Capitalizing on the announcement hype ofits latest duo of Surface PCs, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to confirm some exciting changes coming toWindows 11in the coming months. In addition to a grab bag of new AI features sprinkled throughout the operating system, the company has formally confirmed that itsbehind-the-scenes Start Menu redesignwill indeed see the light of day on stable builds of the OS.
“Windows has always been for doers. As we debut the newest Surface devices designed for a new generation, we’re also excited to share the next wave of Windows experiences to help you get more done. We believe that everyone should be empowered to achieve more on a Windows PC. That starts with exploring how we can make our experiences more intuitive, more accessible, and ultimately more useful,” says Navjot Virk, CVP of Windows Experiences at Microsoft.
In terms of new AI-powered additions, Microsoft has outlined several features that are on the way. These include a new agent within the Settings app, new text and image actions such as Ask Copilot within the Click to Do interface, dynamic lighting controls within the Photos app, a Paint sticker generator, and more. The Settings app agent is particularly interesting – a new prominent search field within the interface will allow you to locate and automatically adjust your settings via natural language queries.
The refreshed Start Menu, meanwhile, unifies the pinned and all apps sections under a single screen.
The refreshed Start Menu, meanwhile, unifies the pinned and all apps sections under a single screen, is larger by default, allows you to disable the recommended section, and provides additional sorting options for browsing through your installed apps. One of these options, category view, is heavily inspired byApple’s App Libraryinterface – it automatically sorts your apps into buckets including games, utilities, productivity, and more.
According to Microsoft, these new AI features will be “coming soon to Copilot+ PCs,” with an initial rollout to Windows Insiders over the next month. The Start Menu redesign, meanwhile, is already available in testing (albeit in hidden form), and it should eventually arrive on all Windows 11 PCs, Copilot+ certified or otherwise.
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Microsoft has been all-in on artifical intelligence for some time now, with the company heavily pushing its Copilot+ PC initiative in recent months.Copilot+ PCsare Windows 11 machines with processors that incorporate a neural processing unit (NPU) threshold of 45 trillion operations per second (TOPS), allowing for efficient on-device generative AI processing.
The AI arms race has been heating up, with competition from the likes of Alphabet, OpenAI, Meta, and other giants within the tech industry. Apple has been notoriously late to the AI party, with its Apple Intelligence suite proving controversial in execution. Microsoft has fared better, but I’d argue that things haven’t gone swimmingly for the company, either: its flagshipWindows Recall feature was, well, recalled, and other AI additions like generative image creation and live translations haven’t exactly set the world on fire.
…it’s the new-and-improved Start Menu that I’m most looking forward to receiving on my own PC.
I’m excited about the upcoming enhancements to Microsoft’s Click to Do feature, which works similarly toGoogle’s Circle to Searchin that it provides contextual options based on what’s on your screen. More so than any of the other AI features, however, it’s the new-and-improved Start Menu that I’m most looking forward to receiving on my own PC. Compared to the existing interface, the new menu is far more functional, customizable, and flexible.
If there’s one thing that’s clear to me, it’s that Microsoft is doubling down on Windows 11. Its olderWindows 10 OS is reaching end of lifein October of this year, and it doesn’t look like the company has the appetite to once again fragment its user base by launching aWindows 12anytime soon. While our PCs will most likely continue to run Windows 11 for the foreseeable future, Microsoft’s ‘new generation of Windows experiences’ verbiage implies that Windows 12 is indeed being ushered in, but with Windows 11 as its vessel.
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