Microsoft quietly drops the Copilot+ PC branding on its new Surface devices

[FairDos]

Remember when Microsoft told us that Copilot+ PCs were a whole new category of Windows machine built for AI? Two years on, the new Surface Pro and Surface laptops revealed at the Qualcomm Summit do not carry the Copilot+ name at all. Surface boss Brett Ostrum told Windows Central that these are not called Copilot+ PCs, even though they meet every requirement of the old standard. It has not been formally announced, but the branding looks to be on its way out

For anyone who missed the original push, the label meant a laptop with an NPU capable of at least 40 TOPS for local AI models, plus the dedicated Copilot key. Features like Recall and Cocreator were tied to it. Recall in particular had a rough start after privacy and security concerns forced Microsoft to delay and rework it. That gave the whole category some baggage from day one

Part of the reason is simply that NPUs are now everywhere. Most mid range and premium laptops already have one, so a special badge no longer tells buyers anything useful. Other manufacturers have also been dropping the label, and Nvidia's recent RTX Spark push has not mentioned it either. When everything qualifies, the sticker loses its point

Microsoft is not backing off AI though. Ostrum still talks about AI on the edge and a hybrid approach mixing local and cloud processing. Copilot itself runs on any Windows machine anyway, which always made the naming confusing for regular buyers. There is a Surface and Windows event on October 7, so we may hear more then

My take is that the brand was a marketing exercise that never landed with normal people. Most buyers I know could not tell you what an NPU is or why they needed 40 TOPS. The bigger question is whether the Copilot key survives on keyboards. Did anyone here buy a laptop specifically because it said Copilot+ on the box?

Microsoft stops insisting you need a "Copilot+ PC"arstechnica.com