Microsoft Copilot on Windows: 2026 Fact Sheet.

Microsoft Copilot on Windows is the AI assistant Microsoft builds directly into Windows 11 — reachable from a taskbar icon, a dedicated Copilot key on newer keyboards, or a voice trigger. At the free, baseline level (any Windows 11 PC, no special hardware), it offers writing and research assistance, email summarization, task organization, basic AI image generation through Image Creator, natural-language file search, and screen understanding via Copilot Vision. This baseline tier costs nothing and needs no subscription.

A second, much deeper layer of Copilot features only runs on Copilot+ PCs — a hardware class Microsoft defines by a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) capable of 40+ trillion operations per second (TOPS), plus 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, running Windows 11 version 24H2 or newer. Qualifying chips include Snapdragon X Elite/Plus, Intel Core Ultra 200V series, and AMD Ryzen AI 300 series. Devices sold as Copilot+ PCs include current Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models plus OEM machines from HP, Dell, and others (Microsoft's own Copilot+ PC page lists current qualifying models).

Copilot Vision is a distinct feature from the Copilot+ PC hardware tier — it works across Windows, Microsoft Edge, and the Copilot mobile app for any signed-in user, without requiring an NPU. When active, Copilot can see your screen (or a phone camera feed) and talk you through it via voice, including a "Highlights" mode that visually points at where to click for a given task. Microsoft's own support documentation is explicit that Copilot Vision does not click, type, or scroll for you, and states that no images are captured, stored, or used for model training — everything is deleted when the s

Microsoft's current individual/consumer pricing page lists three paid subscription tiers, all with a one-month free trial, monthly or annual billing:

These are per-account consumer prices in USD, not per-seat business pricing (Microsoft 365 Copilot for Business is a separate $21-$30/user/month product line aimed at organizations, distinct from the consumer plans above).

Since 2024, new Windows keyboards ship with a dedicated Copilot key, on some devices replacing the Right Ctrl or Context Menu key. As of Microsoft's own accessibility support documentation, that key currently launches Copilot and cannot be remapped by the user on already-shipped devices — Microsoft has committed only to a future Windows 11 update that will add a setting (Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Keyboard) to reassign the key to Right Ctrl or Context Menu behavior, with no confirmed release build number as of this writing. Recent release notes also mention: Copilot can now describe imag

We make Jarvis (getjarvis.eu), so treat this section as disclosed and read the comparison critically. Copilot on Windows genuinely does several things Jarvis does not attempt: it runs OS-level, NPU-accelerated inference for Recall and Click to Do directly on-device, giving it a full historical timeline of on-screen activity (something no cloud-based assistant, including Jarvis, offers); it's built into the OS and Microsoft account at no extra cost for the basic tier, with zero install step; and it's deeply wired into the Office app suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) for users already paying for Microso

Jarvis is a separate, smaller product: a screen-aware desktop assistant available on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows, and Linux. It has a free plan (40 requests/week) and a Pro plan at $16/month, is GDPR-aligned, and runs on a cloud model backend (Gemini) rather than on-device inference — it is not offline and we do not claim it is, and we do not claim to be "the best" AI assistant. Where Jarvis differs is breadth of third-party app connectors (Gmail, Slack, Notion, Linear, and more via OAuth) and cross-platform support outside the Microsoft ecosystem — but for anyone already on a Copilo

Every claim above traces to a fetched Microsoft page (support.microsoft.com, microsoft.com/windows, microsoft.com/microsoft-copilot, microsoft.com/microsoft-365-copilot) listed below. Anything we could not confirm from those pages is listed explicitly as could-not-verify rather than stated as fact.

Verified facts