Credit: Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
- Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PC program has a list of requirements for eligibility.
- Although upcoming Intel and AMD laptops will meet those criteria, it doesn’t appear those machines will actually have Copilot Plus approval.
- It’s possible that Snapdragon X-based laptops will be the only Copilot Plus machines to be launched in 2024.
In May, Microsoft took the wraps off a new program called Copilot Plus PC. This is a new identifier for laptops that meet certain criteria that allow them to support special on-device AI features. Among these criteria are a minimum of 16GB of RAM, 256GB of onboard storage, and a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
Out of the gate, Microsoft’s own Surface Laptop (7th-gen) and Surface Pro (11th-gen) will be Copilot Plus PCs. These machines run on the Snapdragon X Elite processor, a new Windows on Arm SoC designed to be powerful, battery-efficient, and AI-first. Along with the two Surface machines, there are many more laptops running Qualcomm silicon from half a dozen other OEMs.