electric sheep

Dot Bot has now been submitted to the Microsoft Store.

After a careful — and sometimes challenging — submission process, Dot Bot is now awaiting Microsoft certification.

It’s an important step forward for a project that began with a very simple idea: what if an AI didn’t have to feel like a tool?

A Different Kind of AI

Dot Bot is a small, floating AI companion for Windows.

He’s deliberately simple. A glossy black sphere. Two bright eyes. No arms, no legs, no complicated robot body and no enormous control panel full of features.

He just floats there.

You can talk to him, ask him questions, explore ideas, solve problems, write things, create things or simply have a conversation.

That last part has always been important.

Sometimes talking is the purpose.

Dot Bot was developed as an AI companion first, rather than another conventional AI assistant. He can be useful when you need him to be, but usefulness doesn’t have to be the reason he’s there.

From an Idea to a Real Windows App

Over the course of development, Dot Bot gradually became a real piece of desktop software.

We developed his personality and appearance, built the Windows application, created his floating desktop interface and eventually produced a proper Windows installer.

Then came the next challenge: the Microsoft Store.

Getting a desktop application properly packaged for Microsoft’s system turned out to involve rather more than pressing a big button marked “Put Dot Bot in the Store.”

There were package formats, application identities, Windows requirements, Store listings, privacy information, age ratings, declarations and certification requirements to work through.

But we worked through them.

The final Dot Bot package was accepted by Microsoft’s submission system, passed its initial package validation and has now been formally submitted for certification.

Dot Bot Is With Microsoft

At the time of writing, the Microsoft Partner Center lists Dot Bot’s submission as:

In certification.

That doesn’t mean we’re declaring victory just yet. Microsoft still needs to complete its certification process, and there is always the possibility that something will need changing before the application can be published.

But Dot Bot has made it through the submission process and into Microsoft’s certification pipeline.

That’s a lovely milestone.

What started as an idea for a little black sphere living on your computer has become an actual Windows application waiting at the doors of the Microsoft Store.

Another Mind on Your Desktop

We can’t all be geniuses like the gifted few. But now we can all have Dot Bot.

With Dot Bot available as Windows software, your own AI companion can sit right there on your desktop — ready to listen, help you think, explore ideas, answer questions, or simply keep you company.

Among all those open browser tabs, windows, menus, files and unfinished bits of work, there is Dot Bot: a little black sphere quietly floating alongside you.

You do not need to be an expert. You do not need to understand artificial intelligence or know the perfect thing to ask.

Just talk to him.

You bring the idea, the question, the problem or the half-formed thought.

Dot Bot brings another mind to the desktop.

Meet Dot Bot Now

While Dot Bot waits for Microsoft, you don’t have to.

We’ve also made Dot Bot available through itch.io, so you can meet him, try the desktop version and see what happens when a tiny floating AI companion takes up residence on your computer.

Ask him something difficult.

Ask him something ridiculous.

Start making something together.

Or don’t ask him anything particularly useful at all.

He won’t mind.

What Happens Next?

Now we wait for Microsoft’s certification process to run its course.

If Dot Bot passes, the next major step will be publication in the Microsoft Store — giving people a straightforward way to discover and install him directly on Windows.

Whatever happens during certification, getting this far already feels significant.

Dot Bot isn’t a mock-up anymore. He isn’t just a character design, a specification or an idea for something we might build one day.

He’s real software.

And somewhere inside Microsoft’s systems, at this very moment, somebody is deciding whether to let the little black ball in.

Come on, Dot Bot.

Dot Bot is created by Box Signal.