Microsoft’s AI Copilot could transform Windows 11 – but not everyone can get it
Microsoft wants its new AI-powered Windows Copilot to be your new universal assistant, but there’s one big problem: Right now Copilot is only available in the United States (and North America), the United Kingdom, and some Asian and South -American countries. .
Noticeably missing from that list is Europe, and as Microsoft shared Windows Latest, this is due to the extensive privacy protection regulations of the European Union. The tech giant also confirmed that it is working on a version of Copilot that complies with EU law and plans to “add additional markets over time.”
Copilot is the latest major project in Microsoft’s AI vision, joining Bing Chat, which integrates the popular ChatGPT and its other major language models (LLMs). Copilot uses Bing Chat and Microsoft’s other AI-enabled technology, and is built to integrate deeply into Windows 11, along with Windows apps and features.
How can you get Windows Copilot?
If you’re in a region where Copilot is now live, you can get it by updating Windows 11 to the Moment 4 (22H2) feature update, an optional download that you should be able to see in the Windows Update app. You may need to use the “Get the latest updates as soon as they are available” institution. If you can’t see the Moment 4 update, it’s probably because you live in an area where Copilot isn’t available yet.
Not all hope is lost if you live in an area that doesn’t qualify. You can follow the steps below to obtain Copilot if you live in an unsupported region:
1. Open the door Notepad or a similar simple text editor. Create a new file and give it a name “Copilot.exe”.
2. Pin the new “Copilot.exe” file to your taskbar or create a shortcut to it on your desktop. Hover over it and right click your file. Don’t just drag the file from your Explorer; this only moves the file. It must be specifically a shortcut.
3. Choose Characteristics from the menu. This should open one (Shortcut) Properties window for the file.
4. In Properties of your “Copilot.exe” file, go to the Shortcut tab and change Goal to this address:
C:\Windows\explorer.exe “microsoft-edge:///?ux=copilot&tcp=1&source=taskbar”
5. When you click the shortcut you created for Copilot.exe, Windows Copilot should launch.
There even is a fix to change the base icon of the file to the Copilot icon.
How are things going with Copilot at the moment?
Currently, Copilot runs in a similar manner to Bing Chat on Windows 11 and functions in WebView (the framework within which apps can natively display content in Microsoft’s Edge browser). It’s still early days for Copilot as a full-fledged AI assistant, and many users are looking forward to seeing Copilot evolve, but the current version certainly has room for improvement. Many users report poor performance, and as Windows Latest puts it, “Achieving a ‘useful’ result is not easy.”
For example, Copilot struggles when users submit multiple prompts or when switching between Bing Search and other apps. The preview version of Copilot also doesn’t have the deeper Windows integration that Microsoft talked about at length, or the ability to access third-party apps and plug-ins, but Microsoft assured users that Copilot will function as promised in the future when they talk to Windows Latest.
Copilot has been pitched as “Your Everyday AI Companion” and I believe Microsoft has the resources to achieve this, but there is still a long way to go. I doubt Microsoft wants to retire another digital assistant so soon after deprecating Cortana, and the competition is fierce, with Amazon investing in Anthropic and having the market standard digital assistant Alexa.
Anthropic is an AI-oriented company, like OpenAI, which focuses on security and research, and recently saw a $4 billion investment from Amazon. Combined with Amazon’s expertise in personal home assistance with Alexa, Microsoft could have something going on.