Microsoft is improving its best feature for Copilot+ PCs – and that gives me hope for the future of AI in Windows 11
- There’s a new preview build out for Windows 11
- It smartly builds up the powers of the AI agent in Settings
- This is only for Copilot+ PCs and there’s not much here for those with a traditional (non-AI) Windows 11 PC
Microsoft is beefing up the powers of its AI agent in Windows 11 (for Copilot+ PCs) with the latest preview build for the OS.
You may recall that the first Windows Agent is the AI introduced to the Settings app a few months ago, designed to help you easily find and change the options you want in Windows 11, and it’s been worked on in preview build 26120.6780 in the Beta channel.
There are two major changes here, the first of which is an increase in the number of suggestions that appear when you search for a setting using the AI agent.
This means not only does the AI surface the setting it thinks you want – and possible recommendations for what to choose with that option – it also provides further results for related settings you might need (see the example below).
Furthermore, if your query to the AI can’t be actioned – say you want to increase the brightness of the monitor, yet it’s already at the maximum level – you’ll be informed about this (and also given the necessary slider should you wish to tweak the setting). Microsoft shows us an example screenshot for this, too, for when the volume is maxed out.
The second big change here is that the AI surfaces recently-used options on the home panel of the Settings app so you can quickly access these again.
Remember, the agent in Settings is a Copilot+ PC feature, so traditional (non-AI) Windows 11 computers don’t get this as they don’t have the necessary NPU to accelerate the performance of the functionality (which happens on-device).
Another change for Copilot+ PCs is that Windows 11 will now highlight key abilities as you launch Click to Do, such as emails or tables that you can use AI-related actions on.
Alongside these boosts on the AI front in this preview release, Microsoft is also making the dialog box for the Run command fit in with dark mode – it didn’t before now, remaining a white color, but now has a dark background, as it should have.
Analysis: Genuinely useful AI
These are welcome changes to make the AI agent more useful in Settings. Having recently-used settings surfaced on the home screen is great for quickly modifying – or reversing – a decision you recently made with the various options in Windows 11. And the bolstered search functionality is good to see, as well – all of this makes it a genuinely useful AI feature, particularly for computing novices who may not understand the various nuances of different settings.
For me, this is a highlight of Windows 11 on Copilot+ PCs, as is the AI-supercharged search functionality elsewhere in the OS. It seems a good deal of the important progress with AI in Windows 11 thus far is based on making search more intelligent.
We can expect more AI features in Windows 11, of course, and Microsoft recently kicked off a new Windows AI Labs program to help with the development of such functionality. Presumably we will get more AI agents outside of the Settings app eventually, though it’s unclear where Microsoft might be looking to expand this concept. The Start menu could be a likely next target, perhaps.
Sadly, there’s not much in this new preview build for those who don’t have a Copilot+ PC, although the extra bit of dark mode functionality doesn’t hurt. This is part of an ongoing drive to bring more interface elements into dark mode, though Microsoft has been lagging behind with this work. It isn’t clear why it’s taking so long to ensure dark mode covers all the Windows 11 interface.
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There’s a new preview build out for Windows 11 It smartly builds up the powers of the AI agent in Settings This is only for Copilot+ PCs and there’s not much here for those with a traditional (non-AI) Windows 11 PC Microsoft is beefing up the powers of its AI…
