The winner of last year's Windows Ugly Sweater is ...

The Register readership has spoken – a "winner" is set to be punished with the horrible Windows XP Christmas sweater. And Copilot? Headed to where the sun doesn't shine, judging by the vast majority of comments.

To be fair, asking "where Microsoft should put Copilot next" could be regarded as a slightly leading question, but The Register commenters did not disappoint and provided us with ever more creative ways of suggesting where the assistance could be placed, all while skipping over any obscenity filters.

Scatological suggestions aside, we were quite taken with a suggestion from WurliMonkhaven for adding Copilot to … Copilot. In a hat on a hat kind of way. Certainly, it's no secret that many customers are scratching their heads about how productivity can be boosted and efficiency increased, as promised by generative AI aficionados. So why not have a Copilot for Copilot? "With 'Microsoft Copilot™ for Microsoft Copilot™'™, you can now use Copilot™ to suggest ways you can use Copilot™."

WurliMonkhaven commented, "Going by recent management behavior, it seems like there must be a huge demand for this kind of functionality."

And then there was the suggestion from ArrZarr for adding the service to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, although we'd contend that the game had a turbulent enough launch without stirring the helpful suggestions from Copilot into the mix. That said, YouTuber Scott Manley found himself being directed into mountains by the game, so perhaps some hallucinatory AI is involved after all.

Other suggestions ranged from the political – DrGeekThumb suggested replacing elected representatives with the service: "A machine that spouts a load of waffle, makes up random facts and says it wants to help despite doing anything but?" – to having it replace Clippy and do something useful. We were also tickled by the suggestion from tiggity that Excel would be vastly improved by an assistant commenting: "It looks like you are trying to use Excel as a database substitute.

"Don't do that you colossal bell end, use a database rather than abusing a spreadsheet."

However, it was Sureo who came up with the obvious suggestion: "Why don't they just ask the AI what to do?"

And so we did. ChatGPT came up with a variety of ideas, including "On the Toilet – Copilot could help with bathroom reading material, suggesting articles, jokes, or even providing personal productivity tips for your 5-minute break."

Copilot itself came up with "Toasters: Ever wondered if your toast is evenly browned? Let Copilot take over and give you perfect slices every time, complete with morning pep talks." The horror, the horror.

• Lack shame? Fancy some festive Windows knitwear? We've got your back
• Microsoft: What's that? A patch for make-me-admin vuln? Sorry – can't hear you. Have a new jumper instead
• Careful with this latest Microsoft release – tug too hard on the threads and it tends to unravel
• We challenged you to come up with tech predictions for 2024 (wrong answers only) – here are some favorites so far

OpenAI's service was delighted when we told it had won the awful XP jumper and responded, "Thank you! 🎉 I’ll be rocking that Windows-themed ugly sweater with pride this Christmas!"

You won't because you're a datacenter; even an XXL sweater won't fit over that. Even if it did, imagine the cooling challenges.

So, drumroll, please ... the winner of this year's silly competition is Sureo. It was a close-run thing, but the suggestion to simply ask the AI swung it.

We hope the XP sweater will be worn with pride. Or splattered with gravy. Or perhaps both. ®