Microsoft is about to reveal how AI PCs will make Windows stickier

Microsoft is preparing to announce one of, if not the biggest change to Windows in its existence, which is the inclusion of artificial intelligence-powered tools.

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The company is set to showcase its latest integrations of AI into PCs at the Build developers conference on Tuesday. According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who said in January 2024, AI will become the "first-class part of every PC". That shift has already begun with the inclusion of Copilot chatbot assistant in Microsoft's Bing search engine, and direct integration into Windows 11.

What users can expect out of tomorrow's conference is Microsoft explaining how AI will become fully integrated into Windows, specifically Windows 11, and what users will be able to do on the next generation of AI PCs. More specifically, AI PCs will have a two-purpose goal: increase the number of PC sales and maintain Microsoft's position in the AI industry via AI being rolled out to millions of Windows users.

"While Copilot for Windows does not directly drive monetization it should, we believe, drive up usage of Windows, stickiness of Windows, customers to higher priced more powerful PCs (and therefore more revenue to Microsoft per device), and likely search revenue," Bernstein analysts wrote in a note to investors on April 26, the day after Microsoft reported its earnings

Additionally, AI PCs will be getting their own dedicated hardware to run AI-related tasks without an internet connection, or locally. AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm will be providing the hardware for the AI PCs, which are called NPUs, or neural processing units. Furthermore, Microsoft will talk about how the "next generation of Windows" will be running on Arm-based architecture from Qualcomm and how that will differentiate itself from Intel and AMD versions of Windows.