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Microsoft is betting big on artificial intelligence and generative AI at all levels of the company, from servers and Azure down to individual Windows PCs. And that big bet is about to become a lot more visible on Windows machines in the future, as Microsoft has instructed Windows OEMs to change their keyboard layouts to include a dedicated key for their Copilot AI service. Replacing the Menu key (or equivalent) on Windows 11 laptop keyboards, the repurposed key will instead provide direct access to Copilot, launching Microsoft’s hub application for on-system AI.
The Copilot key’s primary function is to activate the Copilot generative AI assistant in Windows 11, provided that it the system has Copilot installed and logged in to a Microsoft account. Otherwise, on PCs without access to Copilot, the key will instead default to opening up Windows Search, largely mirroring the existing functionality of the Windows key today.
Microsoft’s decision to promote Copiot by making it a top-level, OEM-required key is a notable decision. The company has tinkered with repurposing the Windows and Menu keys at various times – most recently with desktop keyboards with dedicated Office and Emoji keys – but this is the most significant change to OEM keyboard requirements in quite some time. For most of the last two decades, the bulk of the changes there has been directing OEMs to use the latest Windows iconography.
