From PC Mag: Copilot+ PCs were once the key to Microsoft’s AI ambitions in Windows, even if its vision never fully came to fruition. Microsoft still heavily promoted AI at this year's Build conference, but it neglected to mention its AI-first PC hardware brand. In fact, the only person who brought up Copilot+ PC features to me was a protester who pointed to the backlash Microsoft faced after introducing Recall. Now, the company is focusing on agents that run locally across a wider range of devices (especially new Nvidia-powered hardware). The message is clear: The agentic future of Windows won’t require a Copilot+ PC. This change can't come soon enough.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella quickly dismissed Copilot+ PCs at the start of his keynote, telling developers that “you now have the full scope of GPUs that you can get to” when writing AI software targeting Windows ML. “I’m really thrilled that every developer out there can count on building for local onboard AI and then have it run across all of the install base,” he said.
That’s a big change from Microsoft’s previous approach to local AI features on Windows. Everything from AI-powered settings configuration to the controversial Recall tool to semantic search required a PC with a neural processing unit (NPU). That was a big part of what defined Copilot+ laptops. The vast majority of Windows 11 PCs, including even the most powerful desktop PCs, cannot support these AI features. The only way to get them was to buy new dedicated hardware.
At Build, when the company showed me the Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, local AI was still the big focus. But the company wasn’t interested in promoting the NPU or discussing any of the existing Copilot+ PC exclusives. OpenClaw-style AI agent experiences got all the attention. And those don't have the same arbitrary requirements.
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