Yes, Even Your Poor Mouse Has AI Now

In a world where the corporate hype train is rushing to put AI into absolutely everything, it should come as no surprise that Logitech is putting it into your mouse.

Yes, your mouse. Logitech's new model sports a dedicated turquoise/teal button to muster ChatGPT to action, so you don't have to use the Copilot key on your Microsoft keyboard. It's a ridiculous addition, but the companion software—Logi AI Prompt Builder—provides a peek at how useful GPT-style AI could be if used properly.

"We definitely don't need any more dedicated AI buttons! Every software company has jumped the shark on incorporating prominent AI buttons into their software. I can see 'Copilot for Windows' in the bottom right of the Windows task bar as I write this. I am sure we'll soon start seeing a physical counterpart to the AI software button: a sort of AI concierge bell labeled "AI Help." I'm guessing we'll see these buttons inside cars, at customer service desks and maybe even in restaurants," Stephen Fraga, founder of generative AI prompt training company Prompt Yes!, told Lifewire via email.

Macros

A macro is where you trigger several tasks with one keystroke, knob-turn, or teal-mouse-button press. A Photoshop user, for example, might trigger a macro that chops a person from a photo, cleans up the edges, resizes it, and adds at back as a new image layer.

Another type of macro is a keyboard macro. You type a few letters, and your computer expands it into an entire phrase. I use this all the time for things I write over and over, and also as a way to type my email addresses and phone number.

Macros are such amazing time and labor savers that everyone should be using them. The problem is, you need to be either a nerd, or highly motivated, to create them. That's where AI comes in. AI chatbots might be notorious liars and cyber-sycophants, making up answers to please you, but they can be pretty good in more specialized situations.

Increasingly often, I read in a forum thread that somebody has solved a basic programming problem by asking GPT to write the code for them. The big downside of GPT chatbots is that they might give you a bad answer and you have to go and verify it manually, reducing the utility to zero. But if you're using it to write software snippets and macros, you're going to have to test them anyway, and once you've verified they work, you're going to be running them over and over in the future. So you see, AI-guided macro writing could be a great idea.

"I believe that the combination of AI with macros (or some other automation) will be far more disruptive (in good and bad ways) than anyone is currently imagining," AI data expert Iliya Rybchin told Lifewire via email. "Most consumer AI solutions require the user to interact with an interface (usually chat) because very few consumers can use the [programming interface] to build their own solutions.

"When you introduce macros, you really bring power to the consumer. The macros allow users to trigger multiple AI interactions, utilize multiple platforms/apps/tools, and integrate into a user's workflow."

 AI Prompt Builder

Logitech's prompt builder is an extra piece of software that you download and trigger with the mouse. You use it to write "recipes" using step-by-step actions, a lot like Apple's Shortcuts or existing online macro services like IFTTT and Zapier. Then you can trigger these macros with your mouse, which makes sense if you've just used it to select some text you want to process.

You don't need to buy a mouse with an AI button to use the new software. It's a free, 60MB+ add-on for the existing Logi Options+ app, and you will surely be able to assign a different button to activate it. You should probably also be able to reassign the AI button to do something else, so if you like turquoise and hate AI, the new Logitech Signature AI Edition mouse might be perfect for you.

Mouse marketing aside, this looks pretty neat. The faster we move away from chatbot interactions the better, so software companies can instead use AI to create useful tools like this one. At least, though, we now know the official color of AI.