Microsoft Surface and Copilot Event: Everything announced including new Surface laptops, Copilot+ PC and more
Before Build 2024 officially starts, Microsoft has unveiled a major new change to Windows PCs.
We're gearing up for a huge week of news from Microsoft! Before Build, Microsoft's annual developer conference, kicks off on Tuesday, the company has invited media to its Redmond offices today for a launch event. At this Microsoft event, we expect to see a new batch of Arm-powered Surface PCs for consumers, and we'll hear how the company plans to better integrate AI into these devices and across Windows and other products.
Can Microsoft finally escape the curse of Windows on Arm devices? Follow along with our liveblog here starting at 1pm ET to find out! (Curiously, Microsoft isn't livestreaming this event, but we'll be hitting all the news as it drops.) And to catch all of the news coming out of Build on Tuesday, here's how to watch the Microsoft Build 2024 keynote.
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Microsoft Surface and Copilot Event: Everything announced including new Surface laptops, Copilot+ PC and more
Satya Nadella on stage with the Windows logo on a screen behind him.
Microsoft just couldn't wait until its Build developer conference properly starts tomorrow to drop some knowledge bombs. If you missed the event, we rounded up everything Microsoft announced at its Surface and Copilot event.
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AI isn't the star of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC push — improved Arm support is
A screenshot of the Windows desktop featuring the Copilot app.
Did you think today's event was all about AI? Senior editor Devindra Hardwar — who you may remember from live blogging this event an hour ago — argues that the most important thing to come out of the Copilot+ event was the news that Windows for Arm has been rebuilt.
Microsoft says that more apps than ever before will run natively on Arm-based chips. Crucially, though, it's also reworked its solution for running x86 apps, and says that the new emulator under the hood is faster than Apple's Rosetta 2.
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Here are all of the just-announced Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X Chips
A bunch of laptops.
We knew more computers were coming that would feature a native version of Microsoft's AI Copilot toolset, but we didn't quite know how many were set to be announced. It's practically an AI avalanche. Companies like Dell, Acer and HP have all just announced computers that have adopted Microsoft's AI software and NVIDIA's AI hardware. The age of the AI PC is upon us.
We've broken down the many, many AI-infused PCs launched at and around Microsoft's big event right here.
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Microsoft has released a pair of promotional videos for its latest Surface devices, the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop.
You can read all about the devices here:
Microsoft's new Copilot+ Surface Pro has an OLED screen and a redesigned keyboard
Microsoft's redesigned Surface Laptop is a Copilot+ PC with over 22 hours of battery life
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The Yoga Slim 7x is Lenovo's attempt at a MacBook Air
The Yoga Slim 7x is an all-new system from Lenovo featuring a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip and support for Microsoft's new Copilot+ AI features.
Last but not least is Lenovo, which has a pair of Copilot+ PCs using Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chip. Our own Sam Rutherford got a chance to check the Yoga Slim 7x out in person before Microsoft's event, though it was a pre-production version that didn't have any of Microsoft's new Copilot+ features enabled. Still, if you're interested to read his thoughts on that new machine, you can find his article here.
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HP Omnibook X hands-on: Vintage branding in the new era of AI
Next up is HP, which is reviving its Omnibook brand for its first Copilot+ PC. Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low got a chance to check one of these out before the show (and before we knew they were called Copilot+ PCs!). You can read her writeup of it here, or watch the video below:
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Acer joins Microsoft, Dell and others in announcing a Copilot+ PC
Two laptops.
Next up is Acer, which just announced a new laptop that takes full advantage of Microsoft's Copilot AI technology, the Swift 14 AI. The Acer Swift 14 AI ships in a light metal chassis and boasts a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor, an integrated NPU that promises up to 45 trillion operations per second and a 14.5-inch WQXGA touch display. Acer also promises all-day battery life, despite the added power. The laptop will be available in July, with a starting price of $1,100.
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Here are Dell's five new Copilot+ PCs
The XPS 13 9345 will be one of Dell's first new Copilot+ PCs.
Now that the event is over, it's time for Microsoft's partners to wrestle for your attention. To get in on the Copilot+ PC action, Dell is releasing one of the biggest portfolios of compatible laptops with a total of five devices. However, unlike other notebook manufacturers, all of Dell's new devices are revamps of existing models instead of all-new systems, so here's a rundown of what the company has to offer.
For enterprise customers, Dell will have the Latitude 5455 and the Latitude 7455, which are offshoots of the current Latitude 5450 and 7450 notebooks. Just like their x86-based siblings, the 5455 is a 14-inch clamshell while the 7455 features a 360-degree 2-in-1 design. The big change is that both new models will be powered by Snapdragon X Plus chips, with only the 7455 capable of moving up to Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon X Elite processor.
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Unless there's a surprise... but I don't expect one.
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That's it for now folks, we're off for hands on time!
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"Today it's just the beginning," Mehdi says.
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You'll find Copilot+ PCs on Microsoft.com as well as leading global retailers, starting at $999. You can pre-order them today and they'll be available on June 18th.
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Lenovo is launching a Yoga Slim 7X and ThinkPad 14S, and Samsung is launching two devices that can work across Galaxy phones.
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We're looking at devices now. The Acer Swift 14a, the ASUS Vivobook S15, and several Dell models, including a new XPS 13. HP also has new OmniBook Copilot+ PCs.
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Microsoft's new Surface Pro has an OLED screen and a redesigned keyboard
Microsoft Surface Pro (2024)
Microsoft's Surface Pro strategy has been, shall we say, a little odd lately. The 2022 Surface Pro 9 came in both Intel and Arm configurations, but the Arm-powered device was both slower and significantly more expensive. Then, earlier this year, Microsoft announced and Intel-powered Surface Pro 10, a fine but boring device focused on IT professionals.
Finally, Microsoft has a new Surface Pro that may get the average person in the market for a laptop to sit up and pay attention. The new Surface Pro Copilot+ PC (no more model numbers!) is another Arm-powered device, but Microsoft says that performance will not be compromised this time. In fact, thanks to a re-architected version of Windows 11, Microsoft claims these machines are 58 percent faster than "the fastest MacBook Air" with an M3 processor.
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He says soon Microsoft is going to welcome Intel and AMD chips into the Copilot+ platform. And once again, we can expect Copilot+ machines from all of the leading OEMs.
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Yusuf Mehdi is back to wrap things up.
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Now we're watching how CapCut takes advantage of Copilot+ NPUs. It can remove the background from a video clip and add a fresher looking dynamic background. Surface Pro can tackle this almost 3x faster than the Pro 9.
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Another view of Microsoft touting the features of the new Surface Pro.
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Microsoft is giving a real-time demo of the drawing functionality on the new Surface Pro.
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These AI transformations are also happening on device, so you won't have to wait for data to get sent to the cloud or pay for a pro AI subscription.
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Image Creator can also create an AI produced background for one of your portraits, as well as tackle similar edits.
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The final result looks like an AI image, but it's interesting to see it take in more human input.
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She typed in a text string, "mountainous valley of wildflowers," and is now drawing a basic outline of flowers and a mountain. Cocreator is automatically combining the two prompts into a final image.
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As with previous models, the Surface Pro offers full stylus and touch support.
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Now we're talking about Image Creation in Copilot. Over 10 billion images have been made in MS Image Creator so far. A new feature called Cocreator will let you draw an image and have Copilot optimize it.
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I'm sure the Flex Keyboard is still sold separately though! No word on pricing just yet.
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A close-up of the keyboard for the new Surface Pro.
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The Surface Slim Pen sits at the top of the Flex Keyboard, just like the existing Pro Covers.
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There's also a new Flex Keyboard with a bold typed keyset, we also saw this on the business models.
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This is the new Copilot+ version of the Surface Pro.
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There's also a new Quad HD front-facing Studio Camera, this looks like the same one we saw on the Surface Pro 10 for Business.
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The Surface Pro is up to 90% faster than the Pro 9. We also caught a glimpse of a new Flex Keyboard, which can fold on its back so you can type while it's disconnected from the Surface tablet. Cool concept.
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Now for more on the new Surface Pro, it looks like it also has much thinner bezels.
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Live Captions can translate over 40 languages into English today.
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Now we're watching how Copilot+ PCs can help teams collaborate more naturally. We're seeing a Spanish speaker having her speech being translated and subtitled instantly, then a Mandarin speaker, then what sounds like a Russian speaker. Everyone is speaking in their native language but seeing subtitles for their colleagues.
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Microsoft's redesigned Surface Laptop is a Copilot+ PC with over 22 hours of battery life
Surface Laptop
To kick off Build 2024, Microsoft announced new Surface devices at its hardware and AI event. Among the new gear is the new Surface Laptop : a redesigned PC with thinner bezels in 13.8- and 15-inch sizes and Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite chip. Of course, AI plays a key role on the new device as this is one of the newly-named Copilot+ PCs that run over 40 models locally thanks to updates to Windows 11.
This is actually the second Surface Laptop 6. Microsoft revealed the first one back in March, but that model is basically a Laptop 5 with updated internals for business use.
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We're watching a live demo of how Magic Mask in DaVinci Resolve can track a jellyfish and change its color. And while the work is being done, his CPU and GPU aren't being hit, just the NPU. That means less power being used to drain the battery.
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Microsoft rebuilt Windows 11 around AI and Arm chips
Satya Nadella
Microsoft's Windows on Arm woes may finally be over. As part of the company's new Copilot+ AI PC initiative, which includes new Surfaces and partner systems running Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips, Microsoft says it has rebuilt core components of Windows 11 to better support Arm-based hardware and AI. That includes a new kernel, compiler, and most importantly, an emulator named "Prism" for running older x86 and x64 apps.
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They sent a new Surface Laptop to Ronald Ames, a leading technical producer on Amazon's The Rings of Power. He was excited about seeing Davinci Resolve running on a Windows PC with a neural processor, something he's only ever run on Macs. He can change the color of a shirt instantly, for example.
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Microsoft unveils Copilot+ PCs with generative AI capabilities baked in
A Copilot page showing the incorporation of AI technology is shown in London, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. The rise of generative AI chatbots is giving people new and different ways to look up information. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
We've been hearing rumblings for months now that Microsoft was working on so-called "AI PCs." At a pre-Build event, the company spelled out its vision for AI PCs.
Microsoft is calling its version Copilot+ PCs, which CEO Satya Nadella described as a "new class of Windows PCs." These include hardware designed to handle more generative AI Copilot processes locally, rather than relying on the cloud. That requires a chipset with a neural processing unit (NPU) and manufacturers such as Qualcomm have been laying the groundwork with chips like the Snapdragon X Elite.
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Adobe's flaghship apps, including Photoshop, Lightroom and Photoshop Express, are coming to Copilot+ PCs today. That also means they'll work well with existing Arm Windows laptops, like the Surface Pro 9 with 5G.
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Microsoft is touting the photo editing bona fides of the new Surface Laptop.
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The display is 600 nits, the brightest Microsoft has ever shipped. It also has a P3 color gamut for a wide color range. Surface Laptop is running the batch process almost 2x as fast as the Air. (Yes, the demo really seems live.)
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He's comparing performance to a MacBook Air M3, and of course he points out there's no touchscreen on the Air. He's running a batch image processing job live, a CPU intensive task that relies on multithreaded performance.
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This is a first look at the screen on the new Surface Laptop.
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Oyin Shenbanjo, Senior Product Manager at Surface, hits the stage to show off Photoshop on the new Surface Laptop.
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The new screen features HDR and Dolby Vision IQ, as well as new Studio Cameras incorporated into the bezel (no notch!). The keyboard now includes a Copilot key and the touchpad has haptics, like most modern systems
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A word cloud touts the main features of the new Surface Laptop.
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The new 15" Surface Laptop lasted "far longer" than the Surface Laptop 5 or MacBook Air. Over 22 hours of local video playback. There's Wi-Fi 7 support too. Finally, Surfaces with next-gen processors
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They're more than 86% faster than the Surface Pro 5.
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First up we're looking at the new Surface Laptop. It's been redesigned with thinner bezels, thankfully! It'll be available in 13.8-inch and 15-inch displays. They sure look pretty
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Suface Laptop and Surface Pro
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But yes they look exactly the same as the previous models. LOL.
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We're looking at a new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, no more numbers!
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Brett Ostrum, CVP of Surface is here to chat about devices. Finally!
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Top apps like Zoom, Chrome, and Photoshop will also run natively on Copilot+ PCs. There's also a new emulator, Prism, which is as efficient as Apple's Rosetta 2. You can never get away from older Windows apps, after all.
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We can also expected unprecedented battery life and security with Microsoft Pluton. Today, they're showing off new PCs built with Snapdragon X chips. They'll offer up to 22 hours of local video playback and 18 hours of web browsing. Peak performance is 23% faster in peak performance and 58% faster in sustained performance compared to the M3 MacBook Air.
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Basic specs for Copilot+: 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and an integrated NPU reaching 40+ TOPS of performance. He says the NPUs barely sip a few watts of power, even under full lo
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AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are key partners in all of this, naturally. Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of Intel, says there's a whole new batch of processors coming for Copilot+ PCs. Cristiano Amon is wearing an excellent Copilot+ PC shirt and hyping up Snadragon Windows PCs. And AMD's Lisa Su seems pretty excited as well
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No other devices or OS handles this level of AI sophistication, Davuluri says. Windows can also tap into Azure's AI processing for more complex tasks.
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Now we're watching an Xbox promo reel. In one example, they show off how Copilot can help you plan a route in MS Flight Simulator.
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The Windows Photos team, for example, wanted to tap into it to come up with ideas for your photos. You can use Super Resolution to restore old photos, or use an AI narrator to tell a story around your photos.
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The Windows Copilot Runtime powers much of this AI work, it includes over 40 AI models as a new layer of Windows 11. It'll reimagine what apps can do.
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The captured content is stored in a new Copilot semantic index. He says it's an improvement over traditional indexing systems, and it should help you find content more easily.
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The deep integration allows for robust privacy and security options. You can delete content as well as excluse specific apps.
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He's diving deeper into how Recall works. It's powered by several multi-modal small language models, which can recognize text, images, video and more. They're also deeply integrated into Windows, so it can more efficiently access Windows hardware. The intelligence will also work across any app.
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Davuluri is here to tell us more about how Windows was optimized for Copilot+ PCs.
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Copilot+ PCs will offer up to 22 hours of battery life, according to this video.
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Recall is a great idea in theory, but I can also imagine it leading to some awkward moments among family members. It's even worse than looking through someone's browser history.
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No shots of actual new hardware yet
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Pavan Davuluri, the leader of the Windows Devices team, is coming next. But first, we're watching a Copilot+ promo video.
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Mehdi says Recall has been built with responsible AI standards and aligned it with Microsoft's own standards. It won't use data to train Microsoft's models, and data also stays local to your PC.
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With Recall's Timeline feature, she was also able to scroll back to find specific quotes from a meeting.
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Recall is also essential for her at work: She's been collaborating on a pitch deck over the past few weeks. When she finally got around to adding her content, she couldn't find it. Instead of searching on her own, she asked recall to find a chart with purple writing using a voice search. It takes her to the exact slide with purple writing,
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When she chooses the right option from Recall, it takes her right back to the website to buy it.
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She looked specifically for a "blue pantsuit wiht sequel lace for abuelita," and it narrowed down her choices.
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She's demonstrating a few ways Recall helps her: For example, she's searching for the perfect dress for her grandmother. After browsing through Pinterest for weeks, she wanted to go back to see all the blue dresses she's seen. She didn't keep browser tabs open, but she can ask Recall to show her all of the blue dresses she's seen so far.
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Carolina Hernandez, Principal Product Manager of Windows AI experiences, is now showing us how Recall works.
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With Recall, Microsoft is leveraging the power of AI to access anything you've ever seen on your PC. "It's going to seem as if you have photographic memory." Recall is only possible on Copilot+ PCs.
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With 40+ TOPS of AI computing power, it can better understand what you're working on. For example, new Windows feature called Recall will help us remember what we've done on our computer. No more sending yourself emails or writing notes about tasks.
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The idea is that you can now just talk to Copilot naturally while you're working, within your flow. It sounds like the dream of virtual assistants coming true.
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As the dev continues, Copilot notices a zombie and gives him instructions on how to avoid it (by building a structure or digging into the ground). This all sounds very rehearsed, but it's a cool concept!
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Copilot is actively telling him what to do in Minecraft, it's looking at his inventory and suggesting what he can use to create a specific item.
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One of their developers shared a screen with Copilot while they were playing Minecraft. He's having a natural conversation, and Copilot is seeing and responding to the game. This is very much like Project Astra and the creepy OpenAI assistant demo.
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When you're on the Windows desktop, Copilot can also answer questions from notifications. They're also bringing the latest tech from OpenAI: GPT4o coming soon.
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Copilot will eventually make its way into Windows settings to help you find specific options, or accomplish tasks like removing an image background.
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So what can these Copilot+ PCs do? There's a new Copilot app that can either be a standalone window, sidebar or fullscreen. Now you can use two Windows to drag and drop elements into Copilot.
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Copilot+ PCs run at 40+ TOPS, they've also rearchitected Windows 11 to optimize perofrmance and battery. That's what helps make these the fastest PCs ever. He claims they're 58% faster than the MacBook Air M3. (Notably, not the MacBook Pro chips.)
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Copilot+ PCs are the most powerful PCs ever made, and of course, they'll lean into Copilot AI more heavily.
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With Copilot+, he says they've reimagined PCs from the inside out. "Even with all of this power, these new Pcs are unbelievable thin, light and beautiful."
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So far, we've seen Windows AI PCs that can reach 10 TOPS (trillions of operations per second). He estimates over 50 million AI PCs will be purchased in the next 12 months alone.
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Today, he says, Microsoft is reimagining the platform of the way we work.
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"We wake up every day excited by our mission to help people do more," he says.
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveils Copilot+ PCs in Redmond.
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Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft EVP and Consumer Chief Marketing Office, hits the stage next.
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Nadella says his first developer conference was the Win32 conference. He believes this move towards AI-infused PCs is just as important. "We're bringing real joy and a sense of wonder back to creation in the PC."
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Partners include AMD, Intel and Qualcomm, as well as major OEMs like Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.
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They're taking a partner-first approach to help bring these Copilot+ PCs to life.
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MS is rethinking these PCs from the silicon and system level, as well as Windows itself.
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He's talking about devices that can turn the world itself into an AI prompt. "For us this vision starts with our most beloved and most widely used Canvas, Windows. It's why we're introducing an entirely new class of Windows PCs... Copilot+ PCs.:"
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Just like how Moores law drove the information revolution, he believes scaling laws will determine how fast we move in the AI revolution.
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"We have this new reasoning cability that helps us complete complex tasks." He goes on to say we're entering an era where computers can anticipate our needs. "Copilot is empowering every person and organization on the planet to be more knowledgeable, more productive, and more creative."
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on stage at the event, in front of a Microsoft logo.
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He points out since the dawn of computing, the pursuit has been to create computers that understand us. He thinks we're close.
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella hits the stage, he says today reminds him of another seminal moment for Microsoft: Windows 95.
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Back to the music playlist, which is suitably boppy and energetic to keep us all awake. Shout out to DJ and artist SassyBlack
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Frank Shaw, Microsoft's communications head, is welcoming us to the event. Apparently we're getting a first glimpse at Microsoft's campus refresh.
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They're feeding Devindra the Microsoft logo, apparently!
A cup of coffee with milk art on top and a purple Windows logo with the word Microsoft also on top of the milk art.
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Because Microsoft isn't livestreaming this event, we've resorted to extreme measures to get audio to the Engadget crew. Sit tight folks, we're about half an hour away from the event!
A Rode shotgun mic connected to a MacBook Pro.
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Devindra is looking at the stage right now!
A round stage with wooden floors and a curved screen in the back is showing rosy clouds and the Copilot logo overlaid.
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A line of people waiting to get inside Microsoft's event space.
Per Devindra, who has been sharing these pictures with our team, "their campus is so pretty."
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This Copilot logo is everywhere at the event space!
A panel with the Copilot logo at Microsoft's campus.
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Devindra is getting to the event space shortly and will likely need some time to set up. I hope he also gets a chance to sample Microsoft's snacks. Tech event season is intense, but the food is the silver lining, I think? The event itself kicks off at 1pm ET, so you have some time to get lunch now.
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If you don't quite know what to expect today, though, you can catch up by reading our article on what we expect Microsoft to unveil today!
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Microsoft's hardware approach might be a bit confusing. The company had an event earlier this year where it unveiled enterprise versions of the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. You can check out Devindra's review of the Surface Pro 10 for Business to get a sense of what those devices were about. Today, though, we're expecting something more newsworthy and consumer-centric.
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Anyway, our senior reporter Devindra Hardawar is on the ground in Redmond and will be bringing you all the news as Microsoft announces it. There is no livestream for this event, so I guess you'll just have to stick around and read his words
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Hello everyone and welcome to our liveblog of Microsoft's event this morning. We don't quite know what to call it just yet — it's one day ahead of the company's Build developer conference. But we think it'll have news around Surface and AI. So for now, it's the Surface and AI event? Like it's been for the company all year?