In a Windows Insider blog post, Microsoft announced an AI upgrade to Windows Search to make finding photos, documents, and settings easier. However, the enhanced feature is restricted to Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon processors; AMD and Intel support is coming soon.
The update has all the same fixes and improvements from build 26100.3613; nonetheless, some of the best Copilot+ PCs will be left out simply because they use AMD or Intel processors. Microsoft will release the update gradually, and you can also take advantage of both semantic and lexical indexing to search for your photos and documents more efficiently. Because of this improvement, you don’t have to remember the exact file name you’re looking for, which is a huge time-saver.
With this improvement, Windows Search and the NPUs that deliver 40 TOPS, Copilot+ PCs, offer a smarter and faster search experience. Microsoft explains how the upgraded search works: “You can use your own words in the search box at the top right corner of File Explorer, like ‘summer picnics’”. In addition to photos stored locally on your Copilot+ PC, photos from the cloud will now show up in the search results together. Exact matches for your keywords within the text of your cloud files will also show in the search results.” You can try this on your personal OneDrive right now and test it out.
Beyond search, Microsoft is also busy testing a new aspect inside the Settings of a Windows 11 preview build that lets you add more functions to specific apps using the Settings menu. While there is no official release date for AMD and Intel PCs yet, hopefully, it won’t be far off.
