It seems like Microsoft is blindly racing towards one other Home windows 8 scenario. Home windows 8 was arguably essentially the most divisive launch of Home windows in its 40-year historical past, as Microsoft tried to overtake the working system for a touch-first future. Spooked by the iPad, the corporate shipped a radical overhaul that ditched the acquainted Begin menu and left customers pissed off and confused. They weren’t fairly prepared for the longer term that Microsoft envisioned.
As I take a look at Home windows 11 at this time, on the fortieth anniversary of the working system’s launch, its ongoing AI overhaul is beginning to really feel much like that controversial redesign.
Microsoft detailed its imaginative and prescient for Home windows to grow to be an “agentic OS” at its Ignite convention this week. The software program maker is constructing AI capabilities instantly into Home windows to permit brokers to regulate your PC for you, all whereas it continues to infuse AI options and Copilot buttons into all corners of the OS.
For some Home windows customers, it’s already all an excessive amount of.
Home windows chief Pavan Davuluri introduced the agentic OS plans in a post on X final week, and there was a direct backlash within the a whole lot of replies. “It’s evolving right into a product that’s driving folks to Mac and Linux,” stated one individual. “Cease this nonsense,” stated one other, and one reply even requested for a return to the Home windows 7 days of a “clear UI, clear icon, a unified management panel, no bloat apps, no advertisements, only a pure performant OS.”
There may have been a whole lot of extra feedback, however replies to Davuluri’s submit had been locked a few days later. He did eventually respond to a submit from well-known software program engineer Gergely Orosz, who criticized Home windows’ “bizarre route” and questioned Microsoft’s dedication to builders. “We care deeply about builders,” Davuluri stated in response. “We all know we now have work to do on the expertise, each on the on a regular basis usability, from inconsistent dialogs to energy person experiences. Once we meet as a crew, we focus on these ache factors and others intimately, as a result of we would like builders to decide on Home windows.”
The issue for Microsoft is that care and a focus to element feels missing in Home windows as of late. Microsoft has a problem of constructing an working system to suit the wants of greater than a billion customers, and it appears to be pissing off plenty of them proper now by specializing in AI as a substitute of enhancing the basics.
Every time I write about AI options in Home windows, it’s near-impossible to seek out feedback praising the brand new additions. I’ve tried Copilot Voice and Imaginative and prescient a number of occasions and more often than not I find yourself with outcomes like my colleague Antonio found this week. Copilot appears superb when its magic trick works, however when it fails time and time once more, you quickly lose belief in it.
Throughout my current break I requested Copilot Imaginative and prescient to assist me use a UV bottle sterilizer I had bought just lately. I didn’t have the guide close by, and the sterilizer has a complicated variety of buttons. Copilot Imaginative and prescient acknowledged it was a sterilizer, however missed the important thing half that it was a UV mannequin, so it requested me to fill it with water. If I had performed that and turned it on, I might have ended up with a kitchen stuffed with smoke and a damaged system.
You can forgive this poor recommendation if this was a beta function that was hidden away in Home windows and years away from broadly delivery, however it’s not. As an alternative, Microsoft is utilizing it as a key advertising software for its working system, using TV advertisements to encourage folks to speak to their PCs. It’s even paying influencers to advertise Copilot, and it needed to quietly delete an influencer video the place the AI assistant embarrassingly incorrectly identified Home windows settings.
Microsoft’s push to get folks to speak to a PC or let a pc management itself additionally takes away from why Home windows has existed for 40 years. App builders use it to construct new platforms, surgeons and docs depend on it in hospitals, and even ATMs use it to distribute money world wide. You solely want to take a look at the chaos from the CrowdStrike incident last year to see how a lot crucial infrastructure makes use of Home windows.
It’s this dependable software that Microsoft appears to need to reshape into one thing autonomous, more and more constructed for AI brokers as a substitute of people. In a current Dwarkesh Podcast interview, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella admitted that the corporate’s complete enterprise is shifting on this route. “Our enterprise, which at this time is an finish person instruments enterprise, will grow to be, primarily an infrastructure enterprise in help of brokers doing work,” Nadella stated.
He likened this to how servers turned virtualized, creating much more server availability for cloud infrastructure. Now there’s an elevated demand for cloud variations of Home windows 365, in order that brokers can use a pc to get human work performed. “We’re going to have an finish person computing infrastructure enterprise that I feel will continue to grow,” Nadella stated. “As a result of guess what? It’s going to develop sooner than the variety of customers.”
Whereas Nadella is trying method forward to a future the place these things truly works, if certainly it ever does, Davuluri is left attempting to form Home windows right into a pizza with a billion toppings that please everybody, with a facet of AI.
”We’re on a journey of evolving what Home windows is like for the longer term,” Davuluri stated in an interview with The Verge earlier this month. “These are new capabilities, very very like after we constructed the app ecosystem with Home windows again within the day.”
Microsoft doesn’t look like constructing a devoted AI working system and is targeted as a substitute on placing AI into all of the locations which are broadly utilized in Home windows. Davuluri needs to “have the brand new [AI] capabilities be out there to [Windows users] within the constructs that we now have at this time.”
The large problem right here for Microsoft is ensuring that individuals can flip this off in the event that they don’t need it. Recall, the Copilot Plus PC function that mechanically takes screenshots of your PC, already spooked Home windows customers when it was initially turned on by default. Microsoft needed to rework Recall and make it decide in, however it has left loads of folks cautious of what’s being constructed into Home windows 11.
“We have now so many individuals that use Home windows for therefore many various issues,” Navjot Virk, company vice chairman of Home windows experiences, stated in an interview with The Verge. “We’re making this accessible so each person can use [AI agents] after they’re prepared. It’s their alternative, they resolve.”
Alternative can be key, and you may argue “simply don’t use the AI options!” however Microsoft already makes it actually laborious to keep away from Edge and OneDrive in Home windows 11, so I don’t have a lot religion in anybody with the ability to keep away from Copilot. I may additionally swap to Linux as everybody claims they’re doing on X and Bluesky as of late, however I don’t need to be pressured to modify OS.
I simply need Microsoft to truly respect alternative in Home windows and hearken to what customers need. That’s all the time been a problem in Redmond, and infrequently why each different launch of the working system is disliked by so many. Home windows 11 hasn’t been fairly as unhealthy as Vista or Home windows 8, however with an agentic overhaul on the horizon, Microsoft may quickly discover itself needing to launch a cleaned-up Home windows 12 that makes issues proper once more.
- Nvidia has a repair for Home windows 11 efficiency points. In case you’ve skilled efficiency points in video games after putting in the most recent Home windows 11 October 2025 replace (KB5066835) then Nvidia now has a hotfix driver to handle the issues. It’s not clear what video games have been impacted by Microsoft’s newest replace, however you may seize the latest hotfix driver or wait till the subsequent non-beta launch.
- One other Home windows 10 function is coming to Home windows 11. Microsoft is lastly bringing again calendar appointments to the notification heart in Home windows 11. It was eliminated on the launch of Home windows 11 in 2021, after Microsoft reworked the taskbar. The brand new “Agenda view” can be available in preview builds of Windows 11 next month. Someday we’d even be capable of transfer the taskbar to the highest or facet of a display, similar to Home windows 10.
- Gemini 3 Professional is already out there in GitHub Copilot. Google introduced its Gemini 3 fashions this week, and Microsoft was fast to make them the Gemini 3 Professional model out there on GitHub Copilot. A mixture of fashions has been key to GitHub Copilot’s success, and Google’s newest mannequin is doing properly in benchmarks. I’m listening to we’ll seemingly get OpenAI’s response within the type of GPT-5.2 in December.
- Microsoft declares a next-gen Cobalt CPU. Microsoft is previewing its Azure Cobalt 200 CPU at its Ignite convention this week. It’s the subsequent technology of the cloud chip that was first introduced two years in the past, and Microsoft says it should have as much as 50 p.c greater efficiency than Cobalt 100. Constructed on TSMC’s 3nm course of node, it should additionally cut back vitality consumption for cloud apps on Azure.
- Microsoft’s Workplace apps are getting much more free AI options. You beforehand needed to pay an additional $30 per person, per 30 days for AI options inside Workplace, however Microsoft has been more and more bringing increasingly more AI performance to the bottom Microsoft 365 subscription. Agent Mode, which initially launched to paid Microsoft 365 Copilot subscribers in September, is coming to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for all Microsoft 365 subscribers subsequent yr. Copilot Chat inside Outlook can also be being improved to make it extra helpful throughout your complete inbox. Microsoft can also be reducing the entry worth for its full Microsoft 365 Copilot options for small companies. Microsoft 365 Copilot Enterprise launches subsequent month, priced at $21 per 30 days as a substitute of $30 for companies with fewer than 300 customers.
- Microsoft Agent 365 lets companies handle AI brokers like they do folks. Agent 365 is considered one of Microsoft’s greater bulletins at Ignite this week. It’s designed to assist companies deploy and arrange AI brokers securely, to make sure these new AI coworkers don’t do something sudden. Agent 365 is effectively a framework that has dashboards to indicate how AI brokers are working, with telemetry and alerts. It permits companies to register AI brokers with Microsoft Entra registry, restrict what they’ve entry to, guarantee they will combine with Microsoft 365 apps, and defend in opposition to exterior and inside safety threats. This whole framework ought to enable AI brokers to indicate up inside companies similar to a human coworker would, inside world handle lists and extra.
- Home windows is getting hardware-accelerated BitLocker. The subsequent iteration of BitLocker, Microsoft’s encryption function in Home windows, would require next-generation Home windows gadgets which are constructed on unannounced chips. “{Hardware} acceleration of BitLock requires the aptitude within the silicon platform,” says Windows chief Pavan Davuluri. “As and when these capabilities can be found, the OS will be capable of unlock them for customers.” These gadgets are launching in some unspecified time in the future in 2026, and I believe we’d hear extra about them at CES in January.
- Microsoft is including Sysmon into Home windows. Sysmon was first launched in 2014 as a utility for safety evaluation into the Home windows Occasion Log. Constructed by Microsoft technical fellow Mark Russinovich with help from Thomas Garnier, Sysmon is now making its way directly into Windows 11 in early 2026. It’s an important addition to the bottom working system, as it should make it simpler for safety groups and IT admins to detect and reply to threats.
- Microsoft’s new Anthropic partnership brings Claude AI fashions to Azure. Microsoft introduced a strategic partnership with Anthropic this week that brings the AI startup’s fashions to Microsoft Foundry for the primary time. As a part of the deal, Anthropic can also be committing to buying $30 billion of Azure compute capability and “to contract extra compute capability as much as one gigawatt.” Microsoft Foundry clients can now entry Anthropic’s frontier Claude fashions together with Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Opus 4.1, and Claude Haiku 4.5. As a part of these partnerships, Nvidia is investing as much as $10 billion in Anthropic, with Microsoft additionally investing $5 billion. I see this deal as extra of a hedge in opposition to OpenAI, notably as a result of Microsoft has been impressed with a few of the Claude AI fashions and is prioritizing them over related options from OpenAI in Workplace and GitHub Copilot.
- Speaking to Home windows’ Copilot AI makes a pc really feel incompetent. My colleague Antonio Di Benedetto has been testing Copilot Imaginative and prescient and Voice, and the results aren’t great. Microsoft has been promoting a bunch of various Copilot options in its TV advertisements, however once you truly attempt to re-create them, it goes horribly improper. I’m shocked Microsoft is utilizing its Home windows promoting price range on Copilot Imaginative and prescient and Voice after they’re each removed from being the slick “fluent dialog” that Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman claims Copilot is. He’s mindblown by critics of Copilot, however I’m mindblown that Microsoft executives can’t perceive that it simply doesn’t work correctly plenty of the time.
- Home windows on Arm is now prepared for gaming because of some massive modifications. It’s been some time since I examined PC video games on Qualcomm chips, however it seems to be like issues are lastly beginning to enhance. Qualcomm has released a Snapdragon Control Panel this week that mechanically detects and optimizes video games in an identical approach to Nvidia’s app. It additionally improves anti-cheat compatibility in video games like Fortnite. Coupled with AVX and AVX 2 help in Microsoft’s Prism emulator, it seems to be like issues are on the right track simply in time for brand new Snapdragon X2 chips.
- Microsoft expects extra video games to require Safe Boot, TPM, and VBS. Battlefield 6 and Name of Responsibility: Black Ops 7 are two of the most important video games to require each Safe Boot and TPM on Home windows machines. It’s a part of an anti-cheat effort in multiplayer video games, and Microsoft now expects “extra titles requiring options like TPM, Safe Boot, and superior protections resembling VBS.” Virtualization-based Safety has been enabled by default in Home windows 11 and it does embody a efficiency hit on a wide range of CPUs. I’d anticipate this trio of applied sciences will assist additional safe Home windows for anti-cheat, however it received’t cease builders from needing entry to the Home windows kernel anytime quickly.
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