Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella spoke at the company’s campus in Redmond, Washington on May 20, 2024.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
Microsoft The company announced on Wednesday that it will be test releasing its controversial artificial intelligence search feature, “Recall,” to Windows users starting in October.
Recall takes screenshots of on-screen activity, allowing users to search for information they’ve previously seen. Security researchers quickly raised concerns about the risk of Windows automatically capturing images without users’ consent. Researchers released open-source software showing how personal information could be easily made accessible to attackers. Microsoft responded in June, saying Recall would be turned off by default. It also promised to tighten security for the feature.
Microsoft didn’t say when it would release more broadly to Windows computers that meet the system requirements for the Recall feature, which the company is calling Copilot+ PCs. Microsoft announced this new class of Windows PCs from a range of device makers that can run AI workloads, and showed off Recall running on those PCs at the May event.
Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows and Devices, spoke about Recall at the Microsoft May 20 Briefing event in Redmond, Washington on May 20, 2024.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
Device makers are keen to show that users can run AI models on their local PCs, rather than relying on cloud-based servers from OpenAI or other companies to fulfill requests. apple The company has released a MacBook that can run AI models, and Microsoft’s latest Surface Pro is a Copilot+ PC that can also run local AI.
The timing of the recall’s broad release may be important: If Microsoft rolls it out to all devices that support it by then, consumers may be more interested in buying new computers during the holiday season.
““We are committed to providing our customers with a reliable and secure Recall (Preview) experience on Copilot+ PCs, and Recall will be available to Windows Insiders starting in October,” Microsoft said in an update to its June blog post on Wednesday. “As we announced on June 13, we adjusted our release approach to leverage the valuable expertise of the Windows Insider community before making Recall available on all Copilot+ PCs.”
Security has become a higher priority for Microsoft’s general engineers. In the current fiscal year that began July 1, the company will include cybersecurity contributions in employee evaluations and in pay. The company has pledged to revamp its security processes after a Department of Homeland Security report released in April about China’s unauthorized access to Microsoft-based email accounts of U.S. government officials raised some concerns.
“Security continues to be our number one priority,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts on a July conference call.