Microsoft’s push for Copilot+ PCs has moved from product launch to full‑throttle migration messaging as Windows 10 approaches its October 14, 2025 end‑of‑support deadline, with Redmond now framing Arm‑based, NPU‑equipped laptops as the recommended path for consumers and organizations that want “AI‑first” Windows devices. The company’s public materials emphasize a hardware requirement—a turbocharged NPU capable of 40+ TOPS (trillion operations per second)—a growing Arm‑native app catalog that Microsoft says covers the bulk of what people actually use, and new emulation advances that aim to remove long‑standing blockers for legacy x86/x64 software. This piece breaks down the claims, verifies the technical details against primary sources and independent reporting, evaluates the migration story for users and IT teams, and flags strengths and risks for anyone considering a move from Windows 10 to a Copilot+ PC or to Windows 11 on Arm.
Windows 10’s official end‑of‑support date is October 14, 2025. After that date Microsoft will stop issuing free security updates and technical support for consumer and commercial editions of Windows 10, and Microsoft recommends upgrading to Windows 11 or enrolling in the consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. This deadline creates a hard timetable for upgrades and refresh cycles across households, small businesses, and enterprises. (support.microsoft.com)
Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC initiative is a coordinated hardware + software effort: OEMs ship devices with high‑performance NPUs, Windows 11 distributes device‑targeted Copilot experiences, and Microsoft offers developer and migration services (App Assure and the Arm Advisory Service) to reduce friction for ISVs and customers. The company’s marketing and blog posts present Copilot+ PCs as delivering a combination of on‑device AI, longer battery life, and hardened security compared with older machines—an argument intended to accelerate upgrades as Windows 10 reaches EoS. Parts of that messaging and the migration push have been amplified in promotional pop‑ups and blog posts, driving debate about whether this is productive guidance or heavy‑handed upselling. (blogs.windows.com)
That said, marketing percentages and headline performance claims deserve scrutiny. Microsoft’s public comparisons vary by MacBook model and benchmark selection; some secondary reports inflate or misattribute numbers (for example, claims of “85% faster than MacBook Air M2” are not found in Microsoft’s own Copilot+ documentation and should be regarded as unverified). Buyers should insist on clear test methodology for any benchmark that will influence procurement decisions. Treat marketing material as a starting point for validation, not as a procurement substitute. (techspot.com)
Finally, the social and environmental cost of accelerated hardware refresh must remain part of the conversation. Microsoft’s upgrade messaging is timely and technically justified for many; forcing a wholesale churn of functional devices is not. Responsible migration plans—pilot testing, trade‑in and recycling programs, staged rollouts, and targeted use of ESU and cloud options—are the right way forward for most organizations and consumers. (support.microsoft.com)
For readers deciding whether to upgrade now: validate your own software stack against the WorksOnWoA compatibility lists, perform a pilot on a Copilot+ device for mission‑critical workflows, and treat Microsoft’s Copilot+ performance claims as device‑specific marketing until you or trusted reviewers reproduce the exact tests in your environment. Microsoft’s platform, tooling, and ecosystem progress are real and meaningful—but the migration is still a technical and operational project, not a single‑click marketing moment. (worksonwoa.com)
Source: Windows Report Microsoft Wants Windows 10 Users to Upgrade to Arm-based Copilot+ PCs
Windows 10’s official end‑of‑support date is October 14, 2025. After that date Microsoft will stop issuing free security updates and technical support for consumer and commercial editions of Windows 10, and Microsoft recommends upgrading to Windows 11 or enrolling in the consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. This deadline creates a hard timetable for upgrades and refresh cycles across households, small businesses, and enterprises. (support.microsoft.com)Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC initiative is a coordinated hardware + software effort: OEMs ship devices with high‑performance NPUs, Windows 11 distributes device‑targeted Copilot experiences, and Microsoft offers developer and migration services (App Assure and the Arm Advisory Service) to reduce friction for ISVs and customers. The company’s marketing and blog posts present Copilot+ PCs as delivering a combination of on‑device AI, longer battery life, and hardened security compared with older machines—an argument intended to accelerate upgrades as Windows 10 reaches EoS. Parts of that messaging and the migration push have been amplified in promotional pop‑ups and blog posts, driving debate about whether this is productive guidance or heavy‑handed upselling. (blogs.windows.com)
What Microsoft is claiming — the core technical promises
40+ TOPS NPUs: what that number means
- Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC pages and business FAQ explicitly state that Copilot+ PCs are defined by the presence of a high‑performance Neural Processing Unit (NPU) capable of 40+ trillion operations per second (TOPS). The vendor list includes Qualcomm Snapdragon X series, AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, and Intel Core Ultra 200V series NPUs. (microsoft.com)
- In practical terms, TOPS is a raw throughput metric for tensor/ML inferencing: it indicates how many elementary multiply‑accumulate operations the NPU can perform per second. TOPS alone is not a direct measure of end‑user responsiveness or model quality, but it is a rough yardstick for on‑device inferencing capacity (larger local models, faster low‑latency features, more concurrent AI tasks). Microsoft uses 40+ TOPS as a threshold to gate certain Copilot+ experiences that require substantial local inferencing. (microsoft.com)
On‑device experiences and feature waves
- Microsoft publishes staged feature waves for Copilot+ devices: examples include Cocreator in Paint, Windows Studio Effects (webcam and audio enhancements), Live Captions, Recall (local context capture and search), Click to Do, and enhanced Photos super‑resolution. Many experiences are “Copilot+ only,” meaning they rely on the NPU to deliver local or hybrid on‑device AI for latency, privacy, or offline capability. (blogs.windows.com)
App ecosystem coverage: “90% of user minutes”
- Microsoft and its partners now emphasize a usage‑weighted metric rather than raw counts: apps compiled natively for Arm account for roughly 90% of total user minutes on Windows on Arm devices, according to Microsoft and corroborated in developer and press posts. The framing is that the dominant daily tools—browsers, Office apps, media and messaging clients—are now available natively, which matters more than sheer app counts. Independent outlets and Microsoft developer posts repeat this figure as evidence of ecosystem maturity. (blogs.windows.com)
Emulation improvements: Prism and expanded extension coverage
- Microsoft’s new Prism emulator (bundled with Windows 11 24H2 and improved in Insider builds) accelerates x86/x64 emulation for Windows on Arm and exposes additional x86 instruction‑set extensions (AVX, AVX2, BMI, FMA, F16C). This change lets more “legacy” 64‑bit apps run correctly under emulation on suitably capable Copilot+ hardware. Microsoft documents Prism and its design; tech press reports and the Windows Insider blog describe the stages of rollout and which apps benefited (for example, enabling Adobe Premiere Pro 25 in limited scenarios). (learn.microsoft.com)
Verifying the headline claims — cross‑checking Microsoft’s numbers
This is a critical section: several widely circulated numbers require careful corroboration.- Windows 10 end‑of‑support date: Microsoft’s lifecycle pages confirm that Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025. That is a firm, public company declaration. (microsoft.com)
- 40+ TOPS NPU: Microsoft’s Copilot+ device pages and business FAQ explicitly use the “40+ TOPS” figure to describe NPU capability required to qualify as a Copilot+ PC. This is a clear, verifiable Microsoft marketing and product definition. (microsoft.com)
- “90% of user minutes in native Arm apps”: Microsoft executives and Windows developer communications have promoted this usage‑weighted milestone; multiple independent tech outlets (Windows Central, Digital Trends, TechSpot) have reported the same figure and traced it to Microsoft’s messaging. While the measurement methodology is internal to Microsoft/partners and not independently published in raw form, the claim is repeated by Microsoft and echoed by major independent media as a corporate metric representing usage distribution. Treat it as a company‑published, usage‑weighted signal rather than an independently audited statistic. (windowscentral.com)
- Performance and battery life claims (benchmarks): Microsoft’s own messaging contains multiple benchmark comparisons. For example, Microsoft has published marketing claims that top Copilot+ devices outperform Apple MacBook Air models in Cinebench multi‑core tests and that some Copilot+ devices deliver up to 22 hours of local video playback and up to 15 hours of web browsing. However, the magnitude of the performance delta depends heavily on which MacBook Air model is cited (M3, M4, or older M2) and which Copilot+ SKU is tested. Independent reviewers and outlets have pointed out that Microsoft’s marketing sometimes cites older Apple comparators (M3) where newer Apple silicon is already on market (M4), and that the percent gains vary wildly by specific model pairing and workload. In short: the headline “we beat the Mac” claim is rooted in Microsoft‑commissioned benchmarks, but the degree of advantage varies and is sensitive to test selection and device configuration. (techspot.com)
- Specific large percentage claims in secondary reporting: some outlets or re‑posts (including the Windows Report piece that prompted this analysis) present figures such as “up to 85% faster than MacBook Air M2” or “up to 35% faster Microsoft Office productivity.” Those particular numbers do not appear in Microsoft’s official Copilot+ pages or blog posts; we could not find primary Microsoft documentation supporting an 85% gap vs the M2 or a universal “35% Office” acceleration figure. These discrepant figures should be treated as unverified or misreported until the original benchmark source, test methodology, and device pairings are published. Microsoft’s primary consumer and business pages present more modest, device‑dependent comparisons (e.g., Cinebench‑based gains and “up to 13% vs M4” in some messaging). (blogs.windows.com)
App availability, migration tooling, and developer support
What’s available today
- The Arm‑native app catalog has broadened across key categories: endpoint security (major AV/EDR vendors), VPNs and ZTNA, endpoint management (Intune, VMware, Citrix), Microsoft 365 and collaboration apps (Teams, Slack), creative apps (native or hybrid releases of Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom, Blender, DaVinci Resolve in many cases), and popular entertainment and social apps (Netflix, Spotify, Chrome, WhatsApp). Community‑run compatibility trackers also maintain tested lists. The community site WorksOnWoA provides an actively updated database of which apps and games are marked “compatible” on Windows on Arm. (worksonwoa.com)
Microsoft’s migration assistance
- Microsoft’s App Assure program and the App Assure Arm Advisory Service are documented resources that provide no‑cost assistance to customers and developers for porting and remediation. The service offers workshops, code review and short engineering engagements to get apps running natively on Arm, and may be limited in scale by hours/availability. For enterprises with bespoke tools, App Assure remains the principal official leverage Microsoft offers to smooth an OS and architecture transition. (learn.microsoft.com)
Emulation reality check — Prism and the compatibility gap
Prism is the centerpiece of Microsoft’s compatibility play for Windows on Arm. Unlike older translation layers, Prism is tuned to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X family (and available on Windows 11 24H2) and introduces caching and optimizations that reduce translation overhead. Importantly, Microsoft has added emulation support for common x86 extensions (AVX, AVX2, BMI, FMA, F16C) for x64 apps under Prism (with Caveats: 32‑bit helpers and 32‑bit apps are still not covered). This materially expands the set of legacy apps that can run on Arm devices and has already been used in limited scenarios to enable Adobe Premiere Pro 25 to run under emulation. But it is not a panacea—some complex driver and kernel‑level components, anti‑cheat systems, or tightly coupled hardware dependencies still require native builds. (learn.microsoft.com)Strengths of Microsoft’s Copilot+ pitch
- Integrated hardware + software design: Copilot+ PCs standardize a baseline of NPU capability and ship with Windows 11 feature rollouts that target that hardware profile—this reduces fragmentation of AI experiences and allows Microsoft to design on‑device features with an expected compute envelope. (microsoft.com)
- Improved app story for mainstream workflows: The move to judge ecosystem readiness by “user minutes in native apps” reflects a pragmatic focus on the apps people actually use; mainstream productivity, browsing, messaging, and media apps are largely covered, reducing daily friction for many users. (windowscentral.com)
- On‑device AI benefits: Local NPUs deliver lower latency, better privacy posture for some scenarios (data stays on device), and the ability to operate features even with intermittent connectivity—advantages for productivity, accessibility, and hybrid work. (blogs.windows.com)
- Enterprise migration tooling: App Assure and Arm Advisory Service lower some of the engineering friction by offering hands‑on support to port large or complex workloads. That reduces one traditional enterprise barrier to platform migration. (learn.microsoft.com)
Risks, limits, and practical caveats
- Benchmark nuance and marketing noise: Microsoft’s performance comparisons are device‑ and workload‑specific. Independent coverage shows that headline percentage gains (58%, 13%, etc.) vary by which MacBook model and which Copilot+ SKU are compared. Some third‑party summaries call out selective comparisons (e.g., against older Apple models) that exaggerate perceived advantages. The marketing numbers should be read with attention to the benchmark, configuration, and the exact devices tested. Claims reported without methodology should be considered unverified. (techspot.com)
- Not everything is native yet: Even if 90% of user minutes run in native apps, the remaining niche or enterprise‑specific tools—custom drivers, specialized engineering apps, certain games (or anti‑cheat middleware), and 32‑bit helpers—may still block a full migration. For businesses, those edge cases are often the most expensive to remediate. (digitaltrends.com)
- Emulation caveats: Prism expands emulation but intentionally limits some feature support and only exposes added CPU extensions to x64 apps; apps that query for features via 32‑bit helpers may still fail. Emulation performance, while greatly improved, will typically be inferior to a native build. Extensive testing is still required for mission‑critical applications. (learn.microsoft.com)
- E‑waste and cost: Encouraging hardware refresh purely to access branded Copilot+ features risks accelerating device churn. Many functioning Windows 10 PCs will be ineligible for Copilot+ or for Windows 11, creating a financial burden for consumers and organizations. Analysts have pointed to environmental and equity concerns tied to forced refresh cycles.
- Proprietary dependencies and supply dynamics: The Copilot+ push is tied to a limited set of SoC families and NPUs. Geopolitics, foundry capacity, and supply‑chain constraints can affect pricing and availability of premium Copilot+ models—factors IT procurement teams must account for.
Practical migration guidance — a checklist for users and IT
- Inventory and triage
- Run PC Health Check and vendor tools to determine which machines can upgrade to Windows 11 and which will require replacement. Prioritize endpoints by risk, data sensitivity, and business criticality. (support.microsoft.com)
- Test compatibility (pilot)
- Deploy a small Copilot+ pilot: validate core workflows, test non‑native apps under Prism emulation, and use App Assure or Arm Advisory Service for porting stubborn apps. Consider a virtual test lab with Arm64 VMs for early validation. (learn.microsoft.com)
- Use App Assure/Arm Advisory Service early
- Engage App Assure to triage compatibility issues before large‑scale purchases; their guided porting support can reduce post‑deployment surprises. (learn.microsoft.com)
- Consider hybrid strategies
- For assets that can’t be ported immediately, options include: enroll in Consumer ESU program for short term protection; migrate specific workloads to Windows 365 Cloud PC or Azure Virtual Desktop; or use device‑level policy to stagger refresh waves. (support.microsoft.com)
- Procurement and sustainability
- Negotiate trade‑in and recycling with OEMs, and include lifecycle and buyback clauses in large procurement contracts to reduce total cost of ownership and e‑waste.
Bottom line — who should act, and how fast
- If your device is eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 and your workflows are covered by Arm‑native apps (browsers, Office/M365, Teams, major media and messaging apps), a move to a Copilot+ PC can deliver tangible improvements in battery life, on‑device AI features, and in some scenarios, performance—especially for workloads optimized for the new NPUs. However, the benefits are device‑ and workload‑dependent: don’t buy on marketing percentages alone. (microsoft.com)
- For enterprises with specialized legacy tools, custom drivers, or niche dependencies, a cautious, pilot‑first migration is the prudent path. Use App Assure and Arm Advisory engagements early to validate the timeline and costs for porting or remediation. (learn.microsoft.com)
- For consumers on older machines that can’t run Windows 11, evaluate the cost of extended security (ESU) versus buying a modern Windows 11 device (including Copilot+ PCs) or moving to alternative platforms. Microsoft’s official guidance and lifecycle pages are the authoritative source for support options and upgrade steps. (microsoft.com)
Final assessment and editorial takeaway
Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC strategy is a coherent, high‑stakes attempt to reframe the PC upgrade cycle around on‑device AI. There are real technical advances backing the pitch: NPUs with 40+ TOPS unlock novel local features; Prism meaningfully improves emulation for many x64 apps; and the Arm native app catalog has matured to cover mainstream user minutes. These are verifiable progress markers that make Windows on Arm a viable option for a broad class of users and many organizations. (microsoft.com)That said, marketing percentages and headline performance claims deserve scrutiny. Microsoft’s public comparisons vary by MacBook model and benchmark selection; some secondary reports inflate or misattribute numbers (for example, claims of “85% faster than MacBook Air M2” are not found in Microsoft’s own Copilot+ documentation and should be regarded as unverified). Buyers should insist on clear test methodology for any benchmark that will influence procurement decisions. Treat marketing material as a starting point for validation, not as a procurement substitute. (techspot.com)
Finally, the social and environmental cost of accelerated hardware refresh must remain part of the conversation. Microsoft’s upgrade messaging is timely and technically justified for many; forcing a wholesale churn of functional devices is not. Responsible migration plans—pilot testing, trade‑in and recycling programs, staged rollouts, and targeted use of ESU and cloud options—are the right way forward for most organizations and consumers. (support.microsoft.com)
For readers deciding whether to upgrade now: validate your own software stack against the WorksOnWoA compatibility lists, perform a pilot on a Copilot+ device for mission‑critical workflows, and treat Microsoft’s Copilot+ performance claims as device‑specific marketing until you or trusted reviewers reproduce the exact tests in your environment. Microsoft’s platform, tooling, and ecosystem progress are real and meaningful—but the migration is still a technical and operational project, not a single‑click marketing moment. (worksonwoa.com)
Source: Windows Report Microsoft Wants Windows 10 Users to Upgrade to Arm-based Copilot+ PCs