In the world of Windows PCs, revolutionary hardware advances have often sparked equally profound changes in software capabilities. The recent wave of Copilot+ PCs—powered by dedicated NPUs (Neural Processing Units)—marks a pivotal moment in this journey, bringing artificial intelligence literally to the fingertips of everyday users. But buried beneath the headlines about generative AI, real-time video translation, and digital assistants is often the reality: most of us don’t need—or even want—Star Trek-level wizardry for our daily routines. Sometimes, it’s the smallest, most targeted innovations that end up redefining workflow for professionals and hobbyists alike.
When Microsoft introduced the Copilot+ branding and shipped the first qualifying PCs, the lineup appeared compelling, if a little scattered. The Copilot+ badge denotes more than branding—it signals an AI-focused design at the silicon level, pushing tasks that require machine learning or neural networks directly onto new chips. These tasks range from live captioning of international videos to seamless photo editing, and even instant user recall of prior work sessions. But how many of these features will truly stand the test of routine usage for the average user or, for that matter, the working journalist or media professional?
A surprising anecdote recently emerged from the team at PCWorld, where Mark Hachman, a seasoned technology editor, confessed to swapping out his trustworthy daily driver for a Copilot+ PC because of a single, unexpectedly indispensable feature: Super Resolution (previously Image Resizer) within the Windows Photos app. This admission, while anecdotal, offers a rare window into how fringe features sometimes become essential, particularly among niche user bases. It also highlights persistent limitations in Copilot+ uptake, as only a small minority of users currently own compatible machines.
The birth of Super Resolution within the Windows Photos app, exclusive to Copilot+ platforms, addressed this pain point directly. Instead of merely enlarging an image (which predictably leads to blurring and artifacting), the underlying AI engine attempts to reinterpret the image, synthesizing higher-resolution detail to produce a cleaner, crisper version. The process involves an intuitive slider, allowing users to compare before and after at a glance.
Comparing recent hands-on reports and third-party reviews:
Based on available reviews as of mid-2025, Super Resolution is seen as the “good enough” upscaler for general tasks, especially non-camera images like icons and UI screenshots. Power users and photographers looking for the absolute best restoration, especially for high-value archival prints or critical client work, may still prefer Topaz or Adobe’s advanced toolkits.
Journalists, for whom factual reporting and minimal photo manipulation are core principles, find generative editing to be a double-edged sword: erasing a distracting background element can enhance image focus, but it must not cross the line into visual misrepresentation. Microsoft’s choice to expose such powerful AI tools while retaining clear “undo” histories is a nod toward ethical transparency—a must for reputable publications.
These features collectively shrink the learning curve for everyday editing and communication tasks, positioning Windows as both competitive with and distinct from its macOS and ChromeOS rivals in the AI-enabled productivity wars.
This has material business and user-experience implications:
These micro-innovations translate, over time, into substantial cumulative productivity gains. Users who value convenience, speed, and cost-effectiveness are more likely to evangelize features that ‘just work’ for their workflows than those that dazzle purely in demos or press events.
The next phases promise both increased democratization (moving more features off the NPU ceiling as chips trickle down) and periodic disruption (with still-untested tools like Generative Fill poised to define, or divide, user expectations). The ongoing beta status of semantic search within Settings points to a future where AI quietly underpins every interaction with Windows—from first boot to last shutdown.
This is the lesson for users and for Microsoft: the greatest breakthroughs may lie not in the realm of science fiction but in the down-to-earth, everyday challenges of digital work. As Copilot+ continues to evolve, scrutinizing both its headline features and the hidden gems will be key to understanding not just where the Windows platform is headed—but why, and for whom, it truly matters.
For early adopters and the AI-curious, the upgrade path is clearer—but so are the growing pains. For careful professionals, Super Resolution and Generative Erase offer tantalizing glimpses of a future where creative power is always just a click away. In the end, it’s the little things—done well, and done often—that drive revolutions forward, one pixel at a time.
Source: PCWorld I'm in love with an ultra-specific Windows Copilot+ feature
The Copilot+ Landscape: Promise vs. Reality
When Microsoft introduced the Copilot+ branding and shipped the first qualifying PCs, the lineup appeared compelling, if a little scattered. The Copilot+ badge denotes more than branding—it signals an AI-focused design at the silicon level, pushing tasks that require machine learning or neural networks directly onto new chips. These tasks range from live captioning of international videos to seamless photo editing, and even instant user recall of prior work sessions. But how many of these features will truly stand the test of routine usage for the average user or, for that matter, the working journalist or media professional?A surprising anecdote recently emerged from the team at PCWorld, where Mark Hachman, a seasoned technology editor, confessed to swapping out his trustworthy daily driver for a Copilot+ PC because of a single, unexpectedly indispensable feature: Super Resolution (previously Image Resizer) within the Windows Photos app. This admission, while anecdotal, offers a rare window into how fringe features sometimes become essential, particularly among niche user bases. It also highlights persistent limitations in Copilot+ uptake, as only a small minority of users currently own compatible machines.
Understanding Copilot+ Features and Hardware Compatibility
Before delving into why a seemingly humble image upscaling tool could be transformative, it’s worth mapping the terrain of Copilot+ AI features as of mid-2025:- Windows Recall (Copilot+ exclusive): Snapshots your PC activity, enabling AI-powered search and memory. Controversial for its privacy implications, its ability to retrieve “misplaced bits of information” is both lauded and scrutinized.
- Paint’s Cocreator, Generative Erase, Object Select, Sticker Generator: Tools that riff on Photoshop’s own AI renaissance, democratizing advanced art, photo manipulation, and object isolation.
- Click-to-Do: An AI-driven context menu that anticipates user intent to streamline repeated actions.
- Photos’ Super Resolution, Relight, and Restyle Image: Upscaling, virtual lighting adjustments, and creative art filters for photos—Super Resolution being the perennial favorite of professionals.
- Intelligent Search in Settings: AI now enables semantic, non-literal search within Windows Settings, a surprisingly user-friendly productivity boost.
- Windows Studio Effects & Live Captions: Advanced camera tricks (blur, gaze correction, noise reduction) and on-the-fly video translation/captioning.
- Semantic File and Settings Search (in preview): Search improvements attempting to bring natural language results to system and content queries.
The Rise (and Real-World Limits) of Super Resolution
At first glance, image upscaling might seem far from glamorous. Yet, for professionals who work with visual content—editors, journalists, bloggers, social media managers—it can be nothing short of a lifesaver. As Hachman observed, almost every story on a modern tech publication demands some form of original artwork or illustration. Sometimes, the ideal asset simply doesn’t exist at sufficient resolution: perhaps all that’s available is a tiny taskbar icon or lo-res screenshot.The birth of Super Resolution within the Windows Photos app, exclusive to Copilot+ platforms, addressed this pain point directly. Instead of merely enlarging an image (which predictably leads to blurring and artifacting), the underlying AI engine attempts to reinterpret the image, synthesizing higher-resolution detail to produce a cleaner, crisper version. The process involves an intuitive slider, allowing users to compare before and after at a glance.
Key Strengths
- Quality and Speed: Within seconds, small and noisy images can be transformed into publication-ready art. Editors have confirmed that, while not infallible, the output is consistently superior to basic resizing and sharp enough for most digital publishing needs.
- Cost and Convenience: Super Resolution is bundled with Windows at no extra charge. Competing solutions—such as Topaz AI—may deliver incrementally better results but at significant cost and with added export/import friction.
- Intelligence: Super Resolution doesn’t apply a simple filter; it uses the on-board NPU to infer and reconstruct probable image details, yielding sharper icons, improved line art, and smoother gradients.
Caveats and Risks
- Not a Panacea: Tech editors stress that Super Resolution is “not a miracle worker.” Images that are too small, or already heavily compressed, may yield mediocre or even strange results. The algorithm occasionally invents details that don’t exist in the source, a tradeoff inherent to generative scaling.
- Hardware Segmentation: Locking Super Resolution to Copilot+ PCs curtails broad utility. Unless you own Snapdragon X Elite or newer Intel/AMD machines, the feature remains out of reach—a move that may limit its overall adoption and impact.
- Reliance on On-Device AI: While offloading compute to the NPU is a technical win for performance, it puts users on a hardware treadmill, incentivizing upgrades purely for features rather than raw speed or reliability.
- Editorial Integrity: For journalism, the temptation to “beautify” images carries ethical tradeoffs. Enhancing icons is practical, but modifications of news or product photography may blur the line between factual accuracy and digital alteration.
How Does Super Resolution Stack Up to the Competition?
While Super Resolution is a free, compelling feature for casual and professional editors alike, several competitors have already carved niches in the AI upscaling market. Google Photos integrates its own suite of Magic Editor tools for select Android devices and Pixel phones, but often restricts the best features to paid tiers. Adobe Photoshop’s Enhance Details and Super Resolution sliders are part of an expansive, subscription-only platform. The most direct challenger is Topaz Gigapixel AI, widely praised for its photographic recovery but priced as a standalone application.Comparing recent hands-on reports and third-party reviews:
| Feature | Windows Super Resolution | Topaz Gigapixel AI | Photoshop Super Resolution | Google Magic Editor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (w/ Copilot+ PC) | Paid (Standalone) | Subscription (Creative Cloud) | Free/Paid (pixelselect) |
| AI Model Used | On-device (NPU) | Proprietary | Cloud/Local AI (Adobe) | Google Cloud AI |
| Batch Processing | No | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Target Users | Windows ecosystem | Pro photographers | Creative professionals | Android, web users |
| Overall Quality | Good (icons, web) | Excellent (photos) | Excellent | Excellent (for select use cases) |
Beyond Super Resolution: Bonus Features in the Copilot+ Toolbox
It would be shortsighted to cast Super Resolution as the only transformative addition of the Copilot+ era, despite its pivotal value among editors and content producers. The tiered release of new Copilot+ and NPU-powered features gives a glimpse into what may soon become standard across consumer Windows PCs:Generative Erase
Both the Windows Photos and Paint apps now feature a “Generative Erase” tool, which builds on the classic Spot Fix mode. This function enables users to remove dust, spots, wall blemishes, or even entire intruding objects from their images—no Photoshop skills required. Notably, Generative Erase does not require Copilot+ hardware, making it instantly more accessible. Unlike smartphone apps, which tend to optimize for quick sharing, Microsoft’s integration ensures that high-res images stored on OneDrive or local disks can be edited seamlessly.Journalists, for whom factual reporting and minimal photo manipulation are core principles, find generative editing to be a double-edged sword: erasing a distracting background element can enhance image focus, but it must not cross the line into visual misrepresentation. Microsoft’s choice to expose such powerful AI tools while retaining clear “undo” histories is a nod toward ethical transparency—a must for reputable publications.
Click-to-Do, Object Select, and Studio Effects
Additional AI enhancements aim to streamline multi-step workflows. Click-to-Do, described as an “intelligent right-click menu,” predicts likely next actions based on user habits and context. Object Select in Paint brings layer-like manipulation previously seen only in premium software directly to built-in Windows utilities. Windows Studio Effects, once the purview of pro streaming and conferencing suites, now standardizes background blur, noise filtering, and real-time gaze correction for millions of users.These features collectively shrink the learning curve for everyday editing and communication tasks, positioning Windows as both competitive with and distinct from its macOS and ChromeOS rivals in the AI-enabled productivity wars.
Challenges: Fragmentation, Messaging, and the NPU Dilemma
Despite evident strengths, the Copilot+ rollout has been dogged by confusion over hardware requirements. Critics and users alike have noted the lack of clarity as to which features depend on having an NPU, which work on older CPUs or GPUs, and which are (or soon will be) cloud-powered. Even seasoned reviewers have described this as “chaotic,” with clear marketing messages often lacking. The landscape is further muddied by Microsoft’s active experimentation—previewing Generative Fill (the reverse of erase: adding new elements to photos) but again gating it behind Copilot+ silicon.This has material business and user-experience implications:
- Early Adopter Uncertainty: Consumers are less likely to buy the first or even second wave of Copilot+ PCs if must-have features remain in limbo or if the delineation between old and new hardware feels arbitrary.
- Developer Complexity: App developers must accommodate a matrix of capability levels tied to diverse chipsets, raising the barrier to full Windows ecosystem optimization.
- AI Trust and Security: On-device AI improves privacy versus cloud models but shifts the responsibility for storage, recall snapshots, and potential data exposure locally—making robust documentation and controls a necessity.
A Real-World Perspective: Value Lies in the Details
Zooming out from technical minutiae, it’s the everyday usability of Copilot+ features that may ultimately determine the line’s longevity. Hachman’s experience echoes an underreported truth: the ‘killer app’ for advanced hardware is not always the most futuristic feature, but often the one that solves a repeated, persistent problem simply and elegantly. Scenarios like quickly upscaling an asset for a review, touching up on-site photography, or searching system settings in plain English are the true tests of meaningful progress.These micro-innovations translate, over time, into substantial cumulative productivity gains. Users who value convenience, speed, and cost-effectiveness are more likely to evangelize features that ‘just work’ for their workflows than those that dazzle purely in demos or press events.
The Road Ahead: What Should Users (and Microsoft) Expect?
Microsoft’s steady cadence of expanding AI features across built-in Windows utilities signals a broader strategic shift. The company wants Windows to be not simply a platform, but a living apparatus tuned for creativity, productivity, and—crucially—competitive market differentiation. In that push, exclusive features like Super Resolution are as much advertisements for the Copilot+ ecosystem as they are genuine value-adds for power users.The next phases promise both increased democratization (moving more features off the NPU ceiling as chips trickle down) and periodic disruption (with still-untested tools like Generative Fill poised to define, or divide, user expectations). The ongoing beta status of semantic search within Settings points to a future where AI quietly underpins every interaction with Windows—from first boot to last shutdown.
Conclusion: A Subtle Revolution, Powered by AI (and Usefulness)
In an era where “AI assistant” means everything and nothing, it is telling that the most impactful Copilot+ feature for one of the industry’s most respected journalists is neither Recall’s all-seeing memory nor the live translation of Netflix K-drama. Instead, it’s a thoughtfully designed, well-integrated Super Resolution tool—one that transforms a once-frustrating bottleneck into a frictionless moment of creation.This is the lesson for users and for Microsoft: the greatest breakthroughs may lie not in the realm of science fiction but in the down-to-earth, everyday challenges of digital work. As Copilot+ continues to evolve, scrutinizing both its headline features and the hidden gems will be key to understanding not just where the Windows platform is headed—but why, and for whom, it truly matters.
For early adopters and the AI-curious, the upgrade path is clearer—but so are the growing pains. For careful professionals, Super Resolution and Generative Erase offer tantalizing glimpses of a future where creative power is always just a click away. In the end, it’s the little things—done well, and done often—that drive revolutions forward, one pixel at a time.
Source: PCWorld I'm in love with an ultra-specific Windows Copilot+ feature
