On May 20th local time, Microsoft launched a new PC product with Copilot feature - Windows 11 AI PC. This is also another achievement released by Microsoft in the field of AI, following the first launch of AI PC products in March this year.
"The Windows platform is undergoing the biggest transformation in decades," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. He compared the significance of this AI PC release to Windows 95 released thirty years ago, which is considered the most important and successful operating system to date.
Nadella introduced that Windows 11 AI PC is a faster and smarter Windows PC, equipped with a brand new NPU chip that can achieve over 40 trillion operations per second and provide longer battery life compared to Macbooks. A single charge can support up to 22 hours of local video playback or 15 hours of web browsing.
Windows 11 AI PCs also offer some unique AI based features, such as the "review" feature. It can track all user actions on the PC and quickly and intuitively retrieve the content that the user is looking for through the fragmented clues in memory. In live displays, users can cross a timeline of several months to search for content in any application, website, document, or other place they have browsed, or inquire through screenshots, such as a specific email.
Similar to other AI PCs, Windows 11 AI PCs also provide real-time translation functionality, which can automatically translate live or recorded audio from any app or video platform into English subtitles in real-time. It supports translation in more than 40 languages, including Chinese, and can also be achieved offline.
The Copilot voice assistant has added some new gameplay to entertainment. According to on-site displays, in addition to daily interactions, it can also judge video content in real-time, serving as a virtual coach for users playing the Minecraft video game.
In order to integrate more commonly used apps into the AI experience, Microsoft has announced partnerships with companies such as Adobe. Photoshop, Lightroom, and Express3 have been launched on Windows 11 AI PCs, while Illustrator and Premiere Pro will be launched this summer.
With the support of Qualcomm chips, Microsoft also offers a large number of Arm64 native application experiences. Currently, commonly used applications supported include PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote, iQiyi, Bilibili, Kugou Music, QQ, QQ Music, and NetEase Youdao Translation.
With the support of Copilot functionality, Microsoft has launched two new PC products - Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. It is reported that the running speed of the new generation Surface Laptop 5 has increased by 86% compared to the previous generation, and it surpasses MacBook Air in both running speed and endurance. The new Surface Pro is up to 90% faster than the previous generation.
The starting price of the new Surface Pro is 8688 yuan, while the starting price of the new Surface Laptop product is 111800 yuan. The two new products will start pre-sales in China on May 21st and officially go on sale on June 18th.
Starting from June 18th, in addition to Microsoft's own brand, major laptop partners such as Dell, Acer, Asus, HP, and Lenovo will all offer new PC products equipped with Copilot functionality.
The Windows 11 AI PC has once again stirred up competition in the AI PC industry, especially Microsoft's frequent mention of Apple in press conferences. Apple CEO Tim Cook mentioned earlier this year that "there is currently no better computer on the market for artificial intelligence than a Mac." He also stated that Apple will announce the latest progress in AI at the WWDC in June this year.
The Vice President of Microsoft expects to sell 50 million AI PCs next year. According to data released by research firm Gartner, global PC shipments decreased by approximately 15% to 242 million units last year. That is to say, Microsoft expects that the new category of computers will account for about one-fifth of all PC sales.
As of the close on May 20th, Microsoft's stock price rose 1.22% to $425.34 per share, with a total market value of $3161.25 billion.