Microsoft announced the launch of Copilot Vision and Copilot Voice to all Windows 11 PCs yesterday. The opt-in features introduce options to talk to the AI and to give access to your screen. The features are rolling out worldwide.
It appears that Windows 11 is getting another big update, which Microsoft announced yesterday as well on the Windows Experience Blog.
Microsoft calls these new features experiences that are rolling out to Windows 11 devices as well. Unsurprisingly, many of them are also AI-related.
Windows 11: new features and improvements
Here is an overview of what Microsoft is launching for Windows 11:
- File Explorer is getting AI actions: Unlocks AI functionality, such as getting a summary of a document , including OneDrive and Sharepoint files, or editing images, right from the file manager. Image editing is limited to the four: Bing Visual Search, blur background, erase objects, and remove background.
- Microsoft 365 People cards: File Explorer will display people icons in the Activity column for commercial customers who sign in with an Entra ID.
- Widgets visual update: The widgets interface got a visual update with a layout that is "more organized, personalized, and engaging" according to Microsoft. It also includes Copilot-curated stories now and content from "trusted MSN premium publishers". Also new, multiple dashboards for your widgets board, and widgets on the lock screen.
- Accessibility improvements: Narrator includes a Braille viewer now, which "shows both on-screen text and its Braille equivalent". You may launch Braille viewer with the keyboard short Windows-Ctrl-Enter, pressing the Narrator key-Alt-B. Microsoft says that the Narrator experience in Word has been improved as well, offering better "oice feedback, reliable continuous reading, and better navigation for footnotes, comments, lists and tables".
- Gaming Copilot, a beta feature that introduces the AI for gaming related activities, is now integrated into Game Bar. Gamers can, for instance, talk to Copilot to get game related help, while playing a game.
- The Xbox PC app displays your gaming library across devices now and enables you to access apps and play history.
- A new Network Quality Indicator tool can be launched by clicking on the profile pic in the Xbox PC app > Settings > Cloud Gaming > Network Quality Indicator.
- Windows Hello is getting a visual refresh. Windows 11 prioritizes the "best credential" automatically now when you sign in to a Windows 11 PC with a Microsoft account.
- Passkeys: Windows 11 has a seamless passkey manager integration, which users can turn on via Settings > Accounts > Passkeys > Advanced options.
- Microsoft Edge is now using the password manager instead of the legacy Wallet experience, which Microsoft says has been retired. It improves integration with Microsoft accounts.
- Improved kernel security. Parts of Windows 11 have been rewritten in Rust to "help mitigate against memory corruption vulnerabilities". Driver developers may also start writing drivers in Rust.
- Wi-Fi 7 support :Microsoft is rolling out support for the new wireless standard.
- Redesigned Advanced settings page, especially for Developers.
- Microsoft Edit is a new command line text editor that is integrated into Windows.
- Windows ML is now generally available.
- Advanced shader delivery is now available for games on Windows 11 PCs. This feature should reduce the initial long load times and disruptive stuttering during a game's first launch, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft announced a good dozen smaller tweaks to Windows 11 next to that. The CPU workload metric in the Task Manager, for instance, is now consistent, and you find new top level divider icons in File Explorer for the five actions displayed at the top.
Last but not least, Copilot+ PCs get a range of changes and new features:
- Recall's personalized homepage shows a user's recent activity and top-used apps and websites, as well as recent snapshots.
- Click to Do shows "new and popular action tags" in its context menu.
- Agent in Settings offers direct navigation links now, and it is available across all compatible PCs.
- Voice access using natural language.
- Paint is getting project files and an opacity slider.
- The Snipping Tool is getting a quick markup option. This allows you to make edits to the image right in the tool's selection area before the screenshot is finished.
- Notepad supports AI features like summarize or rewrite now.
PCs need to update to Windows 11, version 25H2 first. The latest security update for Windows 11 needs to be installed as well on the machine before the features become available.
Also worth nothing is that Microsoft is rolling the features out gradually. Means, if you are unlucky, you may not see a single new feature immediately after upgrading to the latest version.
Now You: What is your take on the features? Something that you find interesting or waited for a long time? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
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