Microsoft Starts Rolling Out Its Copilot AI to Windows 11 Next Week

Memories of Clippy, but smarter

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Published on September 21, 2023 11:53AM EDT
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The AI chatbot will eventually be available across all of Microsoft's app and services.

Copilot, Microsoft's AI-powered generative assistant, is coming to Windows 11. 

At its Surface event on Thursday, the company said it would begin rolling out a unified Copilot experience to Windows 11 users starting September 26. Eventually, the generative assistant will be available across Microsoft's entire ecosystem, including the company's full Office 365 suite and Edge web browser, where previously it was siloed across a few different apps and services.

Someone using a laptop with an AI graphic overlaying the image.
Using AI on a laptop.

Choreograph / Getty Images

In its latest iteration, Copilot will allow Windows 11 users to do things like summarize text and shop for clothing based on a single image. Another new feature, dubbed "Sounds Like Me," allows Outlook to write emails for you while ensuring the resulting text and sign-off reflects your writing style. If those features sound familiar, it's because they've existed for a while in one form or another on competing AI platforms like Google Lens.

Some of Copilot's other capabilities include generating Spotify playlists and blurring the background in photos to lessen distractions. Another new feature called Windows Ink Anywhere allows users to write in any textbox across Windows 11 and use that as a starting point for a prompt to Copilot. Users can also access Copilot from the taskbar or by tapping the Windows and C keys together.    

"Copilot will uniquely incorporate the context and intelligence of the web, your work data and what you are doing in the moment on your PC to provide better assistance—with your privacy and security at the forefront," wrote Yusuf Medhi, Microsoft corporate vice president and consumer chief marketing officer, in a blog post.  

Many of Copilot's features depend on access to a user's personal data. Microsoft said Windows 11 could pull information from a person's phone to personalize Copilot responses. In the company's example, a user could ask Copilot to find information about their upcoming flight, and the AI companion would access their text messages and Bing search history to obtain that data.    

When Microsoft begins rolling out Copilot next week, it will be part of an update with more than 150 new features. Microsoft is billing the release as Windows 11's biggest update since its release in 2021.

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