{"id":272415,"date":"2025-11-19T22:37:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/272415\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T22:37:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:37:14","slug":"windows-11s-only-new-useful-feature-has-nothing-to-do-with-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/272415\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows 11’s Only New Useful Feature Has Nothing to Do With AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft has turned Windows 11 into a broiling soup of AI features<\/a>. Since Windows 10<\/a> is effectively dead, forcing the reported hundreds of millions<\/a> of lingering users to switch to the AI-filled version of Windows, all those features we miss most have gone with it. So finally, after more than four years, Microsoft is bringing back<\/a> a useful addition cribbed from the older version<\/a> of its operating system.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re like me, and you had a long love affair with Windows 10, you routinely click down to the Windows 11 taskbar, imagining you\u2019ll be able to check your calendar widget only to remind yourself Microsoft inexplicably removed that useful Windows 10 calendar flyout. At its Ignite 2025 conference on Tuesday<\/a>, Microsoft said it was adding back in the Calendar flyout when you click on the date and time stamp in the bottom right corner of the default Windows screen.<\/p>\n

\"WindowsWhy did it take us four years to get a calendar on the taskbar? \u00a9 Microsoft <\/p>\n

The fact that this feature was missing since October 2021 is egregious considering how many third-party alternative apps came out to bring back the Windows 10 calendar and clock. Nearly every other major feature announced for Windows 11 has centered on AI. Essentially, the Copilot chatbot<\/a> will infect every single text box inside the OS, including any outside app if you can\u2019t bother typing up your own texts and emails. Microsoft promises this AI text generation will run on a Copilot+ PC\u2019s<\/a> NPU, or neural processing unit, rather than working in the cloud. If you don\u2019t have a modern PC with the most recent Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm Snapdragon laptop chips<\/a>, the feature will work on the cloud instead.<\/p>\n

Even more AI, whether you want it or not \"WindowsMaybe you can get some use out of the new Fluid Dictation speech-to-text model. \u00a9 Microsoft <\/p>\n

Otherwise, like every other part of Windows 11, the taskbar is being overloaded with new AI capabilities with dubious use cases. The taskbar search function will also play host to Copilot, specifically the \u201cAsk Copilot\u201d function, which tries to get users to talk to their PCs<\/a>. Microsoft is also shoving its new Researcher app, which tries to create expansive research based on given prompts, right into the taskbar alongside your other common apps. Microsoft said users don\u2019t need to enable these taskbar apps if they don\u2019t want to. However, Copilot will also come to the File Explorer search bar with the promise it will summarize documents for you with one click.<\/p>\n

\"WindowsThe new Writing Assistance feature will be front and center across every app, almost like Gemini on ChromeOS. \u00a9 Microsoft <\/p>\n

The lone AI feature that could prove occasionally useful is a new \u201cFluid dictation,\u201d which is a speech-to-text feature that promises to generate legible text from your ramblings\u2014proper punctuation included. The feature should also excise any \u201cuhhs\u201d or other filler words. Otherwise, 365 apps like Outlook will start generating AI summaries for your emails, while Word will create automatic alt-text for any images you put in a document. The apps will also have a new \u201cAgent Mode\u201d for all current subscribers to generate spreadsheets and documents based on a prompt. These features may be occasionally useful if you\u2019re stuck using Microsoft 365 every day. Otherwise, it\u2019s just ammunition for Windows to serve you even more pop-up ads and banners trying to get you to subscribe to the tech giant\u2019s workplace apps.<\/p>\n

Why are we still begging for basic features? \"WindowsWho asked for this? \u00a9 Microsoft <\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s Ignite 2025 conference was supposed to reveal how Windows 11 would become an \u201cagentic\u201d OS. That means computers would be able to give Copilot a complex task, then let it work it out in the background while you\u2019re doing your own thing. This would also mean granting Copilot access to all your personal files, emails, photos, and more. Sure, the AI is essentially running in its own separate Windows client on the cloud, but it also means it needs to process your data on foreign servers. The company promised to keep user data secure.<\/p>\n

The changes are driving an inflection point among longtime Windows users and developers alike. Whether or not the new features prove useful may depend on exactly what you\u2019re using your Windows machine for. An average user may find the glut of AI apps to be confusing and unhelpful at best. The siren song of Linux is calling more than ever before, and with new devices like the Steam Machine<\/a> on the way, Linux PCs may have a more solid foothold in 2026 than ever before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft has turned Windows 11 into a broiling soup of AI features. Since Windows 10 is effectively dead,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,696,86,56,54,55,2869],"class_list":{"0":"post-272415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-microsoft","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-windows"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}