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Windows with Copilot Rolling Out Sept. 26
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says Copilot for Windows will transform the personal computing era.
Microsoft's Copilot end user generative AI technology is coming to Windows 11 users on Sept. 26.
Microsoft chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi announced the general availability date of Copilot for Windows on Thursday, during an event focusing on generative AI and Surface devices.
"With the convergence of chat interfaces and large-language models, you can now ask for what you want in natural language, and the technology is smart enough to answer, create it or take action," said Mehdi. "At Microsoft, we think about this as having a copilot to help navigate any task."
According to the Microsoft, Copilot for Windows will make the PC experience more intuitive by learning from users' day-to-day data, browsing history and work activity. Copilot for Windows will bring "over 150 new features" to the operating system starting next week, including access to the AI assistant through the taskbar or with the Win+C keyboard shortcut. Once open, Copilot will reside in a side panel. The company said that Copilot can be called to assist across a myriad Microsoft apps, including Word, Edge and PowerPoint.
Copilot powering everything Microsoft was the key message from the event. A demo video illustrated how the AI-powered assistant can be used for various tasks, such as cleaning and organizing desktop Windows, creating Spotify playlists, erasing photo backgrounds in Paint and having Copilot help draft text straight into a Word document.
"We believe Copilot will fundamentally transform the relationship with technology and usher in a new era of personal computing: the age of copilots," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the event.
Carmen Zlateff, Microsoft Windows vice president, also took to the stage to show some additional Copilot features coming to Windows, including a new feature called Windows Ink Anywhere, which allows for the use of a stylus to type in text into any Windows text box.
She demonstrated how users can have Copilot solve a math equation by writing it in the Copilot text box, and how Copilot can help with solving an illustrated equation by using the stylus to crop out a graph from a document and pasting it directly into Copilot. "Not only does Copilot solve the math problem -- which feels magical, but trust me, it's real and powerful -- but it explains how to solve it, which serves as a great learning moment for all those future equations you'll need to solve," said Zlateff.
She then showed off Copilot for Windows' mobile integration by searching for specific information on her Windows PC contained in her texts – for example pulling up flight information from a text straight to her Windows desktop.