Microsoft Copilot Updated With AI-Powered Voice and Vision Features; Recall Availability Expanded

Microsoft is rolling out new artificial intelligence (AI) features to Copilot, the company's native chatbot. The tech giant is now adding both voice and vision capabilities to the chatbot, after announcing them on Tuesday. Microsoft claims that the new Copilot features are aimed at offering an intuitive design along with “speedy and fluent answers”. The Copilot Voice feature is similar to Gemini Live and ChatGPT's Voice Mode. Meanwhile, the much-criticised Recall feature will finally be expanded to all Windows Insider users this month.

Microsoft Copilot Updated With AI-Powered Features

In a blog post, Microsoft has shared several details of the new AI features coming to Copilot. These features will be available on the Copilot app on iOS and Android, the web client, as well as the Copilot assistant on Windows. The latter will only be available on the Copilot+ PCs, which are currently powered by the Snapdragon X series chipsets.

Copilot Voice

With four voice options, users can now experience a hands-free voice conversation with Microsoft's chatbot. The company said it could be used for brainstorming, asking a quick query, or just to have a friendly conversation.

Notably, while the feature will offer a speech-to-speech experience, the company has not highlighted whether the output generation would be in real-time, or if it would support an emotive voice.

Copilot Vision

Copilot Vision is also being added. This is a new way to interact with the AI. Once enabled, the feature will be able to see what the user sees on the screen. The feature also supports voice mode, letting users ask verbal queries about the content. For instance, users can show the AI a picture of furniture and ask about its colour palette, material, and more.

Since this feature can be perceived as invasive to user privacy, Microsoft has also added several layers of security measures. The feature is opt-in and will not work till the user explicitly activates it.

Even after activating it, the feature currently only works with a limited number of websites. Further, the tech giant added that the data processed by the chatbot will not be collected or used to train the AI.

Windows Recall

Microsoft's Recall feature, which takes passive screenshots of a user's laptop or desktop and can keep track of the user's activity locally, is now rolling out to a wider user base. Microsoft highlighted in a blog post that the feature will be rolled out to Windows Insiders using Copilot+ PCs this month.

For now, it will only be available on the Snapdragon-powered PCs. In November, the tech giant will roll it out to the AMD-powered PCs as well.