[HN Gopher] Show HN: Open-Source Windows AI assistant that uses ...
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Show HN: Open-Source Windows AI assistant that uses Word, Excel
through COM
This started off as a project to understand how to get LLMs to
interface with more traditional desktop softwares. We were
especially interested in tools related to schematic drafting and
molecular simulation. Decided to explore COM automation for more
traditional Windows softwares as a starting point! Been using it to
help some friends automate simple excel workflows. Thought we'd
share!
Author : edmgood
Score : 51 points
Date : 2025-03-03 16:10 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| ExxKA wrote:
| This is wild! If you want, this could become a great contender to
| the RPA products out there. I know people who are trying to build
| AI for RPA, but this seems like a much more solid approach.
|
| Let me know if you are interested in turning this into a startup,
| happy to direct you to some relevant people.
| edmgood wrote:
| Very cool! Actively exploring some ideas in the computer-use
| space, happy to connect! Email in my bio :)
| p_ing wrote:
| FYI the Office product group considers COM deprecated. The "new"
| version of Outlook has no COM support, for example. While
| Word/Excel may be many years off, it's something to consider if
| you do move this forward.
|
| I would also suggest moving to a compiled binary at some point.
| Very few Windows users are going to want to figure out Python in
| any capacity.
| victor106 wrote:
| What is the alternative to com?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I think a combination of Office Scripts with maybe Power
| Automate and perhaps some kind of browser extension? I don't
| think all of COM will be available in the web applications.
| They haven't bothered implementing COM in Outlook, so Excel
| and Word will probably end up becoming web applications too.
| andylynch wrote:
| I am really curious about the conversations that will be
| had if or when they seriously propose to any of their
| banking and finance customers that they Webify excel for
| windows.
|
| (Though, going on recollection from past Q&As the excel
| devs have done, a more fundamental issue is that few people
| working they fully understand how COM works, and they are
| getting fewer)
| p_ing wrote:
| The only issue Microsoft has to worry about is legacy COM
| add-ins for Office products. The 'modern' method of
| creating add-ins has been around for awhile and has the
| benefit of also working on macOS and the web, plus not
| having an add-in that can crash the particular Office
| product, doesn't require an install on Windows, more
| secure, etc. etc... There are benefits to Microsoft and
| to end users. Migrating complex COM add-ins to modern
| add-ins is still a big lift.
|
| The app itself (Outlook) dropping COM support is simply
| given it no longer needs COM support for add-ins, it can
| drop COM itself.
| nereye wrote:
| See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-
| ins/overvie....
|
| Note: this is in the context of 'programmatically extending
| Office/M365', I don't think the OP was referring to COM in
| general.
|
| COM is at the base of WinRT, which is pretty much _not_
| deprecated.
| bitwize wrote:
| What? COM is what made Windows great. Without it, it'll be just
| another shitty OS with a shitty DE, and you may as well just
| use Linux by that point.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| COM doesn't work on the Web. They prefer to burn away the
| power features (like S/MIME in Outlook!) and release a
| strictly inferior, slower product, for the sake of...
|
| ... honestly I don't know what. It makes zero sense - it's
| pissing off corporate users, who are already captive. I'm
| guessing hidden inflation strikes again - they can't afford
| maintaining two versions, so they prefer to go with the worse
| one.
| p_ing wrote:
| Three version on the desktop. Web, macOS, and Windows.
| They're all unifying to the same interface, macOS mostly
| being there already.
| tiahura wrote:
| for the sake of monthly subs
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's the thing though: full-featured desktop software
| is already good enough at keeping people to their monthly
| subs, especially in enterprise contexts where there's no
| option for pirating it. Dragging the desktop versions
| down to the lowest common denominator of the web does
| _not_ help drive more subscriptions; it 's a miracle of
| vendor lock-in that it doesn't cause mass cancellations
| of existing ones.
| edmgood wrote:
| Ah interesting to hear about COM - interested where you heard
| or if you have other approaches for computer use!
|
| Yea, we're considering a .exe that people could download
| Jayakumark wrote:
| Does Webdriver selenium work for new outlook ? any idea on how
| to automate , currently using win32com to read emails
| https://github.com/hornlaszlomark/python_outlook as graph api
| is disabled.
| abrichr wrote:
| Thanks for sharing!
|
| There is an open issue in OpenAdapt to implement COM support:
| https://github.com/OpenAdaptAI/OpenAdapt/issues/873
|
| This could be a valuable reference.
| com2kid wrote:
| This is the type of innovations that AI should be used for. The
| fact that this type of product wasn't the very first thing
| Microsoft tried to create is unfortunate.
|
| Microsoft is kinda-sorta pushing for machines that can do AI
| stuff locally with their copilot branded PCs, but I don't see any
| evidence that they are willing to go all in on AI powered locally
| controlled everything with no SaSS model attached.
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