Alongside launching the new entries to its Surface laptop line-up, Microsoft also announced the upcoming arrival of a major update for Windows 11 during its special keynote last night. The patch, which is slated to be rolled out to users next week, is promised to introduce a wide array of new features and improvements to the operating system.
Headlining the announcement is the integration of Microsoft’s Copilot AI to Windows 11 as part of the forthcoming update. Initially introduced to power the Bing Chat feature on the company’s Edge web browser, the desktop iteration of the AI system acts more like an assistant (sorry, Cortana) that can help you control your PC settings and launch apps through text prompts, as well as answer simple queries.
Copilot is integrated all over the operating system, providing you with a unified experience across all Microsoft apps. For instance, it can help you quickly draft texts and email by pulling data from your calendar, documents or Outlook – provided that you grant it with certain permissions, of course. You’ll be able to quickly access the new Copilot assistant via a sidebar in Windows 11, which you can also bring up with the Win+C keyboard shortcut.
Besides that, here’s what else you can expect from the upcoming patch:
Microsoft Outlook
Outlook has been improved with this new update. You can now connect and coordinate your various accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, etc) in one app, as well as prepare emails and seamlessly attach important documents and photos from OneDrive through newly included intelligent tools.
File Explorer
Windows 11 brings a modernised File Explorer home, address bar and search box – all of which have been redesigned to help you conveniently access important and relevant content, stay up to date with file activity, and much more. Though not available just yet, Microsoft is planning to add a new Gallery feature to the app via a future update to make it easier for you to access your photo collection.
Paint
All the new features that’s introduced for Paint in the current beta build of Windows 11, such as background removal and layers, will be added via the upcoming patch. Furthermore, Microsoft adds that this version of the app also includes a preview of the Cocreator AI image generator tool.
Photos
The company’s new AI tricks have been added to Photos as well, introducing new features to make editing a breeze. Among these include Background Blur that adds a sense of depth to your images, and an improved search which lets you quickly find the photo you’re looking for based on the content of the photo as well as the location where they were taken.
Snipping Tool
With this update you can now extract specific text content from an image to paste in another application via Snipping Tool. In addition, you can also easily protect your sensitive information with text redaction by using text actions on the post capture screen.
Clipchamp
Auto compose has been added to Clipchamp, providing you with scenes suggestions, edits and narratives based on your images and footage automatically.
Notepad
Notepad will now automatically save your session state whenever you exit the app, while also letting you resume where you left off when you return. Additionally, it will also restore previously open tabs as well as unsaved content and edits across those open tabs.
Windows Backup
Microsoft has updated Windows Backup to make moving to a new Windows 11 PC much easier. This new version enables a seamless transition of most files, apps and settings from one PC to another, so everything is exactly where you left it once you’ve shifted over.
As a reminder, all of these new and improved experiences will be rolled out to Windows 11 (version 22H2) next week. More specifically, users can expect to receive the update by 26 September 2023 onwards.
(Source: Microsoft [official blog])
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