Microsoft on Thursday introduced a trio of new products under its Surface family of products, as well as a new artificial intelligence assistant for Windows, at its “special event” in New York.
The new lineup includes the laptop Surface Laptop Studio 2, its more mainstream Surface Laptop Go 3, and the Surface Hub 3. Microsoft also unveiled a new artificial intelligence companion called Copilot, an assistant that will run on Windows 11.
The event comes at an awkward time, with Panos Panay, the chief product officer for Microsoft, having announced his departure earlier this week, with reports pegging to make the move to crosstown Big Tech rival Amazon. The unveiling also comes months after massive layoffs at the company, part of broader cuts across the tech industry (Amazon faced the same situation at its event yesterday).
Microsoft and Amazon (and Apple last week) are just the latest companies to hold big tech events in the fall, which is the last chance to unveil a new product ahead of the critical holiday shopping period. Expect more product events to come, with Google slated for its own devices event next month.
Here’s a breakdown of everything Microsoft unveiled today.
Microsoft Copilot
Just a day a after Amazon showed off the expanded capabilities of its Alexa assistant, Microsoft introduced Copilot, which likewise serves as an assistant on various Microsoft apps and on the Windows 11 operating system.
You’ll see it show up in programs like Microsoft 365, Bing and Edge. The company says the assistant will grab web data, your own work and analyze what you’re doing to offer helpful suggestions.
The company plans to add more capabilities to Copilot over time.
In other AI news, Microsoft said it would add Bing support for DALL.E 3 from OpenAI. DALL.E is an AI system that can images from a description in natural language, and is part of the explosion in popularity and interest in AI.
Surface Laptop Studio 2
Microsoft’s high-end convertible laptop can fold its display down into tablet mode. The second-generation model packs the 13th generation i7 processors from Intel and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4050 and 4060 graphics card. It features a 14.4-inch display. It’s also the first Windows computer to run an Intel neural processing unit.
It also has two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4, one USB-A 3.1 port, a microSD card reader, and a 1080p Full HD camera with wide field of view.
It packs as much as 2TB of storage and 64GB of RAM. The laptop gets up to 19 hours of battery life, but the exact time depends on the configuration.
Microsoft touts it as “the most powerful Surface we’ve ever built.”
The laptop starts at $1,999.99.
Surface Laptop Go 3
The Surface Laptop Go 3 is an update to Microsoft’s more conventional laptop. It features a 12.4-inch touchscreen and Microsoft touts its 2.5 lbs weight.
The laptop packs a 12th generation i5 processors from Intel and an Intel Iris Xe Graphics card. It comes with a removable 256GB solid-state hard drive and up to 16GB of RAM.
It packs one USB-C port and a USB-A port, as well as a 720p front-facing camera.
The laptop starts at $799.99.
Surface Hub 3
Definitely not for the home, Microsoft unveiled a third-generation version of its jumbo touchscreen display Surface Hub 3.
The Hub 3 runs the Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows. It features an 85 or 50-inch touchscreen and can support the ability to rotate the screen to portrait mode. It can also be mounted on a Steelcase Roam stand, that allows it to be moved around.
No price was given, but the previous version cost around $9,000.