In no uncertain terms, Microsoft has acknowledged it: the concept of the “PC Copilot+” has had its day.
Between the lines, one might read that the technical brief associated with it is no longer as selective. Its main element – an NPU of at least 40 TOPS – has become commonplace with the latest generations of SoCs.
By contrast, the other major pillar of this brief – 16 GB of RAM – has become rarer. In the market conditions we know, 8 GB models have regained their place in PC makers’ catalogs. Including at Microsoft, in the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop lines.
A late start on x86
The “Copilot+ PC” label endured a little over two years. Microsoft announced it in May 2024, echoing Google’s Chromebook Plus initiative (which set the bar at 8 GB of RAM, without requiring an NPU).
The first products to benefit from this label arrived on the market in mid-June. They were exclusively Arm laptops. Qualcomm, at the time, was the only player offering a processor with an NPU that met the criteria.
Gaps in the Arm software ecosystem
To support a 100% Arm launch, Microsoft rolled out an update to its x86 emulation layer. It then placed a strong emphasis on the Arm64 instruction set with Windows 11 24H2. To the point that this major update entailed a complete OS overhaul (no activation package: a new compiler, a new kernel, new schedulers…).
Nevertheless, the Arm software library grew only very gradually. TheAdobe case illustrates this: early 2025, native versions of After Effects, InDesign, and Illustrator were still missing. In terms of virtualization, VMware and VirtualBox had not yet made the leap. There was also the nagging issue of drivers, especially for printers and VPNs.
The fragmentation of NPUs
On NPUs, initiatives remain scattered today. Each has its own programming model and tooling, whereas “GPU” has become broadly synonymous with CUDA. Developer onboarding was not helped at the outset by the abandonment of the Snapdragon Dev Kit. Its commercialization was supposed to start a few weeks before the first Copilot+ PCs arrived. Qualcomm repeatedly pushed back delivery dates… until it asserted that the product ultimately did not meet the “standards of excellence.” The HDMI interface, in particular, seemed to pose problems.
The first generations of NPUs “Copilot+ PC compatible” also had a hardware limitation: the lack of unified memory. That did not help the promise of doing “local AI.”
The PC makers themselves sometimes chose to lean on the GPU. ASUS, for instance, for its alternative to the Co-Creator function in Paint. Or, more recently, HP, as part of the evolution of its AI Companion tool.
OEMs that launched their own AI services
HP did not hide, from the launch of the first Copilot+ PCs, that it was adopting the concept with caution. It even highlighted a dedicated brand (“next-gen AI PC”). And pushed – very gradually – its own AI services, even if that created overlap with Microsoft’s offerings.
Lenovo, its main rival, took the same approach… and likewise rolled out in a highly fragmented manner. The AI Now personal assistant was long reserved for China, while Creator Zone was first launched on a single PC. And Smart Share (touching the screen with a smartphone to share photos and videos) arrived first on the Intel Lunar Lake platform.
OEMs generally ended up rolling out their AI services to varying degrees beyond Copilot+ PCs. Dell tended to distribute equivalents of Windows Studio effects without stressing the generative aspect—and reminded that the NPU in laptops was nothing new…
Recall, the missed appointment of Copilot+ PCs
Microsoft’s diffusion of “Copilot+ PC experiences” was, too, rather chaotic. Recall epitomizes this. The Recall tool is a “photo memory” feature that lets users locate content they’ve looked at through search or via a timeline. It relies on a local semantic index… and above all on screenshots captured every few seconds. A controversial operation, given the numerous flaws uncovered. So much so that Microsoft initially gated the entire feature behind an opt-in, before delaying its release, which was slated to run in parallel with the first Copilot+ PCs.
Since then, Recall has become an optional system feature that can be disabled. And Microsoft has moved on to other initiatives, including Project Zenith. The aim: deliver, initially with AMD, preconfigured developer PCs that leverage local AI models.
