Microsoft Launches Windows Recall On Copilot+ PCs While OpenAI Takes The Lead

Artificial intelligence (AI) is actively reshaping our jobs and the fabric of our digital interactions. Despite the missteps and mistakes, some of the leading tech businesses are driving this innovative revolution.

The sheer number of announcements demonstrates the ambitious vision for an AI-powered future. Microsoft, in particular, has taken a bold step forward in this direction–from the unveiling of its 2025 Annual Work Trend Index to the public rollout of its much-discussed Windows Recall feature, the giant is making major strides in its AI journey.

So, let’s explore these AI advancements and their potential impact on the future of work and digital lifestyles. Read on!  

Microsoft’s 2025 Annual Work Trend Index

Microsoft published its 2025 Annual Work Trend Index, introducing the concept of the "Frontier Firm," where the deep integration of human ingenuity and AI will fundamentally reshape business operations.

It has positioned Microsoft 365 Copilot as the central hub for this evolution, with the Wave 2 Spring release enhancing human-agent collaboration through a growing ecosystem of AI agents on its new Agent Store.

Through the Frontier program and the newly introduced Agent Store, users will gain access to sophisticated "Researcher" and "Analyst" agents, powered by OpenAI's advanced models for in-depth data processing. This ecosystem promises to include a diverse range of AI agents, including custom-developed agents from partners Jira, Monday.com, and Miro.

Creativity and productivity are set to get a significant boost with the integration of OpenAI's GPT-4o image generator directly into the workflow, with the "Create" feature enabling easy modification of brand images and AI-generated visuals aligned with company guidelines.


Moreover, its "Copilot Notebooks" can transform how you interact with business data by integrating agents into specific chats, documents, and meeting recordings to provide tailored insights. With continuous scanning and real-time updates, the insights can be accessed through the audio overview option, with two AI hosts summarizing key facts.

Next, its AI-powered "Copilot Search" solution helps immediately search across the organization's apps and data sources, integrating with platforms such as ServiceNow, Google Drive, Slack, Confluence, and Jira. The "Copilot Control System" enables IT professionals to control access to the AI agent for responsible deployment.

The seamless integration of intelligent agents will distinguish future "Frontier Firms" from the rest. However, interestingly, this vision for AI-powered collaboration coincides with the public release of Windows Recall, a feature that ignited considerable debates around user privacy.  

Controversial “Windows Recall Feature” Is Now Available To The Public

In a move that has been nearly a year in the making, often fraught with controversy, Microsoft is finally rolling out its Windows Recall feature to the public. This feature, initially announced a year ago, is exclusively available on Copilot+ PCs, a subset of Windows 11 systems launched in the recent past.

The Recall feature continuously captures screenshots of virtually everything users do on Copilot+ PCs, saving these images, extracting text, and storing them all in a searchable database.

Aiming to make AI-powered features more effective, Recall has major implications for security and data privacy are significant. Unfettered access to the Recall database could potentially expose a user's entire digital life. This concern led to a wave of criticism following the initial announcement, prompting Microsoft to significantly overhaul the feature.

The journey to this public release has been marked by a premature unveiling, with intense scrutiny of its initially weak security measures. After multiple postponements, a substantial redesign, and a five-month testing period within Microsoft's Windows Insider beta program, the feature is being rolled out to the public.  

Recall is now an opt-in feature, giving users control over activation, and it can be fully removed. Alongside Recall, Copilot+ PCs will also see enhancements to the Windows Search function. The new version is designed to understand the contextual meaning of words and phrases, enabling more natural and intuitive searches within the Taskbar, File Explorer, and the Settings app.

Another notable addition is "Click to Do," a feature that allows you to copy text from images, search on-screen content, and quickly summarize or rewrite text by pressing the Windows key and clicking. Currently, some "Click to Do" functionalities are exclusive to ARM-based systems.

While Copilot+ PCs have stricter hardware requirements than standard Windows 11, including a neural processing unit (NPU) handling over 40 trillion operations per second, it is key in enabling faster on-device AI processing that doesn’t need to tap into Microsoft’s servers.

Currently, only Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite, Intel’s Core Ultra 200V-series, and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series meet these requirements. Copilot+ features, such as Recall, are rolling out first on Qualcomm ARM-based PCs, with Intel and AMD systems following later.

While Windows Recall offers convenience by quickly letting users retrieve past activities, it raises concerns about data privacy. To make matters worse, the cautious Recall rollout comes as the adoption of Microsoft's flagship AI assistant faces significant challenges. 

Microsoft Copilot Trails Far Behind ChatGPT with 20 Million Weekly Users

Despite Microsoft's significant investment and fervent promotion of Copilot as the future of user interaction—even envisioning it as "the next Start button"—recent reports suggest that its adoption rate has been less than stellar.

According to a report by Newcomer, Microsoft Copilot has reached a milestone of approximately 20 million weekly users. This figure is alarming when compared to the rapid expansion of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which has approximately 400 million weekly users today.

At Microsoft's annual executive huddle, internal data revealed flat user growth for Copilot, a stark contrast to ChatGPT's rapid rise. With 1.5 billion Windows users globally, only 1% actively use Copilot, a default app within the Windows ecosystem.

This low adoption raises concerns for Microsoft, given its significant investments in AI. Copilot's slow adoption may stem from user resistance to aggressive integrations, such as the dedicated Copilot key, and now the addition of the controversial Recall feature.

Microsoft's challenge lies in convincing users of AI tools' practical value and seamless workflow integration. The next few years will be crucial in evaluating whether Microsoft's "Frontier Firm" vision and Copilot AI assistant will be widely adopted as the company commits itself to bettering AI experiences.

Do you think Microsoft’s AI-driven vision will be successful in reshaping the future of work? Can Copilot reach the same level of adoption as ChatGPT and other AI assistants?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!