Microsoft would really like 2024 to be the “yr of the AI PC,” and to place some extent on that, the corporate right now introduced a brand new key for Copilot — that’s, a bodily key that can quickly make its option to your keyboard and be a part of the Home windows key, along with its associates the Management key, Alt and that Insert key you’ve by no means purposely used. Based mostly on the picture Microsoft despatched over, it seems to be like the brand new Copilot key will substitute the precise Management key on the usual PC keyboard, the place it’s going to slot in between the Alt key and the left arrow key.
“The introduction of the Copilot key marks the primary important change to the Home windows PC keyboard in practically three many years,” Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi, govt vice chairman & client chief advertising and marketing officer, writes in right now’s announcement. “We consider it’s going to empower folks to take part within the AI transformation extra simply. The Copilot key joins the Home windows key as a core a part of the PC keyboard and when pressed, the brand new key will invoke the Copilot in Home windows expertise to make it seamless to have interaction Copilot in your daily.”
In areas the place Copilot will not be out there, the Copilot key will launch Home windows Search. The primary keyboards with the brand new key will launch at this yr’s CES in Las Vegas and can possible begin transport in late February.
In the event you wanted any extra proof that Microsoft is all in on the AI hype prepare, the truth that it now, for the primary time for the reason that Home windows emblem key appeared on a Microsoft Pure Keyboard in 1994, is including a brand new button is all you have to know.
Microsoft, along with its chip companions like AMD and Intel, hopes that quite a lot of the AI inferencing will quickly be offloaded onto native silicon, which can then “unlock new AI experiences on the Home windows PC.” By no means given to hyperbole, Microsoft notes that it sees “this as one other transformative second in our journey with Home windows the place Copilot would be the entry level into the world of AI on the PC.”
Fortunately, your previous keyboards will proceed to perform identical to earlier than — and in case your keyboard permits, you might even be capable of remap your proper Management key to perform just like the Copilot key. Or you may ignore the entire thing, in fact.