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Microsoft has unveiled a torrent of major new features coming to Windows 11 — but you’ll only enjoy these upgrades if you own one of a new range of device, known as Copilot+ PCs.
The US company announced the new initiative at an event at its headquarters last night ahead of the annual developer conference, dubbed Microsoft Build, which kickstarts later tonight and will likely offer an early glimpse at new functionality coming to the free Windows 11 update scheduled to release this autumn.
Copilot+ PCs will include several extra tricks not found on other Windows 11 devices, including the ability to scroll backwards through time and recall a document or web browsing session from any time within the last month. Laptops and tablets with the Copilot+ badge will also offer real-time translation of video calls, YouTube videos, and any conversations within proximity of your PC.
If you want to enjoy all of the features built into Windows 11, you’ll need to make sure your next purchase is labelled as a Copilot+ PC. This signifies that it meets the latest criteria from Microsoft (16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and NPU) to enable the latest AI tricks
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These new devices are amongst the first to have a dedicated button on the keyboard to summon the Microsoft Copilot AI assistant — the first shake-up to the standard Windows keyboard layout since the Start key was introduced way back in 1994.
To achieve Copilot+ status, PCs will need a minimum of 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 the latest laptop chipset from Qualcomm, although Intel is working on an eligible processor to launch later this year.
New machines from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung were all announced at the event running the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors from Qualcomm.
Microsoft also announced a new Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro tablet that meet the Copilot+ criteria. The Redmond-based company says these new Surface gadgets are the “fastest, most intelligent Windows PC ever built”.
Preorders are available now, with new Copilot+ PCs starting to ship on June 18, 2024.
Surface Laptop 6 is available with either a 13.8- or 15-inch screen, up to 1TB of SSD storage, and 16GB of RAM. All models ship with the Neural Processing Unit-equipped Snapdragon X system-on-a-chip that enables the Copilot Plus PC features
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Microsoft is one of the biggest investors in OpenAI — having already penned a cheque for $10 billion. During the event, the company confirmed the next iteration of ChatGPT, which was unveiled in a live stream earlier this month, will be coming to Copilot+ PCs in the coming weeks.
“This first wave of Copilot+ PCs is just the beginning,” Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Yusuf Mehdi said. “Over the past year, we have seen an incredible pace of innovation of AI in the cloud with Copilot allowing us to do things that we never dreamed possible.
“Now, we begin a new chapter with AI innovation on the device. We have completely reimagined the entirety of the PC, from silicon to the operating system, the application layer to the cloud, with AI at the centre, marking 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 enables users to scroll back through their device to find what they’re looking for when they cannot remember the exact location of the file.
Recall is the headline feature of this slate of Copilot+ PCs, which lets you scroll back through everything that has happened on your Windows 11 machine and jump back in time with a click. Everything is searchable as AI has trawled through the images and text on-device
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Screenshots of moments in time will be presented as you travel backwards in time — showing exactly what you were doing on your PC. On-device AI will analyse everything on-screen, so you can search for words that appear in a document, objects that appear in images on a webpage, and more. Once you’ve found what you’ve been hunting for, Windows 11 will resurface the file(s) with a single click.
Users will also be able to create AI-generated images quickly using Cocreator within the Paint app, which allow users to create images from text prompts or initial drawings, while Live Captions can translate audio from more than 40 languages into English in real-time.
The company also demonstrated its Copilot voice assistant acting as a real-time virtual coach to a user playing the Minecraft video game.
Microsoft showed its new devices in action against an Apple device, showing photo editing software from Adobe running faster on the Microsoft device. Apple earlier this month showed a new AI-focused M4 chip inside its latest iPad Pro, which analysts expect to make the jump into future MacBook models.
Cocreator within Microsoft Paint can improve your skills. First up, you’ll describe the style of artwork you’re looking to create, and then start drawing in Paint as usual while the Artificial Intelligence (AI) will enhance everything in small preview panel. At the end, you can export the AI version of your own
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After Intel’s processors dominated the PC market for decades, Qualcomm and other makers of lower-power Arm components have tried to compete in the Windows-PC market.
Microsoft’s announcement comes almost a week after Google laid out its plans to further embed AI in its products over the months to come, including rebuilding its search engine around AI-generated responses, and bringing its own generative AI assistant, Gemini, to more of its most popular apps.
Next month, fellow industry heavyweight Apple is expected to lay out its own AI plans when it holds its annual developer conference, WWDC, at its Cupertino headquarters.