surprise that Clippy was ridiculed out of existence, but it remains a sort of pop culture figure and meme to this very day.