In response to repeated inquiries about how Apple will use AI technology, Tim Cook is used to selling things and thirsting his appetite, but the market is growing by leaps and bounds. Microsoft, which has had a long-standing dispute with Apple, has once again offered results that can be implemented on AI technology terminals.

This time, Microsoft launched its self-developed “CoPilot+PC”, expanding the boundaries of AI applications for PCs. Microsoft calls it a new species of AI PC; among them, Copilot incorporates OpenAI's latest multi-modal model GPT-4O.

What's even scarier is that this is just one of the more than 50 AI capabilities and hardware devices announced by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Satya Nadella) at the 2024 Microsoft Build Conference. Other important achievements include self-developed Cobalt chips and small end-side models Phi-Silica and SOTA models for NPUs supporting “Copilot+PC.”

Compared to Apple's slow movement in the use of AI technology, Microsoft can be called The Flash. It is both fast and has many results.

In the early morning of May 22, Beijing time, Microsoft launched more than 50 kinds of AI PC software and hardware development tools and finished products in one go at the 2024 Microsoft Build Conference.

Nadella mentioned Microsoft's efforts on AI PCs over the past year, focusing on how developers can use big model capabilities to change the world.

To this end, Microsoft has built a three-level technical and application framework: the user's daily assistant is “Microsoft Copilot”; the ability to support this “AI assistant” comes from the Copilot stack, which developers can use to build AI solutions and implement AI applications faster; and third, smart terminals that carry these two capabilities — “Copilot+PC” AI PCs.

The first “CoPilot+PC” was the new Surface Pro equipped with a Qualcomm Arm-architecture processor. To put it bluntly, the industry goals of Qualcomm's ARM architecture CPUs are worth explaining in a special article.

The so-called “Copilot+PC” is actually not a physical combination of “Copilot+PC,” but rather means “Copilot+.” This is a PC supported by Copilot's software capabilities.

Leave the complicated software technology behind and go back to the app itself. The most fantastic and amazing application of “CoPilot+PC” (referring to laptops, not including desktop PCs) launched by Microsoft this time is “Recall” (Recall), which means that as long as the user has done anything through Microsoft's AI laptop, it can be found using the “Recall” function.

Copilot, for example, has the ability to find an intriguing pair of shoes that a user saw on a browser a few days ago. Through natural language, users can describe to Copilot the relevant information about the shoes, such as color, style, material, price, etc., and the Microsoft AI PC can directly bring the user back to the moment the shoes appeared on the screen.

Isn't it a bit like “going back in time”?

If you think these are the only ones, then you are underestimating Microsoft. Can't wait? Don't worry, there's more!

“Recall” also has a timeline that can be directly dragged back and forth to find the exact point in time that the user needs, can also directly delete the content recorded by AI, and can also specify the application to set a whitelist to block the Recall function. All of this is handled on the end side without going to the cloud.

The essence of this application actually indicates that Microsoft's application prediction for AI PCs is “active.” What exactly does that mean? You can continue to pay attention to the PC-side AI applications that Microsoft will launch in the future.

In terms of software and hardware structure, Microsoft AI PCs are equipped with Microsoft's self-developed AI GPU “Cobalt” (hardware), which supports cross-system AI applications (software), and users can retrieve them from browsers, system settings, notifications, and various system applications. As an example of an application, all audio and video playing on a Microsoft AI PC can be translated into more than 40 languages in real time.

The core competency of this is “Copilot is context-aware and visually aware, and can help users handle any work being done on the PC screen.”

As for information such as using it to analyze local files, tables, and data on the computer, let Copilot summarize it into a document, or draw a picture, etc., let alone talk about that.

Some AI end-side applications that can currently be thought of or are popular in the industry can be achieved with Microsoft's “Copilot+”.

Microsoft announced at the press conference that the first CoPilot+ PC, the latest Surface series, will be launched on June 18: the CPU uses Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus (Arm architecture), and versions using Intel and AMD chips will go on sale later.

According to official Microsoft test data, the multi-threading performance of the new Surface Pro is 58% higher than the Apple MacBook Air 15. It can support 22 hours of local video playback, and there is an OLED screen version.

One thing is worth noting: Previously, Microsoft (including Qualcomm) had been promoting the construction of an Arm-based Windows PC ecosystem, but the performance was not as good as expected. This time, AI PC laptops supported by “Copilot” are expected to speed up the construction of a PC ecosystem based on the Arm architecture.

If that were true, then not only Apple, but Intel was also shaking. As a core member of the “Wintel” alliance, which is the industry's most valuable and longest-lasting technical cooperation, Microsoft is actually digging a grave for it. Why is that? Could it be that Intel is asking so hard that even Microsoft can't stand it?

Even if Intel is potentially impacted, that is a matter of the future. It is actually Apple that will face the Microsoft threat.

The capital market can make a simple observation about the speed and results of Apple and Microsoft's implementation in AI technology from the extent of changes in stock prices.

OpenAI launched the epoch-making ChatGPT-3.5 on November 30, 2022. From that day until May 22 of this year, Apple and Microsoft's stock prices rose by 30.23% and 71.62%, respectively. The latter was 200% + of the former; Apple's market capitalization was 2.9 trillion US dollars, while Microsoft was 3.2 trillion US dollars.

Now I just hope Cook can launch an attractive enough end-side AI technology solution at WWDC24 (Apple Global Developers Conference) on June 10.

Otherwise, Apple's crown will actually land.