Microsoft intros Copilot+ PCs for 'AI PC' era: Copilot+ AI PCs need 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, NPU

Microsoft has finally announced its huge AI PC push with its new Copilot+ AI PCs that are new Windows laptops that have built-in AI hardware -- NPUs -- that support AI features within Windows 11. Check it out:

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that all of Microsoft's major laptop partners will have Copilot+ AI PCs, including Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, HP, Acer, and ASUS. Not only that, but Microsoft is also introducing two new Surface laptops that are ready for the world of AI.

The company announced the news during its Build conference, with Nadella reiterating that Microsoft is pushing big time into the world of Arm chips on Windows laptops, with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite SoC being the first Copilot+ AI PC in the wild. Intel and AMD-based CPUs and laptop designs will be coming out later this year.

The NPU (Neural Processing Unit) inside of the Copilot+ AI PCs will be able top run one of the flagship Copilot+ AI features called "Recall" which creates a searchable "photographic memory" of everything you've ever done, or seen on your AI PC. The new Copilot+ AI PCs will run over 40 AI models as part of Windows 11 to power the new features, with Microsoft's built-in AI assistant -- Copilot -- to receive support for OpenAI's new GPT-4o model.

Copilot+ AI PCs will have specific system requirements: 16GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD storage, and an integrated NPU are all required to be an official Copilot+ AI PC. The hardware requirements are good, as I like to see 16GB of RAM as a bare minimum, 256GB SSD is small... but I guess the lower-end laptop SKUs can ship with at least 16GB RAM + 256GB SSD.

The new Copilot+ AI PC laptops will be "58% faster" than an Apple MacBook Air with an M3 processor, according to Yusuf Mehdi, the Microsoft executive overseeing Windows. Mehdi claimed "all day" battery life, but we all know to not trust the marketed battery life claims.

The first Copilot+ AI PCs will launch with Qualcomm processors on June 18, with Intel and AMD processors inside of designs to come later this year. We should expect a metric flood of AI PCs to be shown off at Computex 2024, which is not far away at all.