Microsoft Introducing new generation of Windows 11 experiences

Windows has always been for doers. As we debut the newest Surface devices designed for a new generation, we’re also excited to share the next wave of Windows experiences to help you get more done.

We believe that everyone should be empowered to achieve more on a Windows PC. That starts with exploring how we can make our experiences more intuitive, more accessible and ultimately more useful.

When I think about how we innovate on Windows, our team is driven by three principles:

• We believe technology should adapt to you, not the other way around. As we continue to deliver new and unique experiences, we will increasingly seek to personalize features to your needs, with your permission, understanding your preferences to deliver a richer and more consistent experience.
• We believe experiences should be meaningfully useful, and fundamentally trustworthy. Our features are customer focused and purpose-driven, addressing the real problems users face most. Before we even build, our features undergo rigorous assessments for safety, security and privacy.
• We seek to solve the hardest problems users face on their PC. We are committed to going beyond incremental improvements to reimagine how Windows can empower people in new and groundbreaking ways on the devices they turn to when things matter most.

So, whether you’re a student juggling a full course-load, an early-in-career professional trying to get ahead or a creative looking for professional-grade design tools built in free with your PC, Windows has something for you, which is why I’m excited to share the latest in innovation on Windows today.

Let’s talk about what’s new and coming soon for Windows 11 and Copilot+ PCs.

Copilot+ PC experiences coming to Windows Insiders​

Copilot+ PCs are the fastest, most intelligent and most secure Windows PCs ever built.

We recently made improved Windows search, Recall (preview), Click to Do (preview), and more generally available across Copilot+ PCsi, so you can find what you’re looking for, pick up where you left off, and do more with less time and hassle.

Today, we’re sharing even more feature functionality coming soon to Copilot+ PCs — rolling out first to Windows Insiders over the next month.

Adding an agent to Settings​

We’ve heard that our changes to Settings in Windows 11, like the left-hand navigation and the new homepage, have made Settings more usable and easier to find what you are looking for.

We’ve also heard that you would like to have more help to find and directly change settings or troubleshoot your PC. What if you could simply describe the change you want, in your own words, and get a fix instead?

We set out to solve one of the most common frustrations we hear — finding and changing settings on your PC — using the power of agents. An agent uses on-device AI to understand your intent and with your permission, automate and execute tasks.

With this update to Settings, you will be able to simply describe what you need help with like, “how to control my PC by voice” or “my mouse pointer is too small” and the agent will recommend the right steps you can take to address the issue.

With your permission and at your initiation, it can even complete the actions to change your settings on your behalf.

This experience will first become available to Windows Insiders on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs and is coming soon to Windows Insiders on AMD- and Intel-powered devices. Only English language inputs will be supported initially.

More actions coming to Click to Do and improved Windows search​

73% of consumers report they’re using AI to get more done and feel productiveiii. Click to Do helps you stay in the flow with shortcuts from any text or image you see on your screen. From copying text from an image, to summarizing text, or even quickly removing objects or the background from an image, Click to Do cuts through context-switching, bringing actions directly into your workflow. More actions are starting to roll out in Click to Do, including the option to create a bulleted list from selected text.

Soon for Windows Insiders, you will be able to use Ask Copilot to act on your text or image, or even leverage the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot to draft content in Microsoft Word. You will be able to use Click to Do to engage a Reading Coach to practice reading selected text aloud, or use Immersive Reader to enhance your reading experience. You will even be able to use Click to Do to quickly schedule a meeting or fire off a chat in Microsoft Teams from a recognized email all without interrupting your work, or send the details of a table on screen directly to Microsoft Excel, saving you time and reducing the effort to get things done.

There are multiple ways to start Click to Do, including Windows key + mouse click, Windows key + Q, as well as via the Start menu and Snipping Tool. Click to Do also supports hardware-specific options like double clicking your pen on your pen-capable device or swiping from the right with your pen or finger on your touch screen.


New text and image actions such as Ask Copilot, Practice in Reading Coach, and Read with Immersive Reader are available now to Windows Insiders, with Schedule a meeting with Teams, Send a message with Teams, Ask M365 Copilot, Convert to table with Excel, and Draft with Copilot in Word coming to Windows Insiders later this month.


We are also continuing to enhance and expand improved Windows search, helping you find what you are looking for in more places. Coming to Windows Insiders later this month, we’re introducing the ability to find Windows settings and to quickly find and install apps from the Microsoft Store. We’re also bringing the same powerful search to the Photos app, making it faster and easier to find specific photos in your collection.

New capabilities in Photos, Paint and Snipping tool​

Copilot+ PCs are the only PCs where you can find professional-grade AI editing tools included with no subscription required. As many as 75% of consumers today are using AI to have fun and be creative, so whether you’re a hobby creator or going pro, you can find all the tools you need on Windows 11.iv

Today, we’re introducing several new features to Photos, Paint and Snipping tool to make it even easier to edit and create.

Photos relight​

New to the Microsoft Photos app, relight adds dynamic lighting controls to pictures on your Copilot+ PC. Position up to three light sources, set their color and move a focus point that all lights automatically follow. Brightness and intensity controls provide additional finetuning to achieve the desired effect. For quicker edits, built-in presets offer ready-made lighting styles that can be applied with a single click. Relight simplifies complex lighting adjustments into a visual, intuitive experience for correcting poor lighting or applying creative effects.

Photos relight will first become available to Windows Insiders on Snapdragon X Series Copilot+ PCs with support for AMD- and Intel-powered devices coming later this year.

Paint sticker generator​

New to the Paint app on Copilot+ PCs, sticker generator creates custom digital stickers from a simple text prompt.v Type a short phrase to generate ready-to-use stickers that can be added to the canvas, copied into documents or shared in chats. It’s a quick way to add creative, personalized visuals without needing to draw them manually. Paint sticker generator will be available to Windows Insiders later this month.

Paint object select​

Use the power of AI to make your Paint creations even easier to edit — with object select, you can pinpoint specific elements on the canvas to select and make edits instantly.

Object select uses context-aware selection to highlight and isolate individual elements on the canvas. Quickly select objects for targeted edits like moving, erasing or applying generative fill, without manually tracing or outlining. The tool streamlines detailed editing by understanding the structure of your image, making precise adjustments faster and more intuitive. Object select will be available to Windows Insiders later this month.

Snipping tool perfect screenshot​

Perfect screenshot automatically adjusts the capture area to tightly frame on-screen content, reducing the need for post-capture cropping. When activated, the tool uses a rectangular selection that analyzes the visible screen and snaps around the most prominent content in view. It provides crop handles for optional fine-tuning and is designed to make captures cleaner and more efficient with minimal effort.

Alongside perfect screenshot, Snipping tool is also introducing two new capture tools: text extractor allows users to extract and copy text directly from images and screenshots, while color picker enables capturing exact color values from anywhere on screen. These additional tools make it easier to work with text and design elements, giving users more flexibility when editing or sharing captured content.

In addition to new features in the inbox suite, this update includes improvements to the underlying diffusion-based model to deliver better results faster. This updated model is used in Cocreator and generative fill in Paint, as well as image creator and restyle image in Photos.vi You can explore these enhancements in Paint and Photos starting today. And, with built-in moderation, it’s a creative experience you can trust.

Accessibility​

In March, we made flexible commands in Voice Access available to Snapdragon X Series Copilot+ PCs, so users can communicate using more descriptive and flexible language.


Now, Narrator is receiving an update designed to further enhance the accessibility and intuitiveness of Windows on Copilot+ PCs.

Narrator now offers rich image descriptions, which provide detailed context for visuals including charts, photos and UI elements. This feature assists blind and low-vision users in understanding content that lacks alternative text.

By pressing the Narrator key + Ctrl + D, Narrator will read out a contextual description of the image, describing people, objects, colors, text and numbers. These updates significantly improve user interaction with Windows through enhanced speech and screen reading capabilities.

Rich image descriptions in Narrator are available now to Windows Insiders on Snapdragon X Series Copilot+ PCs and coming soon to Windows Insiders on AMD- and Intel-powered devices.

New Windows 11 experiences available soon​

For Windows 11 users, we’ll also be delivering several new experiences, first available to Windows Insiders over the coming month.

New Start menu with phone companion ​

Start is getting personal – with more options to customize and organize your apps. The new all apps category view automatically sorts based on the apps and categories you use most, so you can quickly access all your favorites. And now with the phone companion in Start, your connected Android or iOS device is only a click away.vii

AI actions in File Explorer​

With AI actions in File Explorer, you can interact more deeply with your files, right clicking to quickly take actions like summarizing content or editing images. Similar to Click to Do, AI actions in File Explorer allow you to stay in your flow while leveraging the power of AI to take advantage of editing tools in apps like Paint and Photos and Copilot functionality across Microsoft 365 without having to open your file.

Notepad​

Notepad is gaining new capabilities that make it easier to generate, organize and format content. The new write function creates text from a prompt, helping users quickly build ideas or get started on a draft. Summarize condenses longer content into a concise overview for easier review. Notepad is also introducing lightweight formatting, including bold and italic styling, and support for simple lists and headings. The experience supports Markdown style input and files for users who prefer to work directly with the lightweight markup language.

Copilot on Windows​

The Copilot on Windows app is bringing even more ways to interact with your AI companion right to the taskbar.

Copilot Vision on Windows, available now to Windows Insiders and generally available soon, allows you to share any browser or app window with Copilot.

Copilot can then help analyze, offer insights or answer your questions, coaching you through it aloud. Copilot Vision on Windows will first roll out to users in the U.S.


For Windows Insiders, you can also take advantage of Press to Talk — a long press of the Copilot key to engage voice. And soon, we are introducing the ability to invoke Copilot with the phrase “Hey, Copilot!” — this new ability will be fully opt-in and is starting with Windows Insiders while we test and learn.

Better 3rd party experiences leveraging NPU​

We are continuously partnering with new Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and welcoming them to leverage our platform capabilities and the power of the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to benefit from ultra-low latency, higher performance and enhanced security with data staying on the device.

We are excited that Moises Live by Music.AI sets a new standard in real-time audio separation and control, such as isolating the volumes of percussion, vocals and other elements, enhancing the music learning and practicing experience. The experience is 35 times faster on the Snapdragon X NPU compared to the CPU.

Gigapixel AI by Topaz Labs revolutionizes the way you upscale images, allowing you to enlarge and enhance images up to 16 times their original size while maintaining high quality and detail.

Other AI apps that have been developed by leveraging the NPU include Capcut, DJay Pro, Davinci Resolve, Camo, Cephable and Liquidtext. These apps showcase the versatility and power of Microsoft’s NPU in enhancing AI-driven functionalities across various domains, from video editing and music production to accessibility and note-taking and many more.

New Microsoft Store on Windows experiences​

There’s even more to love in the Microsoft Store, starting with Windows Insiders.

Get started in the AI Hub – where you can check out the latest experiences for your new Copilot+ PC.

In the updated home section, you will now see personalized recommendations. If you’re looking to learn about new apps and games, Copilot is now available directly in the Store to ask questions while you’re browsing product pages — we are also adding badges on product pages to help you easily tell which apps are built exclusively for Copilot+ PCs and which experiences leverage AI.

What’s next on Windows​

We are committed to developing experiences that make each and everything you do on Windows feel more effortless, personal and capable.

From introducing more intuitive ways to use your PC, to our newest portable and fashionable new Surface devices, we are committed to delivering technology that empowers you to do more, your way.

This is just the beginning of what’s possible, and we’re excited to shape the future together with you — one innovation at a time.

Some of the experiences shared today will be available exclusively for Copilot+ PCs in future Windows non-security preview updates. For experiences available to Windows Insiders today, learn how you can register for the Windows Insider Program.

For our commercial customers, keep up to date on available and upcoming key features. You can also check out blogs by Nancie Gaskill and Chauncey Larsen for more details and tips on new commercial devices and features.