• Copilot, Microsoft’s new Windows 11 integration with ChatGPT is now available to some Insiders in the Beta Channel.
• The firm will assess how the feature lands before rolling it out to more users.
• There is no word on when Copilot will be available to all Windows 11 users.

At the beginning of the year Microsoft announced that it was investing a further $10 billion in ChatGPT creator OpenAI. Since then the company has wasted no time in incorporating OpenAI’s solutions into its own solutions.

During its Build conference in May, Microsoft announced that it would be baking AI directly into Windows 11 with a new feature called Copilot. This AI-powered feature was billed as a way to get things done more efficiently and easily.

In June Microsoft rolled a preview out to the Windows 11 Insider Dev Channel and this week it’s expanding this preview.

“At the end of June, we kicked off the first preview of Windows Copilot and today, we’re expanding the preview to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel via a controlled feature rollout. This first preview focuses on our integrated UI experience, with additional functionality coming down the road in future previews. To use Copilot in this flight you must have Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22631.2129 or higher in the Beta Channel, and Microsoft Edge version 115.0.1901.150 or higher,” Microsoft wrote in a blog on Wednesday.

Copilot appears as a sidebar in Windows but it doesn’t overlap with your windows, rather, it shrinks the windows next to it as you can see in the image below.

Microsoft clearly wants folks to use Copilot hence the exclusive real estate but we’re curious to see if folks use it.

The AI can execute a range of tasks but we’re not sure just how much of that people would actually use. For example, Microsoft highlights that folks can ask Copilot to “take a screenshot”, something we doubt is easier than simply hitting the Print Screen key on our keyboard.

There are some cool features such as being able to generate images or summarise websites you’re looking at in Edge.

Copilot looks nifty and it may inspire more Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11 but the feature has to make it out of the testing phase first. And even then, we have to wonder if people who never used Cortana are going to be chomping at the bit to try Copilot.

Microsoft warns that not all Insider Beta Channel users will see Copilot right away. The firm says that it will monitor feedback and see how the feature lands before it pushes it out to the entire channel.

“Please note that not everything shown at Build for Windows Copilot is included in this first, early preview. For example, Windows Copilot has a basic set of Windows settings plugins but no third-party plugin support yet. Over time, features will be added as we refine the Windows Copilot experience with Windows Insiders,” the firm adds.

While Copilot is cool, we’re still waiting for Android apps to run natively on Windows 11, a feature that was touted as a reason to upgrade from Windows 10 when it was announced in 2021.