The Copilot Plus PC brand, which Microsoft introduced with great enthusiasm in 2024, describing it as the future of personal computers with built-in artificial intelligence, appears to be heading towards its end. Just two and a half years after its launch, Microsoft and Qualcomm seem to admit that the brand is already “dead”, leaving behind questions about the future of the AI strategy in Windows.
According to an exclusive report by Zac Bowden of Windows Central, the new Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch and Surface Laptop 13-inch technically meet the requirements to be called Copilot Plus PCs, but Microsoft is choosing not to call them that. Brett Ostrom, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Surface, was clear: “These are not called Copilot Plus PCs.” The statement is essentially an official tombstone for a brand that was supposed to change the way we think about personal computers.
See also: Copilot Cowork: New AI Feature in Microsoft 365
Qualcomm , which was one of Microsoft's key partners in driving the Copilot Plus PC ecosystem through Snapdragon X processors , seems to agree with this direction. Kedar Kondap , Qualcomm's senior vice president of Compute & Gaming, told Bowden that PCs that offer the same experiences "probably" will no longer use this branding. The word "probably" sounds like a diplomatic phrasing for something that's already been decided.
Why the Copilot Plus PC brand failed to take hold
The failure of the Copilot Plus PC brand to establish itself in the consumer consciousness was not surprising to market analysts. As early as 2024, experts had pointed out that almost every new computer would soon incorporate the basic levels of AI hardware that the brand was supposed to represent. In other words, the Copilot Plus PC was a brand that had an expiration date from the moment it was born, as the technology that differentiated it was going to become mainstream very quickly.
The central feature that Microsoft had chosen as the flagship feature for the Copilot Plus PCs was Recall, a function that supposedly “remembered” everything the user did on their computer, allowing for natural language search of activity history. However, Recall was not received with enthusiasm — on the contrary, it raised strong concerns about privacy and data security, with cybersecurity researchers pointing out serious issues. Microsoft was forced to repeatedly postpone its release and redesign significant parts of it.
See also: Surface Pro 12-inch & Laptop 13-inch: Refreshed with Snapdragon X2 Plus
At the same time, Microsoft has come under fire for the way it promoted AI features to Windows users. The constant pop-ups, notifications, and upsells associated with Copilot irritated a large portion of its user base, creating a negative image for the company’s entire AI strategy. Even the dedicated Copilot key on the keyboard — one of the most visible symbols of the Copilot Plus PC era — became the object of ridicule, with users persistently requesting the ability to reprogram it, which Microsoft eventually allowed.
The future after Copilot Plus PC: Nvidia and a new era of AI
The abandonment of the Copilot Plus PC brand doesn't mean Microsoft is pulling out of the AI space on PCs — on the contrary, it appears to be preparing a new, more ambitious strategy. The company's next big bet is to integrate Nvidia into its flagship hardware, which is expected to open a new era of "personal AI" on Windows.
On October 7 , Microsoft has scheduled a special event on “ how local AI will shape the next chapter of the PC .” The event is expected to unveil a new brand that will replace the Copilot Plus PC, likely focusing on the capabilities of Nvidia chips for local AI model processing. The partnership with Nvidia represents a significant strategic shift as Microsoft moves away from its exclusive reliance on Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon X chips for AI functions.
See also: Microsoft stops production of Surface Studio 2 Plus
The move is particularly significant in the context of the broader market. Nvidia has established itself as the undisputed leader in AI computing, and integrating its chips into consumer PCs could give Microsoft a real competitive advantage that the Copilot Plus PC brand never managed to offer.
It's worth noting that the failure of the Copilot Plus PC brand isn't just a marketing problem — it reflects a deeper challenge facing the tech industry as a whole: how to translate the impressive capabilities of artificial intelligence into truly useful, everyday applications that users will embrace with enthusiasm.
According to The Verge, this development was expected by many market analysts.
