Microsoft unveils AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature to transform Windows 11 searchability while confirming hardware requirements
Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Build, has only just kicked off, but we’ve already learned a lot of exciting things, including the company showing off a new AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature to be integrated into Copilot+ PCs running Windows 11.
Copilot+ is a new software platform launched yesterday that aims to power Windows 11 with new AI features, introducing a range of new devices with more advanced AI functionality.
You’ve no doubt heard of AI PCs, but the new breed of wearable computers, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips with an integrated Neural Processing Unit (NPU), was officially introduced yesterday. Windows 11 Recall will be exclusive to PCs with Snapdragon (It needs an NPU capable of 40 TOPS, or trillions of operations per second).
This isn’t the only hardware requirement the Recall feature needs, with the full specification requirements being as follows:
- Snapdragon X Elite or X Plus processor
- NPU suitable for 40 TOPs
- 225GB storage
- 16GB RAM
While these new Qualcomm chips are currently the only mobile silicon capable of powering the Recall feature (and other AI capabilities in Copilot+ PCs), future generations of Intel and AMD processors will be on board (Intel’s Lunar Lake, for example, or AMD’s Strix Point chips).
Windows Latest Comments that the above hardware requirements are necessary not only to ensure a quality experience – with enough performance to generate snappy responses with these AI features like Recall – but also for data security reasons.
How does Recall work?
In the past we’ve seen reports of a rumored feature, often called ‘AI Explorer’, that allows you to search your past activities on your PC. It looks like this has manifested itself as the Recall feature, and it will be aware of all activity on your PC, including what apps you use, how you use those apps, and what you do in them (e.g. conversations in WhatsApp ) . Recall will record all these activities in the future and save snapshots of them to your PC’s local storage.
Additionally, the Settings app has a dedicated section with update history for Recall and a toggle for new privacy and security settings. You can update Recall for Windows 11 and other AI features in addition to using the Windows Update app.
If you’re reluctant to give Recall access to everything, and are concerned about control over what it records and stores, Windows Latest reports that you can manually delete snapshots from Recall storage and set Recall to exclude certain apps and websites of his recording activities. In your device’s settings, you can also adjust the time periods during which Recall saves snapshots, or even pause Recall altogether by clicking the icon in your taskbar.
In practice, Recall is designed to help you go back in time and find elements of your past activities. For example, if you previously had a conversation with a colleague about a certain topic but can’t remember the details, you can ask Recall to start looking for it in Windows 11. Recall then combs through your previous conversations with the colleague. , search across all your apps, open tabs in apps, and more.
Recall can also help you find files you’ve lost, search your browser history, and so on. You can get Recall’s help using natural language, the way we talk to each other in real life, instead of having to use precise commands.
All this runs natively on your PC and you don’t have to use the cloud for computing power. This means your data is more secure as everything can be kept locally and nothing is sent to an external data center. It all happens right there on your Copilot+ PC using that powerful NPU.
When can you try Recall yourself?
The buzz and excitement of Recall is just one of many things already revealed during Microsoft Build 2024, but you’ll have to wait until the Windows 11 24H2 update to try out the feature (and remember, you’ll need a PC that meets hardware requirements). The 24H2 update is expected to arrive in September or October or thereabouts.
If Recall and other AI features deliver on everything promised (or even most of it), we think a lot of people will be impressed and this could convince them to adapt to the new way of computing that Microsoft tries to usher in.
At the moment, Copilot isn’t considered particularly impressive, but in some ways that’s because the hardware needed to facilitate Microsoft’s plans for its AI assistant hasn’t been available until now. We’re excited to get our hands on all these new AI features, as we’re one of those people who flood our PC with media – and we imagine that Recall could be very useful for us indeed.