For the primary time in nearly 30 years, Microsoft is including a brand new key to its keyboard structure. Microsoft introduced the change in a brief video showcasing what this new Copilot key would possibly seem like on a Windows PC keyboard.
This is the primary time Microsoft has added a brand new key to the keyboard since 1994, when it added the Windows key. It’s unclear if this new key will substitute the Windows key—the corporate has mentioned it should “join” the Windows key—although it does seem like in the identical place because the Windows key within the video that Microsoft shared. We’ll have to attend to see it in motion to know precisely the place it should seem or what it should seem like.
What is Copilot?
This is an intensive query that I reply in my in-depth Copilot explainer, which shares particulars all about Microsoft’s very complicated Copilot AI system. For now, although, all it’s good to know is Copilot is Microsoft’s reply to generative AI. It’s a chatbot that may reply questions, allow you to discover issues in your PC, and even generate pictures.
Why is Microsoft including a Copilot key?
Microsoft is basically pushing its AI choices, which is why it’s including a Copilot key to your keyboard. The concept right here is that by placing AI entrance and heart, increasingly individuals will use it, permitting Microsoft to increase and supply extra performance. The firm, and plenty of others prefer it, are betting on generative AI chatbots like Copilot, which is a vital step to getting extra individuals to choose it up.
Microsoft has additionally toyed with the concept of changing the Start Menu button with Copilot, although a consensus on that hasn’t been reached fairly but so far as we all know.
What if my PC would not have Copilot?
Despite Microsoft’s push for Copilot, the service is simply available on Windows 11, and it’s slated to succeed in Windows 10 someday down the road, too. Currently, solely round 400 million lively customers have Windows 11 put in. That’s solely a tiny share of the 1.6 billion customers that Microsoft has within the Windows ecosystem, so Copilot is not one thing everybody has prepared entry to. So what in case your PC would not have Copilot and you purchase a keyboard with a Copilot key?
Well, the excellent news is that it would not matter when you have Copilot or not. If your PC would not have Copilot enabled or put in, then urgent the important thing will merely open up the common Windows search system, permitting you to nonetheless simply search your PC for any options, performance, or apps that you just’re on the lookout for on the time. Plus, the important thing will solely ship on new laptops that run Windows 11, like Dell’s new XPS gadgets.
While the change shall be large for customers that like Copilot, having a keyboard with a Copilot key is not going to imply a lot to the on a regular basis individuals that do not depend on AI to get via their on-line actions. And, for the second, you’ll be able to nonetheless overtly ignore Copilot should you do not wish to purchase into Microsoft’s AI craze. However, Microsoft will probably in the future lean even tougher into the AI providers it affords, so do not anticipate this at all times to be the case.
