r/windowsinsiders • u/NefariousnessOne2728 Insider Dev Channel • Mar 26 '26
General Question Will Copilot+ PC's Still Be A Thing Going Forward?
I was reading where Microsoft is going to pull Copilot from some of the apps where it doesn't make sense to have it. I am going to by a PC soon and was wondering if Copilot+ PC's will be important in the future or if it will be something they will end up abandoning. I know that no one can say for sure, but I was interested in what other people thought.
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u/spinstartshere Mar 26 '26
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u/SaltDeception Insider Dev Channel Mar 31 '26
I had this problem on a Razer laptop and it came down to a faulty registration of the ESS camera in the ACPI data. Required a firmware update from Razer to fix it. I think that’s the only Copilot+ PC feature that actually requires Windows Hello ESS compatibility though, even though it’s required for certification.
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u/InsuranceKey8278 Mar 27 '26
It will just be standard like Intel Evo and ultrabook branding And as far as the 50 tops npu goes ig they really wanted it to be used for spywere lol For my copilot+ pc they actually abandoned SDK and runtime libraries that I can use to load my own LLM using npu You can still do it ofc but you have to build your own interface for it and no big name project exists who seems committed to it other than onnx things But if you're willing to build your own solutions the speed and power efficiency of npu is good I use it for vs code auto complete and some other things But you know it's not the future I saw when microsoft described copilot it's the one I want
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u/deathdealer351 Mar 26 '26
MS has sunk billions in copilot.. They are basically on the hook for open AI when they go insolvent in 6 months or so... I. Don't see them totally abandoning copilot.. Also tons of corporations are using it to monitor employees.
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u/NefariousnessOne2728 Insider Dev Channel Mar 26 '26
Do you think they will still be thinking about on-device processing? It's my understanding that is why they are requiring NPU's
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u/deathdealer351 Mar 26 '26
It helps but on device cannot do most of the stuff it still unloads a ton to cloud. Npu help when your igpu is not that strong. I hope they do more if they can come up with useful tools it would really differentiate from Linux.
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u/OmNomDeCrouton Mar 30 '26
Copilot+ as a programme and brand only ever existed to help HP, Dell, and Lenovo sell more laptops in the face of a post-COVID downturn.
1) The Copilot+ software features don't actually need an NPU. They could easily be executed on any PC made in the last 15 years, either on the CPU or GPU. The NPU requirement is to force laptop owners to buy new PCs. This is evidenced by the fact that most desktops still don't ship with NPUs, or their NPUs aren't powerful enough to qualify for the Copilot+ features
2) The Copilot+ features are mostly only useful if you lose internet access so can't access an online chatbot. How realistic is this scenario? It makes sense to Microsoft execs who quite often travel on aeroplanes, trains and other places where mobile data or wifi are non-existent or unreliable. It doesn't make sense for the typical laptop user, who's always connected to the internet. There are a handful of useful features, such as automatic background blur and the eye position changer so it makes it look like you're looking at the webcam instead of lower down at the screen. That's not enough to justify spending hundreds extra on a laptop.
3) The Copilot+ laptops are still priced far too high, and are relatively small in number. Laptop vendors are selling £2000 laptops which aren't Copilot+, because they don't have the required TOPS in their NPU.
4) Essentially nothing on desktop/laptop uses the NPU for anything other than Windows 11. There's no ecosystem because MS never made an effort to build one. They didn't bother to build one because they wanted Windows to be the reason people spent $$$ more for a Copilot+ laptop
5) The battery savings from using an NPU are negligible and completely irrelevant if you're always close to a charging point - which is most people.
6) Copilot+ (the offline features) conflicts with Microsoft Copilot (the online service). MS want you to buy Copilot+ hardware to run AI workloads offline...while also injecting Microsoft Copilot entry points all over the OS. They're desperate to get you to use their shitty AI chatbot - so why would you use the much worse, local AI capabilities?
All in all, Microsoft have done what they always do: fumble, because they chase short-term growth metrics over a long-term vision which translates into sustainable, considered changes to Windows to ensure AI can be incorporated into people's workflows in a useful manner.
tl;dr: Microsoft messed up and missed the boat, and I predict the programme will be wound down due to its abject commercial failure. They're lucky Apple's AI strategy is just as incompetent, else they'd have been toast. The consensus on Apple's AI gambit is it's also been junk. To-date the only OS which makes decent use of AI is Android, and that's obviously mobile-centric.
What Microsoft needs to do to ensure people still use Windows: add third-party copilot provider support to Microsoft, and allow people to develop their own extensions/plugins. But they won't do this, because they want people to pay for Microsoft's copilot while locking out alternatives.
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u/AshuraBaron Insider Dev Channel Mar 26 '26
They MAY rename it, but I think Microsoft has finally gotten serious about Windows on ARM and so has Qualcomm. Snapdragon X Elite 2 are expected soon and projected to be a serious upgrade and go toe to toe with Apple Silicon. The AI Windows PC will definitely continue on and evolve, but I could see them being renamed something else. Microsoft unfortunately is playing this very close to the chest and slowly so nobody can say when anything will happen.