What is a Copilot+ PC? All models, features, and India availability explained

Microsoft announced a new category of Windows computers called “Copilot+ PCs” or AI PCs in May this year.

Microsoft claims that Windows computers called Copilot+ PC can even outperform an M3 MacBook Air 15-inch. (Microsoft)

OpenAI's ChatGPT helped kickstart the AI boom in the tech industry, and it's hard to come across a new product or service today that's not “powered by AI.” Everything from your phones, to cars, to even a binocular by Swarovski, seem to have some form of AI that claims to change your life. PCs and laptops too are getting a major AI makeover in 2024, and Microsoft is going all-in in the hopes to strike a resounding blow to Apple.

Microsoft introduced Copilot in September 2023, its AI assistant in Windows 11, and most newer laptops that launched at the start of this year with Intel's Core Ultra or AMD's Ryzen 8040 series CPUs, come with a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard. In May 2024, Microsoft announced a new category of Windows computers called “Copilot+ PCs” or AI PCs.

These devices claim to be able to run many AI tasks directly on-device thanks to a powerful dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU), and promise up to 22 hours of video playback. Microsoft even goes as far to boast that they can outperform an M3 MacBook Air 15-inch. The latter especially is a pretty big claim, considering how Apple silicon's performance has leapfrogged ahead of the Windows competition.

Not sure which
laptop to buy?

We'll be breaking down all the burning questions surrounding Copilot+ PCs in this article, so you have the best clarity before your next purchase.

What exactly is a Copilot+ PC?

Microsoft defines a Copilot+ PC as a premium Windows device that has a dedicated neural processing unit or NPU for running AI tasks, all-day battery life, access to advanced AI models like GPT-4o, and exclusive AI features. These devices include just laptops for now, and prices start at $999 (roughly Rs. 83,400). In India, we can expect these laptops to cost a bit more due to taxes and duty, so expect a starting price of around 1 Lakh Rupees.

Copilot+ PCs should not be confused with Copilot laptops that launched at CES 2024. That ‘plus' symbol is the main distinguishing factor, and how you can identify such a laptop.

What are the minimum requirements for a Copilot+ laptop?

According to Microsoft, all Copilot+ branded laptops will have to have these minimum hardware requirements:

• A NPU with 40 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) performance or more. This is the main processor for handling AI-related work.
• 16GB of DDR5 or LPDDR5 RAM.
• 256GB SSD or UFS storage.

The power of the NPU is the most crucial part in a Copilot+ PC as many of the AI features in these laptops use a mix of cloud and on-device processing, for greater speed and privacy. Microsoft believes that in order to have a seamless AI experience, 40 TOPS is the bare minimum for the NPU.

What processors do Copilot+ PCs use?

Currently, only laptops based on Qualcomm's X series SoCs qualify as a Copilot+ PC. This includes the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and the Snapdragon X Plus SoC. Both chips are said to deliver 40 TOPS of power by the NPU. The Elite is the flagship chip with 12 Oryon CPU cores running at up to 4.2GHz, and a 4.6 TFLOPs (Teraflops) graphics unit or GPU. The X Plus SoC features a 10-core CPU running at up to 3.4GHz, and a 3.8 TFLOPs GPU.

Intel and AMD have both announced their next-gen processors that will be found in upcoming Copilot+ PCs. Intel's ‘Lunar Lake' CPUs will arrive in Q3 2024, and will have 40+ TOPS of NPU performance. Meanwhile, AMD announced the Ryzen AI 300 series processor family at Computex 2024. The NPU in these chips promise up to 50 TOPS of power.

For perspective, the NPU in Apple's A17 Pro SoC in the iPhone 15 Pro series is capable of an impressive 35 TOPS, while the M3 SoC in the MacBook Air can do 18 TOPS.

What are the different Copilot+ laptops available right now?

As of now, all the big OEMs of Microsoft have announced Copilot+ laptops, including Microsoft with its Surface line. These are the models that will be launching soon globally, including some that will come to India:

1. Asus Vivobook S 15
2. Dell XPS 13, Inspiron 14 Plus, Inspiron 14, Latitude 7455, Latitude 5455
3. HP OmniBook X AI PC, EliteBook Ultra G1q AI PC
4. Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, ThinkPad T14s Gen6
5. Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge
6. Microsoft Surface Pro, Surface Laptop 15- and 13.8-inch

These are just the initial batch of laptops which were announced at Microsoft's May event, and we expect more in the months to come. Keep in mind that these are just laptops based on Qualcomm's SoC, so we'll have plenty more once Intel and AMD's chips arrive.

What are the exclusive AI features in Copilot+ PCs?

Aside from new hardware, Copilot+ PCs will have access to exclusive AI features in Windows 11. The laptops will also have the ability to perform certain AI tasks locally, on-device, thanks to a combination of Large Language Models (LLM) and Small Language Models (SLM). Some of the main AI features include:

Recall: This feature helps you remember any and all activity you've performed on your laptop by taking periodic snapshots of your system. This way, you can scrub through a timeline to see in which folder you saved a file, or what email you sent on a particular day. It uses AI to detect text, objects, images, apps in the snapshots and index everything so that it can be easily found later with a search query.

Cocreate: This uses AI to augment creativity apps like Paint and Photos, letting you turn an amateur creation into something professional.

Live Captions: Generate English subtitles for audio and video from 44 languages, including Hindi.

Windows Studio Effects: Video call and audio effects available for all Copilot PCs with NPUs, but voice focus and portrait blur are exclusive to Copilot+ PCs.

Can I run regular Windows apps on Copilot+ PCs?

The current crop of Copilot+ laptops will run Windows 11 on Arm, which is a version of Windows designed to run on the Arm64 instruction set. Intel and AMD's processors use the x86 instruction set, and run on the standard version of Windows 11 which you probably have on your existing laptop or PC.

Unlike in the past with the ill-fated Windows RT, you will be able to run all your regular apps on Windows for Arm PCs, and won't need specialised versions. All x86 apps will run via the Prism emulator until developers choose to release native Arm versions of those apps. Copilot+ laptops will ship with the Windows 24H2 update, thereby allowing emulation and other AI features to seamlessly work from day one. You could probably expect some performance hit running an emulated app versus a native one, but initial tests from reviewers and experts indicate promising results.

Microsoft's own apps like Teams, PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, Excel, OneDrive, and OneNote have been optimised for native Arm64 support. Many third-party softwares have already/ will be launching Arm versions of their apps. These include Chrome, Spotify, Zoom, WhatsApp, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, Blender, Affinity Suite, DaVinci Resolve, and Slack.

Just like your smartphone which also uses Arm-based SoCs, Windows 11 on Arm Copilot+ PCs will have the advantage of being always connected to the internet via cellular data, all-day battery life, and the ability to instantly wake the laptop from sleep (just like a phone) without any loading time. It'll be interesting to see how well Intel and AMD's version of Copilot+ PCs compare to the Snapdragon-powered laptops.

Can I play my Steam games on a Copilot+ PC?

Technically, yes. Your existing games on Steam, Epic, or any other platform will run in emulation mode on Arm Copilot+ PCs, unless the developer releases a native Arm version of the game. If Arm Copilot+ PCs take off the way industry experts are expecting it to, we could see many popular titles getting native support, with probably better performance.

For now, I would say don't get an Arm Copilot+ PC if your primary requirement is gaming. Intel and AMD Copilot+ PCs will have options for discrete graphics from Nvidia and AMD, which will make more sense for gaming. For example, Qualcomm's best chip, the X Elite, has a GPU performance of 4.6 TFLOPs, while Nvidia's entry-level laptop RTX 4050 GPU does 9 TFLOPs. The Qualcomm SoC should not have any trouble with casual games, but if you want to run AAA titles the way they were meant to be played, then it's best to wait for Copilot+ laptops with dedicated GPUs.

Am I missing anything if I don't have a Copilot+ PC?

Yes and no. If you don't care or depend on AI for your daily tasks and haven't bothered using Copilot on your current laptop, then you're really not missing much. Some of the, so called, exclusive features for Copilot+ PCs like Recall, Cocreator, Live Captions, and Windows Studio Effects should still work on existing Intel and AMD laptops with dedicated NPUs, but it might not be the best experience since they don't have the 40 TOPS requirement. AI features aside, I think the battery life gains and always-on capability of an Arm-based Windows machine are the most appealing factor.

The AI PC race has only just begun. With hundreds of new models expected later this year from Intel and AMD, it would make sense to hold off on your Copilot+ PC for a bit longer so you can pick the best option that suits you.

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