anyweb Posted Saturday at 06:41 PM Report post Posted Saturday at 06:41 PM Introduction Microsoft have invested a lot of time, effort and money on adding AI abilities to core parts of the Windows Operating System and the apps that run on it, for example Office 365 apps or dedicated AI apps such as Microsoft 365 Copilot. Myself and my good friend Paul Winstanley took a look at a new feature to add select AI features to Windows 365 Cloud PC’s and share our thoughts below. Windows 365 AI-enabled Cloud PCs run in Microsoft’s Cloud and stream AI-powered Windows to any device and platform. This allows you to use select AI features that would traditionally be found on physical NPU powered Copilot+ PC’s. Those select AI features are: Improved Windows search Click to Do You can test these AI features on any device using your Cloud PC for example, below you can see an AI-enabled Cloud PC available from an Android powered phone. Note: In the screenshots below from our Android phones, the AI-enabled Cloud PC has an AI-enabled label in the top left corner. But first, let’s take a look at what you need in order to set this up. Requirements The requirements below will most likely change as this becomes Generally Available, but to test it right now in this Frontier release you’ll need to do the following: The end user must be registered in the Windows Insider program The Cloud PC must be in the Windows Insider Beta channel Enable Data diagnostics in your settings Have a Cloud PC that supports AI abilities (8vCPU, 32GB ram, 256GB HDD) The Cloud PC must be in a supported location Setting it up To set it up make sure you’ve enabled data diagnostics in your Windows Privacy settings, as shown here. Set the Send optional diagnostics data to On. Next, enroll into Windows Insider Program and select the Beta Channel (Recommended). Once done you’ll most likely have to restart the CPC, so go ahead and do that. Next, you’ll need to configure a policy (targeted to users) which enables the feature for Cloud PC’s that meet the minimum requirements. To do that select the Windows 365 node in Intune, click Settings and select Create to create the policy. Select Cloud PC configurations (preview) from the options presented. In the Configuration settings part of the wizard, select Enable from the drop down menu to enable AI features. and on the Assignments screen, select a previously created Entra Id group with users that will be using this new ability. Once done, make sure one or more users are in that group and the policy should flow to the CPC’s. Exploring the new AI abilities The first thing you’ll most likely notice is that your AI Enabled Cloud PC’s are now clearly labelled with an AI-enabled label in the Windows app. After connecting to that Cloud PC, you’ll notice the search icon looks different. AI-enabled Cloud PCs are marked by a magnifying glass with a sparkle icon within the search box on the taskbar. Those of you who already have physical Copilot + PC’s will already be familiar with this new search icon. The new AI search abilities are supposed to be better than built-in traditional search, so we put it to the test. We decided to start with by simply searching for a word via the search feature in Windows File Explorer on the users OneDrive. We performed the same search on the AI-enabled CPC as well as on a regular non-AI powered physical device. The AI search results are on the left, and the traditional search results on the right. Look at the difference, 37 hits versus 10, not bad at all. Lets try another search. This time again, more results from the AI search versus traditional search. Click to do Microsoft Click to do is a feature on all Copilot+ PC’s and Windows 365 AI-enabled Cloud PC’s. To use it simply search for it in the start menu and click the app. Once started, you can browse websites with pictures of text (for example) and press the Windows key + mouse click anywhere in the website. This can give you options to do things with what it sees, such as copy text within an image to paste into your favorite text editor, Depending on what you click on you get more or less options, such as below when clicking on the image of a blue CRT. Cool! Changes in Intune When using Windows 365 AI-enabled Cloud PC’s there are some additional things that you can see in the Intune portal to reveal the finer details. There’s a report here to show AI-enabled CPC’s and what (if anything) is wrong with them. To find it select Reports, and select Cloud PC overview. Select the AI-enabled Cloud PC report, and you can then click through the Status column for any Cloud PC that has reported data up to Intune. Once you’ve fixed the issues reported, which in our case we provisioned the Cloud PC in a location that was not yet supported for AI-enabled abilities, you’ll see a new status of Ready to use. You can also see a new status in Cloud PC’s overview, called AI-enabled, which will report Yes or No. Read more AI-enabled Cloud PCs – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/enterprise/ai-enabled-cloud-pcs Experience next-gen productivity with Windows 365 AI-enabled Cloud PCs – https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/experience-next-gen-productivity-with-windows-365-ai-enabled-cloud-pcs/4467875 Experience next-gen productivity with Windows 365 AI-enabled Cloud PCs – https://youtu.be/CvL8UXCYzDk Using Microsoft Click-To-Do https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/click-to-do-do-more-with-what-s-on-your-screen-6848b7d5-7fb0-4c43-b08a-443d6d3f5955 Summary This new feature via the Microsoft Frontier Program has a lot of cool potential! It’s great to see that Microsoft is continuing its investment in Windows 365 Cloud PC development, and adding key features like this brings the power of AI to all devices, whether they are Android, macOS, Windows. We look forward to seeing how this new feature matures and develops before being released to production. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
