Everything announced at Microsoft's Windows and Surface event
The company highlighted agentic AI features for Windows as well as the Surface Laptop Ultra.
Microsoft shed more light on its personal computing plans and what it's offering developers at a Windows and Surface event on Wednesday. Along with other announcements, we learned more about the company's vision for how AI agents that run locally may change how people use their PCs.
The company showcased the Surface Laptop Ultra, a laptop that it teased earlier this year. It's said to be the most powerful Surface laptop yet and it runs on NVIDIA's RTX Spark system-on-a-chip (SOC). NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even appeared during the San Francisco event for a chat with Microsoft counterpart Sayta Nadella.
During the event, much of which was surprisingly developer-focused, Microsoft hammered home that it's working to make Windows the most secure platform for AI agents. The company also talked up a hybrid approach to AI that runs both locally and in the cloud.
Let's jump into everything Microsoft announced for regular folks at its Windows and Surface event.
Copilot and AI features in Windows
Microsoft doesn't want to be left behind when it comes to agentic personal computing, especially in the wake of Meta's Muse AI agent quickly finding a large audience and tools like Perplexity's Personal Computer seeping into the world on Mac. The company has been making some moves in this area. It announced an agentic AI platform called Project Solara earlier this year and it recently updated the Copilot app to include more automation. Now, though, Microsoft is ready to make a bigger push into agentic AI.
For instance, with your permission, Copilot will able to carry out actions based on your local files. It'll be able to run AI models locally while tapping into the cloud for extra compute power. There's also the ability to generate apps and widgets.
Just like attempts by other companies to anthropomorphize their AI tools, the Copilot icon now has a face.
Starting this fall, you'll be able to take thousands of quick actions directly in Windows search from the taskbar, a bit like Mac users can in Spotlight. These include switching on dark mode, taking a screenshot, adjusting the volume, getting answers to questions and sending text messages. The company is basically turning search into more of a Copilot-style chatbot.
Microsoft is looking to make it easier for people to get AI agents up and running in Windows with a "Get Started" tool. Among the agents you'll be able to use, if you're interested, is Portable Computer. This will be able to run locally and without burning any Perplexity cloud credits. Muse will be available as a native Windows app too.
It'll be interesting to see how users react to Microsoft pushing AI agents into Windows, given the backlash against tools like Recall and Copilot features that the company ended up removing from the operating system.
Surface Laptop Ultra
After it teased the Surface Laptop Ultra earlier this year, Microsoft revealed much more about the system. It designed the laptop with developers and creators in mind, but maybe other folks will be interested as well.
The device has a 15-inch mini-LED display with up to 2,000 nits of brightness and a 3:2 aspect ratio. There's a giant trackpad that's 30 percent larger than the one on the seventh-gen Surface laptop. The laptop weighs less than 4.5 pounds and it's less than 18mm (0.7 inches) thick. Microsoft claims it has 2.5 times the thermal capacity of the seventh-gen 15-inch Surface Laptop and all-day battery life.
It's positioned as a MacBook Pro competitor, with more ports, including USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a full-size SD card reader. A magnetic charging option that uses a regular USB-C port is available. This seems like Microsoft's answer to MagSafe.
The laptop runs on NVIDIA's new Arm-based SOC, which has GPU capabilities that are comparable to the GeForce RTX 5070. Microsoft showed Gears of War: E-Day running on the Surface Laptop Ultra and it said Call of Duty will be available on the system later this year. There'll be support for ray tracing, DLSS and NVIDIA Reflex.
Perhaps most pertinent for Microsoft's purposes, the RTX Spark has a neural processing unit that's zippy enough to comply with its Copilot+ requirements. The SOC has 20 CPU cores and it can be equipped with lots of RAM — as much as 128GB of unified memory. The RTX Spark is said to be less power-intensive than other AI-focused chips, as it won't draw more than 80W.
It sure does look like a premium laptop with plenty of power. It's great that Microsoft appears to have designed the Surface Laptop Ultra with repairability in mind. A replaceable SSD is very welcome too. The price will be a significant barrier for many, though. The Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599 and pre-orders start today. It'll be available on October 16.
Microsoft also revealed the price of the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a mini PC designed for heavier AI workloads. That starts at $5,999 and pre-orders are open.
