Microsoft including new PC button in its first important keyboard change in a long time

Microsoft is including an artificial intelligence button to its Home windows keyboards in a transfer that marks the corporate’s first important keyboard change in practically three a long time. 

The button — known as the Copilot key — will launch Microsoft’s AI chatbot, the corporate’s government vice chairman Yusuf Mehdi wrote within the Thursday announcement. He stated Microsoft sees the important thing addition as “the entry level into the world of AI on the PC.”

“We consider it would empower folks to take part within the AI transformation extra simply,” Mehdi wrote. 

Copilot, introduced in March of final 12 months, integrates AI into Microsoft’s software program. The instrument is built-in with Microsoft 365 and works alongside Phrase, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Groups. Customers can presently entry it with the keyboard shortcut Home windows + C.

Mehdi wrote that the extra key will transfer the expertise world nearer to a future where AI is “seamlessly” woven into Home windows, from the system to the {hardware}. 

“This is not going to solely simplify folks’s computing expertise but in addition amplify it, making 2024 the 12 months of the AI PC,” Mehdi wrote.

Beginning this month, some new PCs operating Home windows 11 could have the Copilot keyboard button. The important thing may even be included on some upcoming Floor gadgets. 

Microsoft didn’t specify which pc producers can be including the button, solely saying they key can be on “most of the new Home windows 11 PCs from our ecosystem companions.” Dell Technologies on Thursday stated the Copilot key can be on its latest XPS laptops. 

If Copilot is just not out there or enabled on the machine, urgent the important thing will launch Home windows’ search perform as a substitute.

Microsoft in contrast the brand new button to the Home windows key, which was launched practically 30 years in the past. The brand new button, that includes the Copilot brand, can be positioned close to the keyboard’s area bar. The QWERTY structure, which includes the majority of the trendy keyboard, was developed within the 1870s.