Everything We Saw at Microsoft's AI Event: Copilot+ PCs, Recall, Surface, More (2024)

Ahead of its Build developers conference, Microsoft today unveiled new AI-focused “Copilot+ PCs,” including a Surface tablet and laptop, as well as laptops and tablets from partners Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung.

The PCs all run Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite CPU, along with a state-of-the-art neural processing unit (NPU) for AI computations. Alongside the hardware are important new software capabilities, all of which center on Microsoft’s Copilot AI offerings. The technology is intended to finally make running Windows 11 on Arm palatable and desirable in terms of speed, compatibility, and support for on-device AI processing. Here's everything Microsoft showed off today.

New Surface Laptop and Surface Pro

(Credit: Brian Westover/PCMag)

In March, Microsoft unveiled the Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business, and today we got consumer versions of Microsoft's hardware.

The Surface Pro runs the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus processors. It comes with a 13.8- or 15-inch display and there's an optional OLED with HDR technology option on the 13-inch. It has two USB 4 ports, Wi-Fi 7 support, and optional 5G support. A new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard is the first 2-in-1 keyboard designed to be used both attached or detached, Microsoft says.

Microsoft says the Surface Laptop is 86% faster than Laptop 5 and promises the "longest battery life on any Surface"—up to 22 hours on the 15-inch Surface Laptop and 20 hours on the 13.8-inch. This one also supports Wi-Fi 7.

The new Surfaces start at $999 and launch on June 18. Stay tuned for our hands ons.

Prism Lets You Run Any Windows App on Arm PCs

Prism is analogous to Apple's Rosetta 2 transcoding software that enables non-Arm software to run well on the newer Apple Silicon CPUs. Basing a PC on Arm makes for far better battery life, cheaper production, and smaller chips. If Microsoft’s Prism can reach the performance level that Rosetta delivers, it will finally be realistic to expect large-scale adoption of Windows PCs using Arm processors. As with Rosetta 2, applications that take advantage of Prism won’t require any special optimization to run on Arm-based PCs.

Native Arm Apps for Windows

At today's event, Microsoft rattled off a list of big software titles that have been updated to run natively on Windows systems powered by Arm chips, which should deliver better performance than apps using Prism. They include Microsoft’s own Teams, PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, Excel, OneDrive, and OneNote.

But big third-party software houses have jumped on board as well, with Chrome, Spotify, Zoom, WhatsApp, Blender, Affinity Suite, and DaVinci Resolve now all getting native Arm versions for Windows. In particular, the Adobe apps (with Firefly) and DaVinci Resolve make extensive use of AI for media editing, so the ability to run these faster on Arm will be welcome.

Recall

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With Windows 11, Microsoft abandoned Windows 10's Timeline feature, which allowed you to easily review and return to previously used apps. The new Recall feature for Copilot+ PCs is an AI-charged reincarnation of Timeline and lets users perform intuitive searches through their files, internet history, and more.

(Credit: Brian Westover/PCMag)

Recall uses a semantic index with a timeline, so it can understand content and context in time. According to Microsoft, its results are based on "relationships and associations unique to each of our individual experiences." That could pop up privacy red flags for some users, but Microsoft states that a user’s personal index is stored entirely on the local device.

Cocreator: Generate and Refine Images Locally

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Copilot can already generate images using Microsoft Designer (powered by Dall-E 3), but that’s done on Microsoft’s servers. With the new Microsoft Paint Cocreator features, Copilot+ PCs will be able to handle these functions locally, meaning less waiting and better privacy.

The Microsoft Photos app included with Windows 11 now has some generative AI features of its own, including the ability to blur or remove the background in a photo.

Copilot+ PCs will add the ability to change the style of a photo with options like “Cyberpunk or Claymation” and you’ll be able to generate images from scratch with Image Creator.

Live Captions

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The new Copilot+ Live Captions allows users to translateaudio from 40+ languages into English. This will work with any live or recorded audio that comes through your PC speakers. It even works offline and is powered by the NPU.

Video Call Enhancements

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Copilot+ PCs will be able to use Windows Studio Effects to enhance images with Portrait light, which adjusts your on-screen image for room lighting that might be too dark or bright. It will also offer artistic filters to give you a distinctive, artsy appearance. An eye-contact effect will make you look like you're paying attention when you’re looking somewhere else, and voice focus and background blur see improvements.

Copilot Becomes a Regular App

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Copilot will no longer be restricted to a sidebar on Windows PCs: You’ll be able to resize it and move it around the screen like any other application. Internally, soon it will also be able to take advantage of the new GPT-4o model from OpenAI.

What's Missing in Copilot's New Features?

I’d been hoping for much more PC control with the Copilot updates. The AI is limited to changing a few basic settings such as switching to dark mode or turning on Bluetooth. But its implementation is clunky, requiring you to wait for the AI to slowly respond and then to tap a button saying, yes, you really want to change to dark mode. And though Copilot accepts voice input, there’s no wake word functionality, so you still need to mouse over to its button or type Windows Key-C (or the new Copilot key). That rules out asking it things from across the room.