Clues hint at what AI Explorer could do in Windows 11, but they might worry privacy activists

Windows 11 is getting a new feature called AI Explorer - or at least, AI PCs running the OS will be - and some fresh clues have been spotted that give us a hint of what it might do.

As you can see in the above and below tweets, a couple of regular leakers on X (formerly Twitter) have pointed out a few strings and hidden bits of code pertaining to AI Explorer that they've dug up in recent Windows 11 preview builds.

PhantomofEarth highlights some strings relating to 'screen understanding' being either on or off, and the following dialog: "Screen understanding is paused. Models are not available and need to be downloaded."

This suggests to us - pure guesswork mode engaged, by the way - that AI Explorer is going to have some kind of continuously running process to monitor what's happening on the desktop (screen), in order to be able to step in and offer help with certain tasks.

The mention of AI models not being available, and that they can be downloaded, further backs up other chatter we've heard about AI capabilities eventually being accessible locally on a Windows 11 PC to some extent (rather than leveraging the computing power of the cloud).

Albacore adds to the rumors here with a list of objects spotted in the AI Explorer interface package (in build 26200) that mentions screen understanding, too, but also the following: Sidebar Island, Shoulder Tap, Intent Engine, Discovery Overlay.

Intent Engine stands out to us - and again suggests that AI will be monitoring what's going on and trying to work out what you're intending to do, then stepping in to offer help with that. ('Did you know you could blah blah blah this or that feature').

We should underline this is just us guessing, of course. As Albacore hints, Shoulder Tap has been a thing in Windows 10 in the past, and will likely involve getting a hefty-sized nudge as to something happening (or something that AI Explorer could do for you, perhaps).

Active or passive?

A lot of this boils down to how active AI Explorer will be, really. Is it going to be an AI feature that's regularly chipping in, watching what you do, and popping up with ways to complete tasks or offers of help along these lines?

That's how we read these clues, but as we see above, screen understanding for example can be switched off. For those who might be worried about the privacy issues involved in an AI monitoring their Windows 11 usage, we are presuming there'll be the ability to turn off such proactive offers of help.

While still being able to use AI Explorer as a passive helper - an in-depth, AI-powered natural language search that spans everything on your PC, that can be invoked when you want it. Or more specifically, when you need to find a file, but can't remember what it's called, and want to search in very general terms ('find me that file about when to plant flowers in the spring' for example).

AI Explorer is expected to debut with the Windows 11 24H2 update, but it might be exclusive to AI PCs if the rumors are right - possibly due to the requirement for a beefy NPU to accelerate the feature. This may also mean an ARM CPU (with the Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips offering seriously powerful next-gen NPUs) is required to use AI Explorer, at least initially - so AMD and Intel processors could be left out in the cold.

Microsoft will have to tread carefully with privacy here, though, and also ensure that AI Explorer doesn't push any help and recommendations it gives towards the realm of advertising (peppering you with suggestions to use Edge, for example).

Read more: It looks like Microsoft could cram more adverts veiled as 'recommendations' into Windows 11