As part of the Surface event, Microsoft has launched Recall, an AI feature that allows exploring everything you have seen and done on your Copilot Plus PC.
The Recall feature works like a personal historian for your Windows 11 PC. It will log everything you do on the PC and save this data as snapshots.
You can use the Recall search bar to find any information you need to remember.
For instance, you can use Recall to find a slide someone presented during a Zoom call.
This feature uses Live Captions and Translation to make each task on your PC searchable. This way, you can search for something said during a meeting and watch the meeting entirely.
Recall thus enables photographic memory for your Copilot Plus PCs. It leaves little room for security concerns as well.
Microsoft adds that Recall works entirely on the local system and does not share any information with the internet.
Users will have control over individual snapshots, recording range, settings, and what data is logged by Recall.
Microsoft states that Recall snapshots never leave your computer’s hard disk. These snapshots are encrypted and use BitLocker for safety. Since they are user-specific, other users on a Copilot Plus PC cannot access the snapshots, either.
Unsurprisingly, the Recall feature is currently available exclusively to Copilot Plus PCs.
This is because Copilot Plus PCs are equipped with a turbocharged Neural Processing Unit (NPU) capable of performing over 40 trillion operations per second.
Your Copilot Plus PC needs a minimum storage space of 256GB to enable Recall. Then, the feature will need 50GB of available storage space. Per the standard configuration, 25GB of storage space can accommodate three months of snapshots.
Your PC should also have a minimum RAM capacity of 16GB and a Snapdragon X chip optimized for performance and battery backup on Copilot Plus PCs.
In its Preview face, Recall is available in a few languages: English, Chinese (simplified), French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. However, Microsoft says it will add more languages before officially rolling out.
For reference, Copilot Plus PCs are available from manufacturers like Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, Dell, and ASUS. The cheapest of them all, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, costs $999.
However, Microsoft has clarified that Copilot and Recall will be made available for Intel and AMD chips in the future.
