Microsoft Reinvigorates Windows with Recall and Snapdragon
I've long been skeptical about AI – not its potential, but whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI, etc. are reliable or transformative enough today to drive new platform usage or behavior for average consumers and knowledge workers. That just changed. Microsoft launched Copilot+ PC, a new Windows platform initially built on Qualcomm Snapdragon that integrates AI into the OS in a way that is truly remarkable: Recall runs in the background and then lets you search and find anything you have ever done or seen on that PC. That chat you were having with someone on Discord? That sneaker you saw while browsing Instagram? The attachment you need to put into the presentation you're working on? Scroll through the Recall timeline or ask Copilot to search for it, and it's there. Recall is less an AI feature and more an extension of your memory. It is the first time I have seen an AI feature that is broadly applicable to personal and work use cases, intuitive to use, and compelling enough to drive purchase and upgrade decisions. Unlike some of the other AI tools that confidently give you the wrong answer, Recall is always “right,” because the interface surfaces a selection of possible matches and you choose the one that matches what you were looking for. Or, if you know when you saw or did the thing you’d like to Recall, you can just scrub through the timeline until you find it. By hiding ambiguity in plain sight, Recall’s interface designers created an experience that feels magical.
Copilot+ PCs can also manage all the other AI use cases the industry has been heavily touting, like live translation, assistants that walk you through tasks (or video games!), advanced effects in video conferences, meeting and document summaries, background video removal, and generating pictures of cats wearing festive hats.
To run Recall and the rest, you'll need new silicon designed for AI – an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) with at least 40 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) – so that app performance and system battery life are not impacted. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite is not just the first platform with an NPU that does 45 TOPS, it also offers performance-per-watt matching or exceeding Apple’s M3 – the first time PC OEMs have had a competitive response since Apple left Intel. Qualcomm and Microsoft have lined up basically every PC manufacturer with one or two models each (or five, if you're Dell). These start well-equipped at $999, and Microsoft repeatedly highlighted that these CoPilot+ PCs outperform more expensive Apple MacBook Air M3 both on performance and battery life.
Apple will have its say when it launches M4 laptops (and the MacBook Pro with Pro and Max versions of Apple silicon is even more capable today), but the MacBook Air is the best-selling laptop in the world, and Microsoft has badly needed a competitive alternative. Intel and AMD will also have chipsets later this year with NPUs capable of driving Copilot+ features, which ensure that Microsoft can sell Copilot+ PCs in the tens of millions without supply constraints. However, I question whether x86 architecture will be able to catch up to Qualcomm’s custom Oryon Arm-based CPUs, which allow high performance, unplugged, with extremely long battery life. Qualcomm is not standing still, either. I talked with Qualcomm VP of Engineering Gerard Williams, who designed Snapdragon X (and Apple Silicon when he was at Apple) and he noted that even with its performance, the first version was at least somewhat conservative to reduce delivery risk. Further iterations are in the pipeline.
Pros:
Momentum for AI use cases has been building, but Recall may be the first AI-driven service to push past early adopters to mainstream consumers and knowledge workers.
Copilot+ PC is not a better-battery-life branch of Windows, it’s the halo version of Windows with the most capabilities AND the best battery life. Microsoft will be putting significant marketing resources behind it.
We will have more data soon, but OEMs I talked to assured me that the Snapdragon X family’s performance-per-watt numbers are real. Apple will undoubtedly leapfrog the Snapdragon X when the iPad Pro’s M4 starts shipping in Macs, but Intel and AMD have farther to go to close the gap – if they can. OEMs who want to compete with the MacBook are realizing that they need to get behind Qualcomm, and essentially every major PC OEM is doing so: Lenovo, HP, Dell, ASUS, Acer, Microsoft, and Samsung. Lenovo, Dell, and HP are offering Copilot+ PCs for both their consumer and enterprise brands and channels.
Windows on Arm is viable now. Past Snapdragon-based laptops had good battery life, but performance was slow, and app incompatibility was common. When Windows-on-Arm first launched in 2017, Microsoft hadn’t even ported most of its own apps to Arm, and x86 apps that could run in emulation — and only some could — were slow and devoured system resources. However, time, hard work, and Moore’s Law mean that it’s different this time around. Microsoft has improved emulation so much that even many system utilities run without issue, all of Microsoft’s major apps are native. Microsoft has gotten broad support from ISVs: the most used Windows apps are native now or are coming soon. For example, Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Express are native today, – available today. Illustrator, Premiere Pro and more are coming this summer.. Performance on non-gaming emulated apps should be impressive.
The performance and efficiency of the platform open up new potential form factors beyond chunky performance laptops and slow thin-and-light clamshells. (This is also a con – see below.)
Qualcomm makes it easy to build a fully connected, cellular laptop.
This is version 1.0 of Qualcomm’s Oryon CPU design and version 1.0 of the Snapdragon X platform. This is just the beginning for Qualcomm: this platform has headroom for the future.
Cons:
Recall is so powerful that it will draw customers to the platform. However, Microsoft does not have a footprint in the most common computing platform, phones. Once you use Recall you’re going to want to have it across your entire digital landscape. That leaves a huge open opportunity for Apple to launch its version of Recall across the phone, tablet, laptop, and headset.
For security and privacy reasons, Recall is encrypted and locked to your device. That means it cannot be transferred to a new machine or work across multiple laptops. You can only Recall what you saw or did on that specific machine.
Recall also consumes prodigious storage, between 25GB to 150GB, or approximately multiple weeks to a bit over a year, depending on how frequently you use the machine.
Every major OEM is building Copilot+ PCs, but none of them are all-in on Snapdragon X. Most OEMs are building two models, with Dell out in front with five. If these models sell well, the next generation will undoubtedly get larger design commitments, but for now the pull of Intel’s marketing program – and proven customer demand — remains strong.
Every single Snapdragon X Elite system announced is a traditional thin-and-light laptop, with the exception of Microsoft’s 2-in-1 Surface Pro. The thermal and performance characteristics of the Snapdragon X family would be an ideal foundation for foldables, book-style or pen-centric designs, or whatever hybrid Lenovo’s ThinkBook designers are planning next. Perhaps we’ll see more experimentation after the initial rollouts, but nobody is using the Snapdragon X Elite to try something new, or make some of the underpowered dual-screen or folding screen laptops that are on the market more usable.
Nearly all the models are Wi-Fi only. Wi-Fi 7, to be sure, but why aren’t we seeing more always connected laptops? Especially when competing with the MacBook, integrated 5G could be a key differentiator for security and convenience. Lenovo’s Copilot+ ThinkPad will have sub-6 5G, and Microsoft will have a 5G Surface Pro variant this fall, but that’s it.
Windows on Arm works natively for many productivity apps, but there are unknown numbers of vertical and corporate apps that are not native today and never will be. Most will run fine – and well – in emulation, but there are bound to be edge cases that do not.
These are not gaming PCs. Qualcomm has run tests that show Snapdragon X Elite will run 1,000 games at 720p/30fps in emulation, and that should suffice for casual gamers, but that is not acceptable for anyone who is buying a laptop specifically for gaming. As the platform grows – and Microsoft applies pressure to its own studios and others – more native Arm versions of major titles will be released as a matter of course. However, Intel’s investment in its integrated Arc GPU and AMD’s long history in GPUs allow those systems to do dual-duty, while gaming laptops use even more powerful, dedicated GPUs from nvidia. This will keep serious gaming a Windows x86 affair in the short and medium term.
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