Copilot+ PC Questions, Answers, and Some Clarity (Premium)

Among the many questions we have about Copilot+ PC this year is when these features would come to non-Snapdragon X-based PCs. And how. This week, we finally got a bit of clarity from Microsoft and its hardware partners, all of which have been tight-lipped and vague to date. And the news matches my expectations for the most part.

As you know, Microsoft launched the Copilot+ PC brand at its May launch event for Surface Pro 11, Surface Laptop 7, and all the third-party PCs based on Qualcomm's innovative Snapdragon X hardware platform. This brand marks a sharp right-turn for the marketing of Windows 11 on Arm-based PCs, with its pivot away from always-on connectivity to AI. But that's due in part to Copilot+ PC not being Arm-specific. Instead, the branding is the PCs' NPU, and the resulting features that can come from having hardware accelerated on-device AI.

Those capabilities were never going to be limited to Arm: We've known for some time that AMD and Intel would launch new generation chips with integrated NPUs that meet or exceed the Copilot+ PC specifications. And since then, they have: AMD went live with its Zen 5 platform in August and Intel formally launched Lunar Lake, the second-generation Core Ultra platform, yesterday at IFA.

So it's on, in a sense. And Intel has already come out swinging with a familiar refrain that its chips, unlike those made by Qualcomm, are fully and natively compatible with all Windows software and peripherals, and not just the subset Snapdragon X can handle. They were particularly brutal in hammering home the video game issues with Snapdragon X during an IFA pre-brief yesterday, almost to the point of cringe. But that's fair: Qualcomm was, perhaps, a bit premature to pretend that Snapdragon X is a viable platform for playing x64 games. All's far in love and war. And in marketing.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As soon as Microsoft announced Copilot+ PC, and in particular the controversial Recall feature, I knew we were in for a summer of questions. I also surmised, correctly, that Microsoft would communicate its positions badly or not at all. And that clarity would only come in time, and most likely from third parties like PC and silicon makers.

Recall is well-understood. The feature came under fire immediately from privacy and security advocates, which makes sense given Microsoft's past sins. (A fact that renders its initial announcement seem particularly naive; it must have known this criticism would be immediate and deserved.) After some scrutiny, Microsoft finally announced some concessions on Recall and then delayed its release in preview until late 2024.

Less well understood, thanks to Microsoft marketing, was how and when Recall and the other Copilot+ PC features would expand to non-Snapdragon X PCs. And by the time those first Copilot+ PCs became available, the situation was a muddled mess. The AI features aren't all that compelling, especially with Recall removed, and I think ...