AI is becoming a major part of our digital lives, and Microsoft has adopted the new tech with open arms. So much so that Microsoft now offers a huge range of AI tools straight from Windows 11, led by Microsoft’s new digital assistant, Copilot.
The real advantage of AI is that it can help you do your work faster. AI tools, at least right now, are excellent at helping users save time, so they can spend that time on other tasks. And, many more AI tools that can help you save time are on the way – so expect to be able to save more and more time over the next few months and years.
Curious about how you can save time in Windows 11 using AI? Here are the best features right now.
Simple search features
The first thing that AI tools became reasonably good at is search. To be clear, AI tools do hallucinate information – which is to say that when it comes to search, they sometimes confidently get things wrong. That means that you should double-check important information, especially if the information is highly consequential.
That said, Copilot is still pretty good at search, and it provides sources for its information too – so you can click on the sources and double-check that the information is accurate as needed. Plus, Copilot allows you to ask follow-up questions, which is a whole lot quicker than having to search multiple topics on the web.
Summarize documents
With AI in Windows 11, you don’t necessarily need to read full, long documents. Instead, you can ask Copilot to summarize documents for you, and this can be done in a few different apps and services. For example, you can ask Copilot to summarize articles in Microsoft Edge, or ask it to summarize documents in Word.
Image creation features
There are some handy image creation AI tools in Windows too – and more tools are coming. For now, you can use Microsoft Designer to create images for you. Simply input a text prompt, and Designer will create an image. From there, you can edit the image, and refine it – both using AI tools, and using manual graphic design tools.
Generate text
As you might expect, Copilot can generate text of its own too, which can be helpful in a variety of settings. For example, from the Pages app, you can enable Copilot and ask it to generate text by describing the kind of text that you want the assistant to create. From there, you can have Copilot change the tone of the text, or ask it to rewrite the text based on additional prompts. Then, simply hit the “Add to page” button and your new text will show up in your document.
Recall (upcoming)
One of the most powerful upcoming AI tools for Windows 11 will first show up in Microsoft’s new generation of computers, called Microsoft Copilot+ PCs. These computers feature powerful new AI processors that can handle local AI features, like Recall.
Recall essentially keeps an eye on the things you do on your computer, and allows you to easily find documents, websites, images, and more, by asking Copilot about them. Remember when you found a recipe you wanted to cook a few weeks ago, but now you can’t find the web page again? That’s the kind of thing that Recall will be able to help with. Using the tool, you should be able to simply ask Copilot to help you find it, and it’ll look through the log of what you’ve done on your computer.
You’ll be able to turn this feature off if you wish, and set which apps and websites it works with, or doesn’t work with. And, Microsoft is quick to point out that these snapshots are stored locally, and not uploaded to the cloud.
Cocreate (upcoming)
Cocreate takes image creation tools to the next level. Using Cocreate on Copilot+ PCs, you’ll be able to sketch designs in paint, and couple that information with text prompts to have Cocreate create a new image for you. The feature will also be available in Microsoft Photos, and could be perfect for those who simply need graphics for a document, for example.