Yesterday at Microsoft’s Surface event, the tech giant announced “Copilot+ PCs”, the new branding for incoming AI-focused Windows machines. New devices that want to be part of Microsoft’s cool new club will have to tick a few specific boxes to be eligible – they need to have built-in AI hardware and support Microsoft’s new AI features.
That built-in hardware takes the form of a dedicated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) chip, like the one Qualcomm is shipping with its new Snapdragon X-series processors. Although, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Intel and AMD-powered laptops will also offer AI features.
Copilot+ PCs promise to be a lot smarter
One of the new features Microsoft will ship for the smarter Copliot+ PCs to take advantage of is called Recall. It’s the Windows version of Rewind, or an official version of Windrecord. Like those programs, Recall will turn everything you have done and seen on your PC into a searchable, virtual photographic memory.
Microsoft says the new feature will build a “personal semantic index” for you which will only be stored on your device and that users will have the ability to delete snapshots or ranges of time or filter apps and programs out completely. As safe as Microsoft wants that to sound, it’s only a matter of time before someone finds a way to exploit it.
Maybe the new “Microsoft Pluton Security processor” will help with that. It will be enabled by default on all Copilot+ PCs, along with other security improvements Microsoft says it made.
And faster
The company isn’t shy about performance claims either. Copilot+ PCs can apparently “outperform Apple’s MacBook Air 15” by up to 58% in sustained multithreaded performance.”
A footnote tells us this claim specifically refers to machines sporting 12-core and 10-core Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus chips compared to a vanilla 8-core M3 MacBook Air 15in. So it’s no wonder they’re faster. It also mentions that “[p]erformance will vary significantly between device configuration and usage” so some salt is required here.
Read More: Microsoft is shoving Copilot AI into Minecraft because…
To reach those performance levels, Copilot+ PCs will have other hardware requirements so they can deliver on Microsoft’s loft performance claims. They will need at least 256GB of SSD storage, 16GB of RAM, and an integrated NPU somewhere inside.
“Today is kind of a special day. We get to reimagine the platform that fuels our work and passion … on a new category of PCs,” said Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi at the event.
That kinda reminds us of…
