For years, Windows users have complained about "ads" touting Microsoft services, showing up in various places. Now the alarm bells should be seriously ringing: Microsoft has publicly disclosed plans for monstrous ads within Copilot, as well as a roadmap to what appears to be AI-driven advertising, too. Last week, Microsoft's advertising blog outlined what it called the "future of audience engagement." And you already know what that is: AI. Microsoft believes that not only will generative AI provide a more natural interface for users to shop, but agents will assist them.

The new Apple Intelligence within the new Apple iPhone 16 provides a surprisingly practical approach to AI. Apple, which touts itself as the foundation for creative work, could have used AI to allow creatives to generate "photos" of imaginary objects, as Google's Pixel now does. It could have used AI, either running locally on in the cloud, to produce AI-generated art, or AI-produced facsimiles of celebrity voices. It did none of that. Instead, the Apple iPhone 16 uses AI as a productivity tool, first and foremost, with a focus on supercharging existing features with machine smarts. Apple is revamping Siri with a new AI foundation to help it better understand what you yourself are looking for, and follow complex conversations.

Microsoft wants to make its AI service for work, Microsoft 365 Copilot, basically ubiquitous within its ecosystem. And at its Ignite conference, Microsoft is well on its way to launch Copilot services early next year. For consumers, Copilot means adding additional AI capabilities to Microsoft 365 Office apps like Outlook and Teams. Microsoft is planning to remove the "Bing Chat" brand that has marked its early forays into AI and just replace it with "Copilot," for both consumers and enterprises. Copilot is also moving out of preview, and will become generally available starting December 1. If you've used Windows Copilot -- especially while working with the Copilot sidebar open -- you may have noticed Copilot react to what you're doing elsewhere on the screen.

Microsoft has one of the largest and most powerful collections of web servers on the planet. But even it might balk at the thought of a billion or so Windows users hitting data- and processor-intensive generative AI services 24-7. So perhaps it's not surprising that some new language in its online services user license agreement says that Microsoft will employ "temporary throttling of Customer's access to the Microsoft Generative AI service" for excessive use. Exactly what constitutes excessive use of generative AI (which allows a user to create text and images based on specific input, as seen with ChatGPT and DALL-E) is not specified. But as anyone who's tried out these tools knows, it's not an instant process and complex strings of text generation or intricate formatting might take several minutes for a remote server to complete.

Microsoft's next huge Windows 11 feature update, code-named Windows 11 23H2, has a big addition: AI. Microsoft is readying for the era of the AI PC with the addition of Windows Copilot, powered by Bing Chat. And it will debut on Sept. 26. It's the closest thing to a theme that we've seen within a Windows 11 update in some time. AI will power Windows Copilot, of course, but also recommended files in File Explorer and Start as well as a designated AI-specific section within the Microsoft Store app.

Microsoft's next huge Windows 11 feature update, code-named Windows 11 23H2, has a big addition: AI. Microsoft is readying for the era of the AI PC with the addition of Windows Copilot, powered by Bing Chat. It's the closest thing to a theme that we've seen within a Windows 11 update in some time. AI will power Windows Copilot, of course, but also recommended files in File Explorer and Start as well as a designated AI-specific section within the Microsoft Store app. You should also expect various small improvements across Windows, both in terms of ease-of-use and functional updates, like the ability to restore apps from a backup.

While Windows 10 will not receive any new features until its end of support in October 2025, Microsoft will continue to provide Windows 11 with innovations -- and not only with the next major yearly upgrade to version 23H3 in autumn. Initially thought to be an exception, interim feature updates called "Moments" are now standard. The first major feature update of this year brought something almost revolutionary with the integration of Bing AI Chat. Microsoft, accordingly, placed the new search in the Edge browser, featuring it prominently in the Windows 11 taskbar. But that was the exception.

Microsoft has begun following through on its promise to kill off Cortana, the AI assistant that debuted in Windows 10. Microsoft's recent Windows Insider build in the Dev channel turns off Cortana, which only appears as an app within the Microsoft Store. If you apply an available update to the Cortana app, that will essentially turn it off: You'll receive a message saying that Cortana has been deprecated -- programmer-speak for turning off a specific feature. Microsoft had made its intentions clear: In June, the company said that it would begin ending support for the Cortana app in August. That doesn't mean Cortana is entirely gone.

Windows Copilot is one part Bing, one part Windows. It's an assistant who can perform tasks for you one moment, but then pleads ignorance the next. Microsoft's AI assistant within Windows certainly has potential, but during my time with it, achieving a consistent experience was one of its unexpected challenges. Windows Copilot, the migration of Microsoft's AI-powered Bing Chat into Windows, debuted Thursday as part of the latest Windows Insider build for the Dev Channel; Microsoft announced Copilot at the end of May, with a promise to bring it into testing by the end of June. It's now here, though it hasn't reached its full potential yet.

Microsoft said Thursday that it has begun shipping its AI-powered Windows Copilot in a test build for Windows, along with a revised Settings menu that uses a card-based dashboard to allow users to make quick adjustments without needing to dive deeper. Microsoft said it will ship Windows 11 Insider Build 23493 for the Dev Channel today, squeaking under its self-imposed deadline to ship Copilot by the end of June. Microsoft has said before that builds shipped into the Dev Channel may not ever see the light of day, but Copilot is almost certainly an exception. Microsoft's latest build is a fairly major one, even excluding Copilot. The Settings revamp continues the work Microsoft has done to streamline how Settings displays information and allows users to control various aspects of their PC.