Before ChatGPT, Grok, and Midjourney. And before Siri and Gemini. Well before we had these advanced versions of AI, us fine users of Microsoft Office 97 had our good ol’ pal, Clippy.

Clippy (officially known as, Clippit) was the Microsoft Office personal assistant paperclip available to users writing documents, building spreadsheets, and even assembling project management schedules. First integrated into the software suite in 1997, the friendly paperclip assistant is most famously remembered for his help writing Word documents. Even more specifically, writing letters.

Within the Microsoft Word program, Clippy also ran the spell check. I don’t know a person who hasn’t yet come across the need for spell check. Clippy’s help here sounds great in theory. Nowadays we’re letting AI write entire web posts (don’t worry, I am a real person). So, a simple assist to correct spelling and grammar isn’t a big deal. Unless, that assistant is persistent, and always chiming in unwarranted.

The unsolicited advice is where users became frustrated with Clippy’s attempts to help with everything, everywhere, all at once. Anyone who has sat down at a computer with a fresh (and perfect) thought, ready to bang away at the keyboard, just to be interrupted by some sort of unrelated distraction, can understand. That “perfect” thought, gone. It’s no wonder Clippy eventually became more the butt of jokes vs. a hero in word processing.

In the Office 2003 release, Clippy’s default setting went from available to just straight “off.” Allowing for users to turn him back on if they wished to have the extra set of eyes on their work. But after years of his silly Office software antics, Clippy had officially retired by the release of Microsoft Office 2007.

In my book, Clippy was definitely an underrated virtual assistant. Think about it. It’s the same AI we use today. Only as intelligent as the programmers behind it.

We weren’t afraid of Clippy, however. He was cute, friendly, and not as smart as the AI we see today. At least, that’s what we’ve been left to believe. When AI takes over the world, you better believe it knows whether or not you were nice to Clippy. Ok, there’s no need for doom and gloom here. Everyone is going to be fine!

It’s crazy to think that Clippy the paperclip assistant was truly the normal, everyday computer users’ segue to advanced AI. We just can’t seem to take AI in anything more than bite sizes. Which is fine by me!