Author of this article: Li Dan

Source: Hard AI

Before the Build Annual Global Developers Conference is held this Tuesday, Microsoft held a major new product launch conference. Following the launch of the first batch of AI PCs incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) functions into personal computers (PCs) in March, Microsoft also fully integrated its AI assistant Copilot into the Windows system, and AI PCs fully “shine a sword”.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the lead at this press conference held at Microsoft's new campus in Washington on Monday, May 20, EST. He compared today's breakthrough to Windows 95, a major revolutionary system released thirty years ago. It says, “After 30 years, in this new era of AI, we're talking about Windows again.” He said he felt he was close to achieving a breakthrough, that is, building a computer that can understand humans instead of making them necessary for humans to understand them.

Nadella said Copilot has clearly made a lot of progress, but its transformation is still in the early stages. The law of scaling (scaling law) helped us create and provide very powerful AI models in the cloud, but today, we need to go beyond the cloud and into devices. Nadella said, “We believe AI will be distributed. The richest AI experiences will harness the power of the cloud and edge. This will bring about a new category of devices and turn the world into a reminder.”

Using the world as a clue starts with the Windows system. Nadella announced that Microsoft's new PCs will be “Copilot+PC,” calling them “the fastest and most suitable AI PCs ever.”

Nadella introduced the main OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) of Copilot+ PC. Among them, AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm are chipmakers for Microsoft PCs, while Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung are Microsoft's device partners. He said every developer will be able to utilize AI models in these new PC devices.

Windows 11 AI PCs will be launched on June 18, 58% faster than the M3-equipped MacBook Air with 40+ TOPS/second computing times

Next, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's vice president and chief marketing officer for consumer goods, took the stage to introduce a new Windows PC category designed specifically for AI experiences: Windows 11 AI PCs. Windows 11 AI PCs will be launched one after another starting June 18, and Microsoft Surface and OEM partners such as Dell, Acer, Asus, HP, and Lenovo will launch Windows 11 AI PCs one after another.

Mehdi said, “These new PCs are ultra-thin, ultra-light, and ultra-beautiful. They're the most powerful Windows PCs ever,” and they'll also include a “groundbreaking AI experience.”

Mehdi said Windows 11 AI PCs are faster, smarter Windows PCs. It is equipped with a chip with a new neural processing unit (NPU), which can achieve more than 40 trillion operations per second, or 40+ TOPS, and provides long-term battery life.

The first CoPilot+ PCs were equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon (Snapdragon) X Elite desktop processor, which can support up to 22 hours of local video playback or 15 hours of web browsing on a single charge.

All Windows 11 AI PCs use Microsoft Pluton Security processors by default. The faster chips that Windows and Qualcomm collaborate to run various application apps better, and now provide an unprecedented rich Arm64 native app experience, including Microsoft 365 apps such as PowerPoint and Word, as well as iQiyi, Station B, Foxit PDF Editor Pro, Kugou Music, QQ, QQ Music and NetEase have translation, etc.

Mehdi compared the Windows 11 AI PC to Apple's high-end Mac computer, saying it was “58% faster than the most advanced MacBook Air with an M3 processor. All (PCs) are equipped with a battery that lasts a full day.”

The new Recall feature helps find content viewed on a PC and provides real-time subtitles translated into more than 40 languages, including Chinese

Windows 11 AI PCs support advanced AI models, effectively eliminating previous limitations caused by delays, costs, and even privacy, and helping users improve productivity, creativity, and communication efficiency.

According to Mehdi, GPT-4O, the latest flagship AI model launched by OpenAI last week, will soon support Copilot. He demonstrated how GPT-4O-enabled Copilot can view what's on the screen and respond with voice, instructing players in the sandbox game Minecraft how to create materials in the game.

Throughout the process, Copilot acted like an assistant playing the game. When Minecraft players encounter zombies in the game, it can accurately see and alert: “Oh no, this is a zombie.”

According to Mehdi, Windows 11 AI PCs can help users do things that other PCs can't. For example, you can easily recall and find content you've seen on your PC before through the new feature “Recall” (Recall). Like humans, Windows 11 AI PCs can organize information based on unique connections and associations from personal experiences. It can help users quickly and intuitively retrieve what they are looking for based on fragments of clues in their memories, and help them remember things they have almost forgotten.

Mehdi emphasized the safety of the Recall feature, saying it was limited to an individual's local device, and “We don't use any information to train AI models.”

Carolina Hernandez, product manager for Windows AI Experiences, demonstrated how to use the Recall feature to find content users viewed on their PCs a few weeks ago, and it can even find Discord chats where users discuss specific projects.

Mehdi said that Windows 11 AI PCs are introducing AI experiences into some popular apps. For example, the Adobe series of flagship apps will soon be available on Windows 11 AI PCs, including Photoshop, Lightroom, and Express, which will launch this Monday, and Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and more apps will be launched this summer. In LiquidText, documents are annotated faster and more intelligently with native AI capabilities powered entirely by NPU to guarantee data privacy.

The new Windows Copilot Runtime includes over 40 AI models to support features such as recall.

Another major feature highlight of the Windows 11 AI PC is real-time captions with real-time translation. This function can automatically instantly translate live or recorded audio from any app or video platform into English subtitles, support translation in more than 40 languages, including Chinese, convert audio transmitted from the PC into unified English subtitles, and display it in real time on the app display window. This function can be implemented even when the user is offline.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said that Microsoft has taken Copilot to a new level, and Copilot will listen, talk, watch in real time, and help in real time.

Some netizens replied to him that this is just a competition. If you want people to spend as little effort as possible on input, they can get what they want. Other netizens say they hope Copilot can also help with computer role-playing games such as “Baldur's Gate.”

The new Copilot+ Surface Pro starts at $999 and domestic sales start at 8688 yuan

Brett Ostrum, corporate vice president of Microsoft Surface, said that Surface's Copilot+ PC, that is, the full line Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, “are the most powerful laptops and pros we have built,” and no previous generation Surface can come close to their level.

Adrienne Brewbaker, head of product marketing at Surface, said the Surface Laptop has been redesigned with modern lines and ultra-thin bezels. The display is divided into 13.8 inch and 15 inch sizes, and there are four new colors to choose from.

The new generation is up to 86% faster than the previous generation Surface Laptop 5, faster than the MacBook Air, and the battery life also surpasses that of the MacBook Air. “Local video playback time is up to 22 hours” and Wi-Fi 7 is supported. The new Surface Pro is up to 90% faster than the Surface Pro 9.

The new Surface Pro announced by Microsoft starts at $999. This AI PC has an LCD display, X Plus processor, 16GB RAM, and 256GB storage. If you want to upgrade to an X Elite chip and OLED screen, it costs at least $1,500, and the premium version of the new Pro — 32GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and a platinum PC — costs $2,100.

Microsoft also announced that the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop will be pre-sold on May 21 at Microsoft's official store in China and the official flagship store operated by its initial partner JD, and officially launched on June 18. The starting price of the new Surface Pro is RMB 8,688, and the starting price of the new Surface Laptop is RMB 11.88 million.

Bob O'Donnell, chief analyst at tech consulting and market research agency TechNalysis Research, commented on Chen Wei that this Monday has been a rare and exciting day for the PC industry for a long time
Because of this day, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung teamed up to launch an AI-accelerated Copilot+ PC.

On the Design Media X platform, some netizens cheered for the Windows AI PC, saying they didn't even have to write down the text because the PC already knew how excited I was. The official Windows account playfully replied to this post saying, “We've left you speechless, haven't we?