- Windows 11’s Copilot app just got an update for testers
- This introduces a powerful new natural language-based search
- There are also some useful changes for the app’s home page
Windows 11’s Copilot app is getting a deeper and more powerful search functionality, and more besides – although this is only in testing for now.
The Verge reports that Microsoft is rolling out an update for the Copilot app to Windows Insiders (those running test versions of Windows 11) who have Copilot+ PCs.
Those devices have the necessary NPU to drive this new AI search, which allows you to use natural language in queries, and will dive into files to find results for you.
So, as Microsoft points out, you can ask a conversational query such as ‘find the file with the tiramisu recipe’ and the Copilot app will hunt through the files on your PC to locate it. Or similarly, you could ask ‘find pictures of my dog on the beach’ and the AI will pick out those images specifically. Microsoft calls this functionality a ‘semantic file search’.
Microsoft is also bringing in a rejigged home page for the Copilot app which surfaces recently used files, apps, and conversations, a move designed to make it easy for you to jump back into whatever you were doing previously.
You can also click on those recently-used files to query them with Copilot, or elect to get help with apps via a specific ‘guided help’ pane – this fires up a Copilot Vision session to guide you through said app.
Testers who want to give the new Copilot app a whirl should grab the latest update from the Microsoft Store in Windows 11.
Analysis: AI end game
Your immediate concern here may be privacy, and Microsoft has been quick to allay any fears along those lines in its blog post introducing these changes. The company makes it clear that Copilot surfaces recently-used files simply via the standard ‘recent’ folder that Windows 11 maintains – so the AI app isn’t digging into your system any more deeply than the records which the OS keeps itself.
Microsoft clarifies that: “Copilot doesn’t scan your entire system or upload anything automatically.” However, when you’re directly querying a file with Copilot, in that case it is uploaded for processing, but “nothing is shared unless you explicitly do so”.
As for the semantic file-search capability, I assume that it functions similarly to the AI-supercharging of Windows 11’s search itself on Copilot+ PCs (when Microsoft introduced natural language queries via the search box on the taskbar).
Microsoft seemingly wants to beef up search with AI across the board, and so on Copilot+ PCs we have that powered-up Windows 11 search, as well as Recall (a screenshot-based AI search leveraging the activity on your PC), and now an improved natural language search within the Copilot app itself.
What’s the end game with pushing AI in search so strongly? Well, search is an obvious use case for AI, and I’d speculate that eventually, Copilot will take over all Windows search duties entirely.
There will be no basic Windows search at all, in other words – if you want to find stuff on your PC, you’ll ask Copilot, end of story. And hopefully it’ll complete the search without showing you 15 related ‘suggestions’ or ‘recommendations’ about what else you might need to complete whatever task the AI thinks you’re carrying out.