Microsoft unveils AI-powered Windows PCs at $999

Technology giant Microsoft has introduced a new category of artificial intelligence (AI) powered Windows PCs called Copilot+ PCs. The company claims these are the most intelligent Windows PCs ever built with all-day battery life and access to the most advanced AI models.

Pre-orders for these computers from Microsoft Surface and other OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung begin today and deliveries start on June 18 with a starting price of $999.

Microsoft claims these PCs are 58% faster than Apple’s MacBook Air.

“Easily find and remember what you have seen in your PC with Recall, generate and refine AI images in near real-time directly on the device using Cocreator, and bridge language barriers with Live Captions, translating audio from 40+ languages into English,” Microsoft says in a blog post.

Microsoft will leverage its partnership with AI startup OpenAI to get access to its latest models including GPT-4o in the coming weeks. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced a new flagship generative AI model GPT-4o, claiming it a step towards "much more natural human-computer interaction". OpenAI's GPT-4o accepts as input any combination of text, audio, and image and generates any combination of text, audio, and image outputs.

“Every Copilot+ PC comes with your personal powerful AI agent that is just a single tap away on keyboards with the new Copilot key,” the blog post says.

“Starting at $999, these devices are up to $200 less than similar spec’d device,” it says.

“We begin a new chapter with AI innovation on the device. We have completely reimagined the entirety of the PC – from silicon to the operating system, the application layer to the cloud – with AI at the center, marking the most significant change to the Window platform in decades,” it says.

Microsoft claims Copilot+ PCs are up to 20 times more powerful and up to 100 times as efficient for running AI workloads.

With Recall feature, one can access virtually what they have seen or done on PC in a way that feels like having photographic memory, says Microsoft. “Copilot+ PCs organize information like we do – based on relationships and associations unique to each of our individual experiences. This helps you remember things you may have forgotten so you can find what you’re looking for quickly and intuitively by simply using the cues you remember,” the blog post says. “Recall leverages your personal semantic index, built and stored entirely on your device.”

Microsoft says Adobe’s flagship apps are coming to Copilot+ PCs, including Photoshop, Lightroom and Express – available today. Illustrator, Premiere Pro and more are coming this summer.

Copilot+ PCs leverage powerful processors and multiple AI models, including several of Microsoft’s small language models, to unlock a new set of experiences you can run locally, directly on the device, says the tech giant.