The Growing Impact of Microsoft Copilot in the Windows 11 Ecosystem

Microsoft is putting AI front and center in everything these days. It has added Copilot to its browser, its operating system, and its work apps, and has also brought it to the browser and smartphones. Windows has also been a target for Microsoft’s AI ambitions, even Windows 10. Now, Microsoft has more plans for its Copilot AI in Windows 11

The Windows Copilot feature is getting a range of improvements in the Windows Insider builds , which should eventually trickle down to all Windows 11 PCs. For starters, when copying text, Copilot’s icon will dynamically change, signaling its availability to assist. Hovering over the icon reveals a menu of actions such as summarizing or explaining the copied text, with Copilot ready to execute the selected action. Additionally, users can initiate Copilot by dragging an image onto its icon in the taskbar, allowing for actions to be performed on the image content within Copilot’s interface.

In addition to this, Copilot is going back to automatically open on widescreen devices upon Windows startup. Some user outrage might stem from this as it might feel like Windows is forcing Copilot onto you, but this is actually not the first time Microsoft is trying out this change—we actually thought it was removed because of user complaints, but apparently, Microsoft was just “fixing an issue” with it.

Shilpa Ranganathan / Microsoft

The auto-opening Copilot can be managed through Settings, specifically under Personalization > Copilot, so if you don’t like it, you can still turn it off. The rollout is initially targeting devices with a minimum diagonal screen size of 27 inches and a pixel width of 1920 pixels, primarily focusing on single-display setups in multi-monitor configurations.

These won’t be the last changes we’ll see for Copilot, and as always, features could get added or removed before this version of Windows sees the light for everyone. Microsoft might choose to remove auto-opening again, or make it even more obnoxious. For now, Insiders can give these changes a spin on their PC or virtual machine—we don’t recommend installing an Insider build just for these changes, though, regardless of how much you love AI.

Source: Microsoft