Before Microsoft's Build 2024 developer conference began today, the company made a series of initial announcements during a special hour-long event on May 20 held at its Redmond campus in Washington. These announcements included:
- PC Copilot+.
- Co-pilot and GPT-4o.
- Remember.
- Surface Pro 11.
- Surface Laptop 7.
- Creative apps optimized for AI.
TechRepublic takes a closer look at all the major announcements made at the Surface and Copilot AI event on May 20, 2024.
copilot PC+
The first major announcement to come out of the conference was the launch of Microsoft's new personal computer category: Copilot+ PC. These PCs come with Copilot AI built in, as well as Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors capable of 40 trillion operations per second.
SEE: Microsoft Copilot cheat sheet: price, versions and benefits
The PCs also have neural processing units designed to power new AI features in the Windows 11 operating system. For example, a Copilot+ PC will be able to make suggestions in Settings, write responses to notifications, and edit files in File Explorer.
Another new feature is the Prism translation layer, which will allow software written for Intel and AMD chips to work equally well on chips made with Arm technology. This is Microsoft's equivalent of Apple's Rosetta 2, and the company said it works comparatively well.
Yusuf Mehdi, head of consumer marketing at Microsoft, said the Copilot+ devices are 58% faster than the MacBook Air with its M3 chip. The devices will be sold directly by Microsoft but also by other manufacturers, including Dell, Lenovo, Acer, HP and Asus.
Mehdi added that faster AI assistants running directly on the device will be “the most compelling reason to upgrade your PC in a long time.”
Copilot and GPT-4o
“I am excited to share that GPT-4o, with voice and vision capabilities, will soon be available on Copilot,” Mehdi said at the event.
The new OpenAI model will be able to answer questions based on what is shown on the screen. An example was shown of how AI could guide a user through the sandbox video game Minecraft.
SEE: OpenAI's next flagship model is the 'natively multimodal' GPT-4o
Remember
Recall is a new AI-powered feature that will allow Copilot+ PC owners to quickly and intuitively search their device's history. It runs locally and records everything the computer has done, including web browsing, file creation, and voice chats, so anything the user has encountered through that PC can be referenced. Recall integrates with Timeline, the existing Windows feature that shows running applications and past activities, to provide an easy-to-use scrollable interface.
The keynote gave examples of how to rediscover PowerPoint slides from months ago, clothes you were looking at online, and conversations held in apps like Discord using Recall. As far as security is concerned, Recall data will only be stored on the device and will not be used to train Microsoft's AI models; Users can control what data is viewed and stored.
Surface Pro 11
The first of the new Copilot+ PCs is the Surface Pro 11. Its Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips, based on the Arm architecture and replacing the Intel Core Ultra processor of the previous version, make it up to 90% faster.
Many of the Surface Pro 11 apps, including Microsoft 365, Chrome, Spotify, Zoom, and WhatsApp, run natively on ARM64 processors for improved performance. It also supports a new Surface Pro Flex keyboard, which works on or off. The keyboard and touchpad have been designed to be more accessible and there is a Surface Slim Pen holder for storage and charging.
As for its external features, Surface Pro 11 has a 13-inch screen and is available in blue, beige, black and platinum. The tablet has a QHD front camera and a 10 MP rear camera that can capture 4K videos. It's also the first Surface device to offer an OLED display option with HDR support. The new Surface Pro launches on June 18, but is available for pre-order now, starting at $999.99.
Surface Laptop 7
The other new Copilot+ PC device launched at Monday's event is the Surface Laptop 7, which is also powered by Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips to support the new AI features. It's more than 80% faster than the previous Surface Laptop and has almost double the battery life, with 22 hours of video playback on the device and 15 hours of web browsing.
A live demonstration of the Surface Laptop 7 was performed processing images with Adobe Photoshop at the same time as an Apple MacBook Air, and the former was about twice as fast. The new laptop has also been given a new look with slimmer bezels; blue, beige, black and platinum color options; and a 13.8 or 15-inch screen. It's available to pre-order now, starting at $999.99, but won't ship until June 18.
Creative apps optimized for AI
Microsoft made a series of announcements that increased the creative capabilities of its product line. These were:
- Microsoft is partnering with Adobe and other creative software companies to optimize its Copilot+ suite of PC applications. Adobe's Photoshop, Lightroom, Firefly, and Express will be available on Surface Laptop 7 and Pro 11 devices, and Illustrator and Premiere Pro will be optimized and rolled out later this summer.
- Many creative applications, including DaVinci Resolve, CapCut, Cephable, LiquidText, and djay Pro, have been developed to run natively on the ARM64 processor to improve performance with the NPU.
- Cocreator, an artificial intelligence tool that transforms text or brush strokes into images, will be available with Paint on Copilot+ PCs. In addition to receiving input, you can repeat existing sketches to help edit and generate ideas.
You can watch the full keynote from the Surface and Copilot AI event on Microsoft's YouTube channel.
