We view the browser as a “window to the world”. As we browse online, we have access to all kinds of resources and information. There are some tasks we do every day that are monotonous and can very much be automated.
With Stay Current, our mission is to transfer the power to automate to the people with relatively little effort—users can have their own customizable assistant with no programming and design needed to build one. Our team is looking to democratize and make building customizable assistants possible for all.
We’re incredibly excited to have partnered with the Microsoft Edge team to build and now launch our invite-only version of Stay Current.
Your customizable assistant can keep you up to date
So, what exactly could a customizable assistant do?
Our first version of Stay Current allows you to stay up to date on the latest information from around the web. Let’s say you wanted to be notified when the new sold-out Xbox comes back in stock, or you wanted to get a daily update of the COVID-19 case counts in your county or get an alert when that Airbnb you’ve been looking at becomes available for a weekend.
You can teach Stay Current to visit those pages and let it know what pieces of information you would like to track. Stay Current will then navigate to those pages on your behalf and check if the information you care about has changed. If it has, we will send you a notification to let you know.
The founding members have several ideas for how they plan to use it.
One team member said he would train it to keep him posted on the pollen count of ragweed, an allergen to which he is particularly sensitive.
Another would use it to find and sort research and another would use it to keep tabs on national park reservations and nab a highly sought-after permit.
Other team members said they could book a tee time as soon as one becomes available, aggregate the count of unread messages across an array of social media platforms or track the stock market.
Their varied ideas for applying the tool demonstrate just how useful a digital assistant could be if the user gets to show it exactly what to do.
Help me help you
Let’s say, for instance, you want to keep track of that pollen level. You would navigate to the website where that information exists, select the specific data you want to track, then save the page as a tracker within the assistant extension.
The pollen level will then display on your personal assistant dashboard, which will update as new information is available. It might be one of a dozen types of information your personal assistant tracks and displays, from package tracking to unread emails to campsite availability. And you can ask to be notified if that pollen level hits a certain value.
Those notifications could come on the browser itself or via a not-yet-built mobile app, made possible because the browser is running in the background when resources become idle and simulates all the necessary interactions such as clicking and scrolling. “The trainability of this model is really compelling,” said Jeff Ramos, who heads the Microsoft Garage. “It could really set Edge apart in the browser space and even automate tasks across platforms.”
Join our Stay Current experimental release
Starting August 5th, 2021, Stay Current is available to an invited set of early adopters. Our team would love to hear what your Stay Current experience is, how we can make improvements, and build the best assistant for you.
Although our waitlist for the invite-only release is currently closed, you can use the https://aka.ms/JoinStayCurrent to share your impressions and suggestions for Stay Current and sign up for product updates.
We’re looking forward to hearing how you’ll be using your Stay Current assistant. #StayCurrent
