Microsoft unveils the Copilot+ AI PC ecosystem, with Snapdragon X laptops leading the way

PC manufacturers like to throw around terms like revolutionary or transformative, but following Qualcomm's entry into the PC market and the announcement of Microsoft's Copilot+ AI laptops, the market is at an inflection point as significant as any we've seen in years.

Microsoft has unveiled Copilot+ PC's, including its own Surface family, which feature integrated NPUs that offer 40+ TOPS (trillion operations per second) of performance. This gives them the performance to utilize a new generation of AI functionality that is coming to Windows 11. 

Microsoft talked up a number of AI experiences that will only be possible on Copilot+ PCs. These include Recall, Cocreator and Live Captions.

Recall is a kind of super 'history' tool that runs in the background. It allows you to search for anything you’ve done on your PC. If the Internet remembers, apparently your PC will too. Cocreator is an art or image generation assistant, while Live Captions does pretty much what you'd expect, generating captions in real time. Hopefully they're better than some of the rubbish YouTube can serve up.

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“Copilot+ PCs powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Series deliver performance per watt leadership to the Windows ecosystem while also powering groundbreaking AI experiences and exceptional battery life” said Pavan Davuluri, Corporate Vice President, Windows + Devices for Microsoft. “This is an inflection point for the Windows PC ecosystem, enabled by our deep partnership with Qualcomm. I am thrilled to be able to launch innovative Copilot+ PCs experiences and devices with Snapdragon, including Surface, that have leading performance and energy efficiency.”

For now, only Snapdragon X processors offer enough performance to qualify as Copilot+ PCs.  Intel and AMD's currently available NPU equipped