Where anything to do with AI is often promoted as being a new paradigm for humanity, it makes a pleasant change to get an AI tool that’s potentially very useful and, more importantly, is exactly what was promised. The fact that this has come from Microsoft is perhaps unexpected, but it really has given us a simple AI search tool.
I was about to write that we knew that this was coming, but there’s a world of difference between a tech giant promising that it’s going to do something and what it actually does. Within the release of its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build is an AI agent that powers up when you head into the Settings app to tweak your display or power configuration, or to add a new Bluetooth keyboard, or…well, anything.
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The idea behind running a locally hosted AI model is to make it much easier to find the setting you want to adjust, based on a fairly general query. In Microsoft’s words, “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.”
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And if you’re feeling brave or you just don’t want the hassle yourself, the agent will “use[s] AI on your PC to understand your intent and with your permission, automate and execute tasks on your behalf.”
For a lot of PC users, this feature will be super useful… provided it does work as well as Microsoft says it does. Over the many years of being the family and friends go-to for PC/tech advice, I’ve found that folks who regular use a computer know exactly what they want it to do but just don’t have enough technical expertise to understand where in Windows’ vast array of settings they need to poke around in.
I’ve not been able to test out this new AI agent, simply because I don’t have a Qualcomm-powered Copilot+ PC to hand. In other words, the AI agent will only appear if you install this beta Windows 11 on a computer sporting a Snapdragon X processor. Microsoft says that machines with appropriate AMD and Intel chips will get the feature ‘soon’ but there’s no indication as to just when that is.
Something else you’ll get, if you make the switch to this Windows 11 Insider build, is a small bug in the form of the start-up music being that of Windows Vista. Yeah, we’re just as puzzled by that as you are, and I suspect Microsoft’s programmers are all ‘Err, how the hell did that happen?’
Well, maybe all except one.