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Microsoft has revealed a bunch of major new features coming to Windows 11 – but you’ll only enjoy these upgrades if you own one of a new line of devices known as Copilot+ PCs.
The US company announced the new initiative at an event at its headquarters last night ahead of its annual developer conference called Microsoft Build, which starts tonight and is likely to offer an early look at new features coming to a free Windows 11 update scheduled to be released this fall.
Copilot+ PCs will feature a few extra tricks you won’t find on other Windows 11 devices, including the ability to go back in time and recall a document or web browsing session at any point in the past month. Laptops and tablets with the Copilot+ badge will also offer real-time translation of video calls, YouTube videos and any conversations near your computer.
If you want to enjoy all the features integrated in Windows 11, you need to make sure that your next purchase is marked as a Copilot+ PC. This means it meets the latest criteria from Microsoft (16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and NPU) to enable the latest AI tricks.
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These new devices are among the first to feature a dedicated button on the keyboard to invoke the Microsoft Copilot AI assistant – the first shakeup of the standard Windows keyboard layout since the introduction of the Start key in 1994.
To reach Copilot+ status, computers will need at least a 256GB SSD, an integrated neural processor, more commonly referred to as an NPU, and at least 16GB of RAM. The first Copilot+ PCs are all powered by Qualcomm’s latest laptop chipset, although Intel is working on a suitable processor to launch later this year.
New machines from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung were announced at the event, with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors.
Microsoft also announced the new Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro tablet that meet the Copilot+ criteria. The Redmond-based company says these new Surface devices are “the fastest and most intelligent Windows PC ever built.”
Pre-orders are available nowwith new Copilot+ computers starting to ship on June 18, 2024.
The Surface Laptop 6 is available with a 13.8-inch or 15-inch screen, up to 1 TB of SSD storage, and 16 GB of RAM. All models come with a Snapdragon X system-on-a-chip equipped with a neural processing unit that enables Copilot Plus computer functions.
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Microsoft is one of the biggest investors in OpenAI – it has already issued a check for $10 billion. During the event, the company confirmed the next iteration of ChatGPT, which was revealed in a live stream earlier this monthcoming to Copilot+ PCs in the coming weeks.
“This first wave of Copilot+ PCs is just the beginning,” said Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Yusuf Mehdi. “Over the past year, we’ve seen an incredible pace of AI innovation in the cloud with Copilot enabling us to do things we never dreamed possible.
“We are now starting a new chapter with on-device AI innovation. We have completely redesigned the entire computer, from the silicon to the operating system, the application layer to the cloud, with artificial intelligence at the center, which represents the most significant change. to the Windows platform in decades.”
One of the biggest new features coming to Windows 11 on Copilot+ PCs is called Recall, which allows users to browse back on their device to find what they’re looking for when they can’t remember the exact location of a file.
Recall is the main feature of this Copilot+ PC table, which allows you to go through everything that happened on your Windows 11 PC and jump back in time with a single click. Everything is searchable because the AI ​​went through the images and text on the device
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Snapshots of moments in time will be presented as you travel back in time – showing exactly what you were doing on your computer. On-device artificial intelligence analyzes everything on the screen, so you can search for words that appear in a document, objects that appear in images on a webpage, and more. Once you find what you’re looking for, Windows 11 resurfaces the files with a single click.
Users will also be able to quickly create AI-generated images using the Cocreator app in the Paint app, which allows users to create images from text prompts or initial drawings, while Live Transcribes can translate audio from over 40 languages ​​into English in real-time.
The company also showcased its Copilot voice assistant, which acts as a real-time virtual trainer for the user playing the game Minecraft video game.
Microsoft showed its new devices in action against Apple devices and showed Adobe’s photo editing software running faster on Microsoft devices. Apple showed earlier this month new AI-focused M4 chip inside its latest iPad Prowhich analysts expect to see a jump in future MacBook models.
Cocreator in Microsoft Paint can improve your skills. First, you describe the style of artwork you want to create, then start drawing in Paint as usual, while artificial intelligence (AI) refines everything in a small preview panel. At the end, you can export your own version of the AI
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After Intel processors dominated the PC market for decades, Qualcomm and other manufacturers of lower-power Arm components tried to compete in the Windows-PC market.
Microsoft’s announcement comes nearly a week after Google unveiled its plans to further incorporate artificial intelligence into its products in the coming months, including rebuilding your search engine based on answers generated by artificial intelligenceand brings its own generative AI assistant Gemini to more of its most popular apps.
Next month, heavyweight Apple is expected to unveil its own AI plans at its annual WWDC developer conference at its headquarters in Cupertino.