If any computer can use Microsoft’s Copilot AI, what makes a Copilot+ PC special? We break it down for you.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said in no uncertain terms that the company is all-in on generative AI, going so far as to dub Microsoft “The Copilot company.” But some confusion must certainly arise from the company naming a new class of computers Copilot+ PCs after establishing the name Copilot for its generative AI tools. While, yes, the new class of computers can use Copilot, so can nearly every other PC, whether it’s running Windows 11 or Windows 10. So, what’s the difference between Copilot and Copilot+? We’re here to explain.What Is Copilot? Microsoft’s AI Chatbot
Copilot is Microsoft’s generative AI chatbot based on OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT large language models. It can generate text for emails, stories, poems, and essays. It can summarize search results, webpages, and text you feed it, as well as rewrite in different tones. It can also generate images, write computer code, and more.
To access Copilot, you can use any internet-connected device to go to the Copilot webpage (copilot.microsoft.com). Apps for Android, iOS, and Windows are also available. Copilot appears as a sidebar in the Edge web browser. That sidebar lets you summarize the current webpage, create images and prose, and carry out all the other Copilot functions.
For a $20-a-month subscription, you can upgrade to Copilot Pro, which gives you more choice of AI models, including the faster GPT-4 Turbo. It also gets you 100 “boosts” for image generation, without which you’d be waiting a while for Microsoft Designer to create your text-prompted images. Pro also lets you use Copilot features within Microsoft 365.What Is Copilot+? Microsoft Computers With Neural Processing Units (NPUs)
Copilot+ refers to computers that have powerful neural processing units (NPUs). Those NPUs allow them to do AI machine-learning work right on the device rather than sending requests over the internet for processing on Microsoft’s servers. It’s similar to what Apple has announced with Apple Intelligence, where some functions are processed on-device, and others go over the internet to Apple’s servers. However, Microsoft says it informs customers when processing is sent over the internet to its servers.
The first batch of Copilot+ computers consists exclusively of machines powered by Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors.
