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Microsoft has started hinting at how it will further integrate AI features into Windows 11 ahead of a big update to the OS that focuses on AI. The software giant started testing a \u201cnew experience\u201d for Copilot in Windows this week, which includes an animated Copilot in the taskbar that appears when you copy text or images.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe Copilot icon will change appearance and animate to indicate that Copilot can help,\u201d explains Microsoft in a blog post<\/a>. \u201cWhen you hover your mouse over the Copilot icon, it will provide a menu of actions that you can take, such as summarizing or explaining the copied text.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ve tested the experience in the latest Windows 11 Canary builds, and it works well for text, summarizing anything you copy. While the icon also animates when you copy images, this feature isn\u2019t quite ready to test yet. You will also eventually be able to just drag and drop an image into the Copilot icon on the taskbar and enter it into a prompt. Copilot can then tell you what\u2019s in the image, and in the future, it may even help you edit images, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Alongside the Copilot changes, Microsoft also confirmed that its Notepad app will get Copilot AI integration soon<\/a>. You\u2019ll be able to select text and right-click to \u201cexplain with Copilot.\u201d It will decipher text, code segments, or log files. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Microsoft has been gradually adding more and more AI features to Windows 11 in recent months, including the main Copilot. It\u2019s all part of a broader push to position Copilot as Microsoft\u2019s big AI brand, all while getting ready for a big feature update to Windows. Microsoft wants 2024 to be \u201cthe year of the AI PC,\u201d and it\u2019s already adding a dedicated Copilot key to keyboards<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Intel, Qualcomm, and others have teased a Windows \u201crefresh\u201d for 2024 that\u2019s focused on AI, but Microsoft hasn\u2019t officially acknowledged its plans yet. \u201cThe unique thing of Copilot inside Windows is that it can be aware of the context you\u2019re in,\u201d said Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft, in an interview with\u00a0The Verge <\/em>this week<\/a>. \u201cIt can understand the pages, so it can do more rich things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n We\u2019re starting to see Copilot become more context-aware in Microsoft\u2019s latest test builds of Windows 11, and the company is also set to leverage the NPU hardware that\u2019s started shipping in Windows laptops recently. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n While Windows 12 was rumored to be Microsoft\u2019s big AI push, it looks like that push will now be part of a Windows 11 update later this year. Microsoft refers to this update as \u201c24H2,\u201d the annual feature update that ships in the second half of 2024. We\u2019ll likely hear a lot more about Microsoft\u2019s AI plans in Windows in the coming months as the company continues to test how it\u2019s overhauling Windows for \u201cthe year of the AI PC.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n