Microsoft has been upping Window’s AI ante of late. Its latest salvo is a new raft of autonomous features powered by an AI agent, which are due to roll out “over the next month” (via Bleeping Computer). Kiss goodbye to those ancient submenus that date back to Windows NT? Maybe, but somehow we suspect not.
Up front and center is a new AI agent to help you out with Windows settings. As Microsoft says, “what if you could simply describe the change you want, in your own words, and get a fix instead?” Well, now you can, or at least Microsoft claims you’ll be able to when the new agent rolls out via the Microsoft Insider program.
“An agent uses on-device AI to understand your intent and with your permission, automate and execute tasks. With this update to Settings, you will be able to simply describe what you need help with like, ‘how to control my PC by voice’ or ‘my mouse pointer is too small’ and the agent will recommend the right steps you can take to address the issue.
“With your permission and at your initiation, it can even complete the actions to change your settings on your behalf,” Microsoft explains.
Intriguingly, the update is coming to Snapdragon X-powered PCs first. Microsoft won’t say when x86 PCs will get the update, only indicating that it’s “coming soon.”
Without experiencing the new feature, it’s hard to say how powerful it is. Does it mean an end to drilling down into ancient submenus with graphical interfaces from the late ’90s to access more obscure settings? Possibly. More likely, the agent will cover off more commonly used settings in the main settings menu that’s one click away on the desktop.
Anywho, along with the settings agent, there’s a new “Click to Do” feature which offers functionality including, “copying text from an image, to summarizing text, or even quickly removing objects or the background from an image, Click to Do cuts through context-switching, bringing actions directly into your workflow. More actions are starting to roll out in Click to Do, including the option to create a bulleted list from selected text.”
The Photos app gets an AI makeover, too, with the “relight” feature adding dynamic lighting controls to picture editing. You can position up to three virtual light sources within an image, set their color and move a focus point that all lights automatically follow.
For quick edits, there are built-in presets offer ready-made lighting styles that can be applied with a single click. Again, relight will be available first on Snapdragon X-powered PCs with, support for AMD- and Intel-powered devices coming later this year.
There’s also a new AI-powered cartoon sticker generator and object selection in Paint, plus an AI-enhanced Snipping Tool. The latter supposedly understands your intent when using the tool, meaning you can get precise grabs of on-screen elements without having to crop in accurately by hand. It also nows supports automatic text extraction and the ability to capture color values from anywhere on screen.
Microsoft is rolling out a number of other AI features in the update, which you can read about in full here and then ponder just how rogue your PC might go if you’re not awfully careful with the commands you issue, and indeed even if you are…
