Microsoft is adding a new Copilot key to PC keyboards for the first time

Copilot key

The first update to the Windows PC keyboard in almost 30 years, the Copilot key will be available on laptops and desktop keyboards from Microsoft’s OEM partners beginning in February. Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards, though not yet. Microsoft (MSFT) is doubling down on its commitment to AI with the introduction of a new keyboard key dedicated specifically to the company’s Windows Copilot.

Microsoft pushed throughout 2023 to add generative AI capabilities to its software, even extending its new Copilot AI assistant to Windows 10 late last year. Now, those efforts to transform PCs at a software level are extending to the hardware: Microsoft is adding a dedicated Copilot key to PC keyboards, adjusting the standard Windows keyboard layout for the first time since the Windows key first appeared on its Natural Keyboard in 1994.

The copilot key will eventually be required

According to Microsoft corporate vice president and consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi, pressing the key will bring up Copilot, allowing you to search for content on the web as well as for your own content and for general PC features via the app’s generative AI functionality. The idea is for Copilot Key to function as a kind of smart assistant that you can pull up at any time.

The Copilot key will, predictably, open up the Copilot generative AI assistant within Windows 10 and Windows 11. On an up-to-date Windows PC with Copilot enabled, you can currently do the same thing by pressing Windows + C. For PCs without Copilot enabled, including those that aren’t signed into Microsoft accounts, the Copilot key will open Windows Search instead.

While Microsoft didn’t announce any specific partners that will launch with the Copilot key, it said that companies should begin unveiling desktops and laptops equipped with the feature in the coming days. We’ll also get an up-close look at the capability at CES 2024, which kicks off Jan. 9.

By getting its hardware partners to add a Copilot key to their laptops and desktops, Microsoft is showing that it believes generative AI is inextricable from the future of personal computing. The last time Microsoft added a new keyboard key was when it debuted the Windows key in 1994.

A quick Microsoft demo video shows the Copilot key in between the cluster of arrow keys and the right Alt button, a place where many keyboards usually put a menu button, a right Ctrl key, another Windows key, or something similar. The exact positioning and the key being replaced may vary depending on the size and layout of the keyboard.

We asked Microsoft if a Copilot key would be required on OEM PCs going forward; the company told us that the key isn’t mandatory now but that it expects Copilot keys to be required on Windows 11 keyboards “over time.” Microsoft often imposes some additional hardware requirements on major PC makers that sell Windows on their devices beyond what is strictly necessary to run Windows itself.

Microsoft spent much of 2023 making a series of AI announcements ranging from the debut of its Bing chatbot and Edge browser to its Copilot for Microsoft 365. CEO Satya Nadella has said that advancements in AI will impact nearly every part of the company’s business.

If nothing else, this new key is a sign of how much Microsoft wants people to use Copilot and its other generative AI products. Plenty of past company initiatives—Bing, Edge, Cortana, and the Microsoft Store, to name a few—never managed to become baked into the hardware like this. In the Windows 8 epoch, Microsoft required OEMs to build a Windows button into the display bezel of devices with touchscreens, but that requirement eventually disappeared. If Copilot fizzles or is deemphasized the way Cortana was, the Copilot key could become a way to quickly date a Windows PC from the mid-2020s, the way that changes to the Windows logo date keyboards from earlier eras.

We’ll definitely see more AI features from Microsoft this year, too—Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Yusuf Medhi called 2024 “the year of the AI PC” in today’s announcement.

Chipmakers like Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm are all building neural processing units (NPUs) into their latest silicon, and we’ll likely see more updates for Windows apps and features that can take advantage of this new on-device processing capability. Rumors also indicate that we could see a “Windows 12” release as soon as this year; while Windows 11 has mostly had AI features stacked on top of it, a new OS could launch with AI features more deeply integrated into the UI and apps, as well as additional hardware requirements for some features.

Microsoft says the Copilot key will debut in some PCs that will be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show this month. Surface devices with the revised keyboard layout are “upcoming.”

Semiconductor giants are also getting in on the AI movement. AMD (AMD), Intel (INTC), and Qualcomm (QCOM) have each debuted their own AI PC chips with dedicated neural processors designed to handle AI-specific tasks such as running generative AI applications.

How much consumers will benefit from those chips, though, is still up in the air. Even Intel doesn’t know exactly what kinds of apps developers will eventually cook up that rely on or take advantage of neural processors.

Read also: Generate Instagram Posts Using AI-Generated Content: Revolutionize Your Social Media

The AI PC movement comes at a time when the PC market is expected to return to growth for the first time since 2021, according to Goldman Sachs Equity Research analyst Michael Ng.

“In our view, global PC shipments in 2024 will be driven by the beginning of a refresh cycle as pandemic-purchased devices start to reach four years of age and new AI-capable PCs come to market (later in 2024) in what we view as the first technological shift in personal computing since the widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets,” Ng wrote in a note on Tuesday.

The expected resurgence in PC sales follows years of declines after an explosion of growth at the onset of the pandemic. At that time, consumers and businesses, eager to get their hands on PCs to work and play, purchased new laptops and desktops in droves.

As those systems age, however, consumers will begin buying up newer PCs, which will help drive AI PC adoption. And that will inevitably help Microsoft, as well as Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm’s bottom lines.