Microsoft beats Google by integrating an AI assistant straight into its OS

With no intention of slowing down, Microsoft is continuing to find more ways to insert AI into every product it makes. Its most recent move is aiming to make an AI assistant the front and center of Windows 11.

Today is the start of the tech giant’s annual developer’s conference, known as Microsoft Build. This may come as a surprise, but this year, AI is a major theme for the event. Along with a variety of business and developer-related announcements, the company revealed it will be launching Windows Copilot.

As Microsoft explains, “copilot” is a term the company coined to refer to an application that uses modern AI and large language models — like GPT-4. They are meant to help users with complex tasks. Windows Copilot, in particular, is designed to be a centralized AI assistant that users can easily find and use to answer questions, customize settings, connect across apps, and more.

According to the announcement, this feature will be located in the center of the taskbar. When clicked, it will bring up a sidebar where users can interact with it the same way they interact with Bing Chat.

In the video above, you can see some examples showing how the feature works. One example shows the user typing in “How can I adjust my system to get work done?” The bot then not only suggests using the focus timer feature and dark mode, but also allows the user to enable those features directly from the app.

Another example showed the user taking a document and moving it into the Ask me anything field. The user then clicks on summarize and Windows Copilot creates a numbered list of topics discussed in the document.

Windows Copilot won’t be available right away. But Microsoft says that a preview will be released for Windows 11 in June.