- Microsoft has announced Copilot Plus PCs in today's Surface event.
- These PCs will leverage the onboard NPUs to provide AI features like Recall, Super Resolution, Cocreator, and Live Captions.
- The new Copilot Plus PCs will be available from June 18 for a starting price of $999.
Microsoft has announced what’s perhaps one of the most awaited tech launches of the year, AI PCs, and in a typical Microsoft way has named them Copilot Plus PCs. These PCs come with Neural Processing on the deck and lots of AI features to use that hardware, and here’s everything you need to know about them and the new features.
Recall is Here!
One of the first features the giant announced on stage is the Recall feature. The feature was previously internally referred to as AI Explore. As the name suggests, Recall can help you remember things you previously did on your PC. For example, asking Recall to remind you again about the chat you had last night with one of your Discord friends, etc.
Photos App: Super Resolution feature
The new Photos app with a Super Resolution feature is coming soon. The feature will reportedly be Copilot Plus PCs-exclusive. By using the same, users will be able to restore old photos in high quality. Additionally, Microsoft also showcased an AI narrator which will, well, narrate what’s in the pictures.
Cocreator: Create While in Control
Next up, Cocreator is a new feature that can help you create something with ease. You can ask it to generate an entire image, but at the same time, direct it to follow what you’re drawing. This way, the end result could be much closer to what you were thinking and not completely dependent on AI. Cocreator will be Copilot Plus PCs exclusive.
Similarly, the Restyle feature can generate newly styled images of your existing photos based on a preset style. The image created this way will look like an entirely new image.
Live Captions
Live Captions is another new feature, that can help you translate audio that passes through the microphone on Copilot Plus PCs in real time. Microsoft claims the feature supports English translations for 40+ languages across all apps.
Windows Studio Effects
Windows Studio Effects should help you look the best during professional meetings. Some of the features include portrait lighting, enhanced noise-canceling, background blur, and creative filters. Users will be able to access these features in Quick Settings on Copilot Plus PCs.
Creative Apps Right Under Your Nose
Microsoft also demoed a few Adobe apps and claimed the tasks in these apps run almost twice as fast as an M3 MacBook. The availability of Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Firefly, and Express as of the Copilot Plus PC release are easily one of the best highlights of the event. For those wondering, yes, these are native ARM64 versions.
The giant also demoed DaVinci Resolve and showed how the software uses the NPU to the maximum and delivers quick color edits to videos without slowing down the CPU and GPU.
Copilot with GPT-4o
Copilot on Copilot Plus PCs ship with Open AI’s latest model GPT-4o. We’ve dwelled deeper into the model in our comparisons, but all you need to know is that GPT-4o on Copilot Plus PCs will be faster, more powerful, and more personal. The conversations will feel more natural.
New Copilot Plus PCs Across Manufacturers
Lastly, there’s a host of new devices to look forward to, alongside Microsoft’s latest Surface and Surface Pro, which the company announced at the event. Some of the prominent names such as Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung will be putting out their Copilot Plus PCs in the market soon.
The new Surface laptops feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite platform. However, AMD with Ryzen AI and Intel with upcoming Alder Lake platforms will also bring new Copilot Plus PCs to the market. Microsoft says the new Copilot Plus PCs will begin to launch on June 18 at a starting price of $999.
What are your thoughts on Copilot Plus PCs? Let us know in the comments below.
