Here's a summary of the key details from Ars Technica's article about the public rollout of Windows Recall: Windows Recall Release Overview
Windows Recall has been rolled out to the public, about a year after it was first announced by Microsoft.
It is only available on "Copilot+ PCs," which are a subset of Windows 11 systems sold within the last year or so.
Recall works by taking continuous screenshots of everything you do on your PC, saving these, extracting text, and storing them in a searchable database.
This feature has significant security and privacy implications; if someone gains access to your Recall database, they can see nearly everything you've done on your PC.
Development & Security
The release faced several challenges:
The initial launch attempt was criticized for lacking security protections.
It underwent several delays and a major overhaul.
Five months of Windows Insider beta testing helped Microsoft improve Recall.
Microsoft has added:
Stronger security controls.
Automated content filtering (though filtering for sensitive info isn't perfect).
Most importantly, Recall is now an "opt-in" feature—you have to activate it, rather than deactivate it if you don't want it. It can also be completely removed.
Other Features & Requirements
The same release brings:
An improved Windows Search that supports natural-language search.
"Click to Do," which allows users to copy text from images and quickly summarize or rewrite on-screen text.
Copilot+ PCs must have a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of 40+ TOPS (trillion operations per second). This enables more on-device AI processing.
Currently supported chips include Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite/Plus, Intel Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake), and AMD Ryzen AI 300.
Availability
Copilot+ features often appear on Qualcomm (ARM) devices before Intel/AMD (x86), but Recall and enhanced Search are now available on both platforms.
Some Click to Do features remain ARM-only for now.