The future of Windows: Copilot+ PCs unleash practical AI tools

Microsoft is aligning AI with its Copilot brand.

- MARK HACHMAN

To date, PC vendors have shipped AI PCs. On Monday, Microsoft announced the next step in the AI PC’s evolution, the Copilot+ PC, and announced AI-powered Windows 11 features like Recall.

“The pursuit has always been about how to build computers that understand us, instead of having us having to understand computers, and I feel like we really are close to that breakthrough,” said Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, in a briefing with reporters on Microsoft’s campus.

A Copilot+ PC combines local, on-device AI with cloud AI, according to Microsoft, to provide a range of services. Some of the new laptops shipping with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus processors will be classified as Copilot+ PCs, taking advantage of the NPU found within both chips. That NPU will power local AI functions, with over 45 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) driving the AI engine. Copilot+ PCs require 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and an integrated NPU.

Microsoft’s Yusef Mehdi showed Copilot interacting with Photos, Settings, and even Minecraft, where Copilot actually talked to the user, recognizing what it saw on the screen. “It really will be a whole new way of experiencing the world,” Mehdi said.

Microsoft is orienting many of its apps and services around AI and its Copilot brand. Of course, consumers will be able to tap the special Copilot key (fave.co/49QnG1u) to launch Copilot, which is still a cloud-based AI service. But Windows will also include new AI powered features, too.