The Windows 11 23H2 Update Is Essentially AI, AI And More AIs
The Windows 11 23H2 Update Is Essentially AI, AI And More AIs
Unsurprisingly, since the popularity of AI kicked off early this year largely thanks to ChatGPT (and its owners, OpenAI which Microsoft heavily invested in), the theme of Windows 11’s latest major update is none other and AI itself, a big contrast from the opposite land of macOS Sonoma.
The most prominent feature is the new AI-powered Copilot – essentially Bing Chat built right into the OS itself. Copilot is touted to be the digital assistant that Cortana never was, although Windows does warn on the footnote inside the UI that “surprises and mistakes are possible”, or ‘hallucinations’ as we call it. Whether it’s more or less reliable compared to Cortana (since it’s hard-coded) will be anyone’s guesses right now, but on paper Copilot should be vastly more powerful at performing tasks or answering questions. It’s launched using the Win+C shortcut key – the same one occupied by Cortana once before.
Microsoft is also infusing AI into the venerable Paint app, which has seen a revamp since Windows 11 (including layers support). The new AI-powered feature is dubbed “Cocreator” (currently under Insider Preview), and it functions as a text-to-image generator using text prompts, likely will be powered by the just-announced OpenAI DALL-E 3 image generation model. Microsoft Clipchamp gets its share of AI treatment as well, with Auto Compose providing users with narrative or editing recommendations based on user’s “input and creative assets and a few simple clicks”.
Snipping Tool, now with both image and video capturing capabilities, gets text extraction and redaction mode – the company says this is AI-powered, but based on the blog, there’s no specifics on which part is an AI-involved process, since text extraction is already a fairly common feature based on OCR (optical character recognition) techniques. Meanwhile, Photos app will gain background blur and enhanced context-aware search (so you can type the word ‘vacation’ and the app will look for ones that resembles it).
Taking a small detour from the barrage of AI related features, Windows 11 is also gaining a new Windows Backup feature that keeps your user profile, settings, apps and credentials in the cloud (with 5GB free, upgradable with paid tiers). On the accessibility front, voice access commands gets enhanced support on more apps, and better text dictation with corrections now available as you speak.
On the security front, Microsoft is introducing password-less Passkeys – Windows will introduce passkey logins on all browsers where available, users can simply use their biometrics (through Windows Hello) or PIN to login to relevant services. Presence Sensing meanwhile, utilizes presence detection and sensors to save energy (and enhances privacy) if it detects no person present in front of their PCs, which helps save energy. The company says this feature will be extended to third party displays if the manufacturer supports it.
Back to AI – Microsoft is also introducing AI in File Explorer and Start, but for business users only. “These recommendations are designed to help you quickly and easily find the most relevant files for you based on your usage,” says Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer of Microsoft. It’s not specified if this feature will make its way into client versions of Windows, however given the company’s massive AI push – it’s probably a matter of when, not if.
Pokdepinion: Microsoft is going all-in to the AI – I for one will watch on the sidelines and see how it goes.
