The Copilot+ PC model is lifeless: Microsoft and PC makers quietly pull again on tarnished Windows 11 AI PC branding
In 2024, Microsoft and Qualcomm kicked off a brand new class of Windows {hardware} it called “Copilot+ PCs” that set the baseline for a brand new wave of AI-first computer systems, and launched with unique options that might not be made obtainable on PCs that did not meet a brand new set of system necessities.
The launch did not go easily. Copilot+ PCs had been met with rapid backlash from safety researchers after discovering that Copilot+ PCs blockbuster feature, Recall, was woefully insecure. This pressured the corporate to delay Recall and ship this new class of gadgets with out its main AI expertise.
This just about tarnished the Copilot+ PC model, and over the past two years increasingly more OEMs have dropped the moniker from advertising and marketing supplies and product names. In truth, even Microsoft has seemingly stopped mentioning it.
I’ve observed that not one of the Surface PCs launched in 2026 embrace the Copilot+ PC moniker of their product names, in contrast to the Surface PCs that launched in 2025 and earlier than. Now, it’s a must to go digging to seek out any point out of Copilot+ compatibility in specification sheets.
At this 12 months’s Snapdragon Summit, I had the possibility to ask Surface CVP Brett Ostrum in regards to the lack of Copilot+ PC branding on its recent Surface PCs, and he confirmed that “these should not known as Copilot+ PCs. They do meet all the necessities of our earlier bar for what Copilot+ gadgets are. We nonetheless lean into the narrative round AI on the sting and having the ability to have a hybrid resolution on the market.”
I’ve additionally requested Qualcomm’s SVP of compute, Kedar Kondap, about his ideas on the utilization of the Copilot+ PC branding. He informed me that “the aim for Copilot+ PCs was to have the ability to ship [NPU] experiences. So it was to outline a sure class of gadgets with a sure bar and metric, like for instance, a forty five TOPS NPU … So from that perspective, it is extra providing the identical experiences, in all probability with out simply utilizing [Copilot+ PC] terminology now.“
It’s additionally price mentioning that NVIDIA hasn’t gone anyplace close to the Copilot+ PC model for its upcoming RTX Spark platform, despite the fact that all RTX Spark PCs meet the Copilot+ PC specification bar. I think that is a deliberate determination.
It appears fairly apparent that the Copilot+ PC model hasn’t resonated with the market, and OEMs and Microsoft itself at the moment are quietly pulling again on that branding. The specification baseline for Copilot+ PC experiences nonetheless exists, it simply not has a fairly advertising and marketing title tied to it.
The tough launch of Copilot+ PCs, paired with the truth that Microsoft Copilot itself would not have a really robust popularity nowadays, probably contributed to the choice to slowly retire the Copilot+ PC branding. The model by no means made sense to me anyway… these PCs have nothing to do with Copilot.
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