Microsoft is including a brand new key to PC keyboards for the primary time since 1994
Microsoft
Microsoft pushed all through 2023 to add generative AI capabilities to its software, even extending its new Copilot AI assistant to Home windows 10 late last year. Now, these efforts to rework PCs at a software program degree is extending to the {hardware}: Microsoft is adding a dedicated Copilot key to PC keyboards, adjusting the usual Home windows keyboard format for the primary time because the Home windows key first appeared on its Natural Keyboard in 1994.
The Copilot key will, predictably, open up the Copilot generative AI assistant inside Home windows 10 and Home windows 11. On an up-to-date Home windows PC with Copilot enabled, you may presently do the identical factor by urgent Home windows + C. For PCs with out Copilot enabled, together with those who aren’t signed into Microsoft accounts, the Copilot key will open Home windows Search as a substitute (although that is form of redundant, since urgent the Home windows key after which typing immediately into the Begin menu additionally prompts the Search perform).
A quick Microsoft demo video reveals the Copilot key in between the cluster of arrow keys and the proper Alt button, a spot the place many keyboards normally put a menu button, a proper Ctrl key, one other Home windows key, or one thing comparable. The precise positioning, and the important thing being changed, could differ relying on the dimensions and format of the keyboard.
We requested Microsoft if a Copilot key could be required on OEM PCs going ahead; the corporate advised us that the important thing is not necessary now, however that it expects Copilot keys to be required on Home windows 11 keyboards “over time.” Microsoft typically imposes some additional hardware requirements on main PC makers that promote Home windows on their units, past what’s strictly essential to run Home windows itself.
If nothing else, this new key is an indication of how a lot Microsoft desires individuals to make use of Copilot and its different generative AI merchandise. Loads of previous firm initiatives—Bing, Edge, Cortana, and the Microsoft Retailer, to call a number of—by no means managed to change into baked into the {hardware} like this. Within the Home windows 8 epoch, Microsoft required OEMs to build a Windows button into the display bezel of units with touchscreens, however that requirement ultimately disappeared. If Copilot fizzles or is deemphasized the best way Cortana was, the Copilot key might change into a approach to rapidly date a Home windows PC from the mid-2020s, the best way that adjustments to the Home windows emblem date keyboards from earlier eras.
We’ll undoubtedly see extra AI options from Microsoft this yr, too—Microsoft Chief Advertising Officer Yusuf Medhi referred to as 2024 “the yr of the AI PC” in right now’s announcement.
Chipmakers like Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm are all constructing neural processing models (NPUs) into their newest silicon, and we’ll probably see extra updates for Home windows apps and options that may reap the benefits of this new on-device processing functionality. Rumors additionally point out that we might see a “Windows 12” launch as quickly as this yr; whereas Home windows 11 has largely had AI options stacked on prime of it, a brand new OS might launch with AI options extra deeply built-in into the UI and apps, in addition to further {hardware} necessities for some options.
Microsoft says the Copilot key will debut in some PCs that might be introduced on the Shopper Electronics Present this month. Floor units with the revised keyboard format are “upcoming.”