The new Copilot+ PCs are officially in stores now, and Microsoft's marketing explains that these laptops come equipped with Windows 11 AI capabilities. only For use in this type of system.
But what does that actually mean specifically? Today, here's what you get with one of these “next-gen AI PCs.”
Copilot+ PC is more than just “AI”
Before we get to the AI features, there's one thing you should know: the marketing hasn't focused on the most interesting thing about these PCs: AI hype aside, these are the first truly competitive Arm-based Windows PCs: dramatically improved battery life and performance.
With Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite hardware, it looks like the PC world finally has hardware that can go toe-to-toe with Apple's Arm-based M-series Macs, and that has Intel worried, especially with the big battery life improvements Intel is teasing in its next-generation Lunar Lake chips.
While everyone's talking about AI, the big talking point is all-day battery life and fast performance, all while being compatible with most existing Windows apps – which means big things for business users (and PC users in general).
This is good news because the AI capabilities of these Copilot+ PCs feel like they're still in development. They're demonstrations of what's possible. Application developers will be able to take advantage of the high-speed Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to add AI capabilities to PCs. their Windows applications.
There's just one problem: Most AI tools do all the hard processing work in the cloud, which means they can run just as easily on a Chromebook or iPad as on a powerful Windows PC. Will we see more applications running their AI-powered number crunching on PC hardware?
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Microsoft recall factors
Additionally, Copilot+ PC's biggest and most eye-catching feature, Recall, won't be available at launch. Facing criticism over privacy and security, Microsoft made a desperate move to remove Recall days before launch in order to delay the launch.
Microsoft still says that Recall will be released on these PCs in the coming months, but it will first be tested in preview form by Windows Insiders.
Once launched, Recall takes a screenshot of your PC's display every five seconds. You can then search the snapshots in Recall using easy-to-understand queries, like “Find me PowerPoint presentations about quarterly budgets that had charts with some orange bars on them.”
Without Recall, the features of the Copilot+ AI PC aren't all that impressive — it's a nice, convenient feature, but not enough to make you rush out and buy a new PC (though the long battery life is impressive, but that has nothing to do with AI).
Paint Cocreator upgrades your paintings with AI
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Microsoft Paint on Copilot+ PC has a “Cocreator” feature that upgrades your drawing with AI as you draw. This feature uses the NPU hardware on Copilot+ PC to perform AI image generation.
this is different It replaces Microsoft Paint's existing “Image Creator” feature with Microsoft's own Image Creator, which ultimately relies on OpenAI's DALL-E 3 model running on cloud servers. All Windows 11 PCs have access to it, but Copilot+ PCs have both buttons on Paint's toolbar.
Here's the catch: You need to be signed in to a Microsoft account to use the feature. Copilot+ uses your PC's local hardware but doesn't work offline. For “AI safety” reasons to ensure image-generating models don't produce anything dangerous, images generated by your PC are sent to Microsoft's cloud servers and only displayed if approved.
So, while this is great, it seems like you'd be better off using a cloud-based AI image generation tool, which would likely produce higher quality, more realistic results.
Change the image style in a photo
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Copilot+ PC now has an “AI” button in the edit view of the Photos app in Windows 11, which launches a tool that lets you “re-style” your photos using generative AI, for example transforming them into an impressionist painting, watercolor, anime, or cyberpunk style.
Again, it's a neat trick, but the feature also relies on Microsoft's cloud servers to ensure safety, it doesn't work offline, and while I haven't spent a lot of time tweaking the prompts, they seem far less impressive, especially for professional business purposes, than the results you can get with cutting-edge AI image generation models running on more powerful cloud servers.
Photo image creation tool
Chris Hoffman, IDG
The Photos app also now has an Image Creator tool that you can access from the sidebar. Again, this AI image generator doesn't produce the quality results you'd get from cutting-edge cloud-based AI image generators like those found in Midjourney or Adobe Firefly.
Like all other AI image tools, this one doesn't work offline: Copilot+ performs the AI image generation work on your PC, but needs to call Microsoft's servers before it can display an image.
Live Caption for real-time transcription and translation
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Copilot+ PC allows you to get live captions of any audio, including audio playing on your PC or picked up by your microphone. Add real-time captions to any audio. Simply launch the “Live Captions” application from your start menu.
this do It works completely offline. In fact, that's one of its advantages. A typical Windows 11 PC also comes with live captions. The main difference with Copilot+ PC is that the translation happens in the PC's hardware itself, so it works offline and is faster even in poor network conditions.
Plus, Copilot+ PC builds translation into this experience: Live Captions understands 44 different languages and translates them into English subtitles. very It can be advantageous in the right kind of business scenarios.
Windows Studio Effects for Webcams
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Copilot+ PC offers Windows Studio Effects for real-time webcam effects during meetings, including blurring your background and fake eye contact so you always appear to be looking directly into the webcam.
These features aren't particularly new, and are also present in the first generation of AI PCs with Intel Meteor Lake chips. However, Copilot+ PC also has “Illustration,” “Animation,” and “Watercolor” options, which allow you to add AI-generated filters to your webcam images in real time. While the effect may vary from person to person, I found these creative filter effects to be quite subtle. Also, these features seem more suited to playful personal purposes than professional corporate calls.
But overall, Windows Studio Effects is useful for online meetings, especially adjustments like eye contact and background blur, and because it uses the NPU, it won't slow down your PC or drain your battery.
What about Copilot?
Chris Hoffman, IDG
Like the first generation AI PCs, the Copilot+ PC has a Copilot key on the keyboard to quickly launch Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant. And that's it. The Copilot experience doesn't use any of the Copilot+ PC hardware. It all runs on Microsoft's cloud servers, just like any current Windows 11 or Windows 10 PC.
In fact, Copilot PC few It does integrate with Windows 11 in some ways. These machines come with the “new” Copilot app that Microsoft recently announced. It's a floating window, not a sidebar. However, it's also a Progressive Web App and doesn't integrate with Windows at all. That means you can't “turn on dark mode” or “empty the trash.” Presumably, these features will come in the future. Either way, all Windows 11 PCs will eventually get this new Copilot app experience. However, there's nothing special about Copilot itself.
Third-Party NPU Experience
Microsoft and Qualcomm are boasting about the Neural Processing Units (NPUs) in these Copilot+ PCs, which are capable of 40+ TOPS (trillion operations per second).
The idea is that this baseline level of NPU performance will enable app developers to integrate AI capabilities into Windows apps beyond the features integrated into Windows itself. While the Copilot+ PC is unique at this time, future hardware from Intel (Lunar Lake, due later this year) and AMD (Strix Point, also due later this year) will deliver similar NPU performance; at that point, all new Windows PCs will meet this requirement.
This isn't just a Windows issue, it's about what third-party apps can do with this hardware.
There's not much available yet. Adobe Photoshop, for example. do While there's now a native Arm version available that runs better on the Snapdragon X Elite hardware, the Adobe Firefly AI image generation feature built into Photoshop still uses Adobe's cloud servers rather than the NPU.
Should I buy Copilot+ PC?
The combination of battery life and strong everyday performance is a great reason to buy one of these first Copilot+ PCs, so it's definitely worth considering when it's time to buy a new PC.
If you're only looking for AI, you might want to consider waiting. There's not much out there yet. If you're specifically interested in Recall, the good news is that it hasn't been released yet and will be available when it is. do It's due to be released in the next few months, so there's a good chance you'll be able to pick up Copilot+ PC on sale. You'll be in luck.
But eventually, all new Windows laptops, whether they have Intel or AMD x86 chips, Qualcomm Arm chips, or Arm chips from other manufacturers, will meet these “Copilot+ PC” specifications and be able to run these AI experiences.
The only question is, do you want to be an early adopter?
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