Windows Recall is one of the biggest AI features Microsoft has added to Windows 11. It's useful, but it comes with some privacy trade-offs. If you're a Windows 11 user, and specifically an owner of a Microsoft Copilot+ PC that has the necessary AI processing power, you can now take advantage of Windows Recall. It works like a memory for your computer, using screenshots to keep track of everything you're doing on Windows, and then letting you search back through it. The idea is to give you something like your web browsing history, but for the whole computer.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Windows Recall might be storing more data than you think. Microsoft Recall adds an AI-based search feature to Windows 11 based on screenshots of the screen content. This also creates problems and concerns regarding data protection. Recall is a feature in Windows 11 that regularly creates screen recordings and saves them locally. This also involves processing with AI so that users can search through the data.

Microsoft's controversial Windows Recall has now been generally released, and it poses as much of a risk to your privacy as it could be a boon to your productivity. Recall is just one of several new features that either have or will be arriving on Copilot PC, Microsoft said Friday. Recall, Windows' improved semantic search, Live Captions, Cocreator, and Restyle Image and Image Creator within Photos are now all available for Copilot PCs that include Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs as well as PCs with qualifying processors from AMD and Intel. A few features -- Click to Do, Live Captions, and Voice Access -- are available for Copilot PCs running on Snapdragon, but support for AMD and Intel chips isn't quite available. For Microsoft, the release of these AI-powered features are cause for celebration, finally delivering on promises of an AI-powered world that the company first made a year ago. But in the weeks and months since Microsoft first announced Recall, a darker side of its potential has emerged.

Microsoft's controversial Windows Recall has now been generally released, and it poses as much of a risk to your privacy as it could be a boon to your productivity. Recall is just one of several new features that either have or will be arriving on Copilot PC, Microsoft said Friday. Recall, Windows' improved semantic search, Live Captions, Cocreator, and Restyle Image and Image Creator within Photos are now all available for Copilot PCs that include Qualcomm Snapdragon CPUs as well as PCs with qualifying processors from AMD and Intel. A few features -- Click to Do, Live Captions, and Voice Access -- are available for Copilot PCs running on Snapdragon, but support for AMD and Intel chips isn't quite available. For Microsoft, the release of these AI-powered features are cause for celebration, finally delivering on promises of an AI-powered world that the company first made a year ago.

Both Microsoft and Apple took swings with their respective operating systems, with Microsoft debuting its "Copilot PC" branding for AI-capable laptops and Apple releasing Apple Intelligence. These early examples offered mixed results. Some features, like real-time translations and on-device speech-to-text, can be useful. Others, like Microsoft's Windows Recall, have yet to prove themselves. All of this hype for AI has important implications for the new year.

Microsoft has released a white paper of sorts outlining what the company is doing to secure user data within Windows Recall, the controversial Windows feature that takes snapshots of your activity for later searching. As of late last night, Microsoft still hasn't said whether they will release Recall to the Windows Insider channels for further testing as originally planned. In fact, Microsoft's paper says very little about Recall as a product or when they will push Recall live to the public. Recall was first launched back in May as part of the Windows 11 24H2 update and it uses the local AI capabilities of Copilot PCs. The idea is that Recall captures periodic snapshots of your screen, then uses optical character recognition plus AI-driven techniques to translate and understand your activity.

Samsung recently announced the Galaxy Book4 Edge line of laptops at Microsoft's Surface event, now equipped with Qualcomm's hotly anticipated Snapdragon X Elite processors. In addition to the more efficient and AI-infused processor, they're also featherlight and come with a slew of practical AI tools like Live Caption and Windows Recall. They also come with AMOLED touch displays, which look superb and are capable of up to 500 nits of brightness. If you pre-order the Galaxy Book4 Edge right now, Samsung will even toss in a free 50-inch TV. Further reading: Microsoft's new Surface laptops are bursting with AI power The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge comes in two sizes: the 14-inch is designed for those who prefer a more portable machine and the 16-inch is meant for those who want a bigger screen.

So far, the flagship feature of Microsoft's new Copilot PC vision is Windows Recall, an AI-powered local search of your PC. But there's a catch: Recall is going to suck up a lot of your PC's storage space. Recall was first shown off Monday at Microsoft Build as part of a massive Windows AI push introducing the Copilot PC generation. Think of it as a powerful local search engine for your PC. Ironically, in much the same way Google revolutionized search on the Web, Microsoft hopes to do the same for local search.