The team and I can't wait to go backHappenedwith the developer community this year.
Over the past year, Windows has experienced incredible growth thanks to the adoption of Windows 11. One of the most exciting growth drivers for Windows has been the developers themselves, who have seen a 24 percent increase in monthly development units on a year-over-year basis.
Artificial intelligence is the defining technology of our time and developers are at the forefront of this transformation. With the right tools, we can empower developers and our mutual customers to shape the future and make their mark on the world. We are only now beginning to see the amazing impact of AI on various industries and on our daily lives. Today, the team and I are excited to share the next steps we're taking on our journey with Windows 11 to take on the new AI era.
- We areintroduction of Windows Copilotmaking Windows 11 the first PC platform to announce centralized AI support to make it easier for people to shop and get things done.
- We extendBing Chat Plugins for Windows,enables developers to integrate their applications with Windows Copilot to better serve customers and increase engagement with native Windows applications.
- Introducing the newAI-read Hybridsupport the development of AIcross-platform andin Azure to the customer with newsilicone bracketfrom AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm.
- Meet Dev Homedesigned to help any developer be more productive on Windows.
- We are introducing new AI featuresand experiences in the Microsoft Store on Windows.
We can't wait to share more with you tomorrow at our Windows keynote,Be sure to sign up for Build and Tune In!
Introduction to Windows Copilot for Windows 11
We're excited to introduce Windows Copilot. Windows is the first PC platform to offer customers centralized AI support. With Bing Chat and proprietary and third-party plug-ins, you can focus on turning your ideas into reality, executing complex projects, and collaborating instead of wasting energy searching, launching, and working across multiple applications.
Invoking Windows Copilot is familiar and easy - the button is located front and center of the taskbar - easy to find and use. Once opened, the Windows Copilot sidebar remains consistent across all apps, programs, and windows, always available as your personal assistant. It turns any user into a super user and helps you shop, adjust settings and connect to your favorite apps. The things you love about Windows - copy/paste, Snap Assist, Snipping Tool, personalization - are here for you, along with all the other features of the platform, and Windows Copilot makes it even better. For example, in addition to copying and pasting, you can ask Windows Copilot to paraphrase, summarize, or explain the content.
Like Bing Chat, you can ask Windows Copilot a range of questions, from simple to complex. If I need to call family in Cyprus, I can quickly check the local time to make sure I don't wake them up in the middle of the night. If I want to plan a trip to visit them in Cyprus, I can ask Windows Copilot to find my family flights and accommodations for my winter holidays.
The Bing and ChatGPT plugins in Windows Copilot not only give people access to enhanced AI capabilities and environments, but also give you as developers new ways to reach and innovate with our mutual customers. We invite you to join the Windows Copilot journey by continuing to invest in Bing and ChatGPT plugins, transferring your investments to Windows Copilot.
Windows Copilot is rolling out in June as a preview for Windows 11, stay tunedISign hereto receive updates from the team.
It empowers any Windows 11 developer to be an AI developer
It's a great time to become a Windows developer. Opportunities in various industries - healthcare, finance, education, technology and more - are endless. We continue to invest in key tools to democratize how applications are developed for the new era of AI; Whether you're building on x86/x64 or Arm64, we want to make it easier for you to use AI-powered solutions in Windows apps in the cloud and at the edge.
If you're new to AI or wondering where to start, Microsoft and Windows will get you started. Today we are announcing the Windows AI Library, which will contain a curated collection of ready-to-use machine learning models and APIs to help accelerate AI development. We'll be sharing more details on availability and preview dates in the coming weeks.
Last year at Build, we announced Hybrid Loop, a new development pattern that enables hybrid AI scenarios for Azure and client devices. Today we are pleased to announce that our vision has become a reality by using the ONNX runtime as a gateway to Windows AI and Olive, a set of tools we created to ease the burden of optimizing models for various Windows and other entities. to decrease. With ONNX Runtime, third-party developers can access the same tools we use internally to run AI models on Windows or other devices with a CPU, GPU, NPU, or hybrid with Azure.
ONNX Runtime now supports the same API for running models on the device or in the cloud, enabling hybrid inference scenarios where the application can use local resources when possible and switch to the cloud when necessary. The new Azure EP preview lets you connect to models deployed in AzureML and even Azure OpenAI. With just a few lines of code, you can specify the cloud endpoint and specify the criteria for when to use the cloud. This gives you more control over cost and user experience, as Azure EP gives you the flexibility to choose at runtime between using a larger cloud model or a smaller on-premises model.
You can also optimize your models for different hardware targets with Olive, an extensible toolset that combines advanced compression, optimization, and model compilation techniques. You can use ONNX Runtime on various platforms such as Windows, iOS, Android and Linux, extending your investment in Windows AI to all application platforms.
BothONNX Runtime en Olivecontribute to the speed with which AI models can be implemented in applications. ONNX Runtime makes it easy to create stunning AI experiences on Windows and other platforms with less engineering and better performance.
Together with our partners, we are developing our vision of the future based on artificial intelligence
Windows 11 has the largest and most powerful GPU ecosystem in the world with over 200 million discrete AI-enabled GPUs. Windows PCs like Surface Studio 2+ and PCs built by partners like Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung are powered byNVIDIAGPU. Developers can now use these GPUs to run state-of-the-art transformer models such as NVIDIA's Dolly 2.0, Stable Diffusion, and NeMo, pre-optimized for Windows.
NPU (Neural Processing Units) are specially designed accelerators for efficiently running AI models. Our partners continue to innovate and deliver - just like usQualcommwith Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 Compute Platform currently enabling Windows devices including Surface Pro 9 5G and Windows Dev Kit 2023. Olive & ONNX Runtime allows you to power Qualcomm AI Engine Direct SDK to run AI models on the 8cx Gen 3 NPU computing platform.
We're excited to see all of our silicon partners launch more Windows devices with NPUs later this year.amdrecently gave developers early access to Ryzen™ AI software to run AI models on AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series processors with Ryzen™ AI.Intel exampletheir new Meteor Lake product, an all-new chipletSoC architecture that will feature Intel's first integrated AI engine that will scale across the Windows ecosystem later this year, as well as development tools including ONNX Runtime support powered by OpenVino-EP and DirectML EP.
Partners such as WhatsApp, Luminar Neo, and Camo are making incredible performance leaps and unlocking new end-user experiences by using NPUs to run their AI models. Port your apps to the Windows platform and use the ONNX runtime to deliver AI experiences like Camo. We can't wait to see what the Windows developer community will create with new AI toolchains and NPU hardware improvements.
New experiences designed to help every developer be more productive on Windows 11
A developer's life is one of constant manual configuration of development machines with too many clicks, multiple logins to tools, navigating sub-optimal file system performance, and context switching, and we know these disruptions can significantly impact your productivity. Today we are pleased to announce new features and improvements at all stages of the Windows development lifecycle.
Introducing Dev Home: Your New Productivity Partner
With a renewed focus on your productivity, we're announcing a new home for Windows developers: Dev Home. Dev Home is a new experience in Windows 11, now in preview, that takes you to the zone and streamlines your workflow with features such as WinGet install for easier and faster installation, Dev Drive for better file system performance, and a new dashboard that can be customized to keep track of all your workflows and tasks in one place. Dev Home makes it easy to connect to GitHub and set up an encryption engine for the repositories you care about, and easily install the tools and packages you need. Dev Home can also set up cloud coding environments using Microsoft Dev Box and GitHub Codespaces. With Dev Home, designed by and for developers, you now have your best productivity companion, so you can focus on what you do best: writing code.BetterDev Home preview on the Microsoft Store today.Learn more about Dev Home
Unattended and reliable development machine installation: reduce installation time from days to hours
Get ready to code in just a few clicks with the new WinGet configuration. This maintenance-free, reliable and repeatable mechanism eliminates the manual effort of setting up a new machine or deploying a new project and eliminates the need to search for the right software version, packages, tools and frameworks to download or settings to apply. to fit. WinGet Configuration reduces this manual and error-prone process to a single command with the WinGet configuration file. Just run "winget configure" on the command line and when you're done, you're ready to start coding!Learn more about setting up WinGet
Introducing Dev Drive: a new storage volume tailored for developers: supercharged for performance and security
We know that you often deal with repositories containing many thousands of files and folders, and historically this has been a challenge for heavy I/O operations such as builds.
Today we're announcing Dev Drive, a new type of storage volume tailored for developers with a file system that offers both performance and security.
Dev Drive is built on the Resilient File System which, when combined with the new Performance Mode feature in Microsoft Defender for Antivirus, provides up to a 30% build-time file system improvement for file I/O scenarios. The new performance mode is more secure for your workloads than directory or process exclusions and offers the best solution to balance security and performance.
Dev Home makes it easy to set up a Dev Drive as part of the environment setup process. It is supercharged to host project source code, workbooks and package caches. Dev Drive will be available for preview later this week.Maak Mother Dev Drive.
Track your workflows efficiently on the new customizable dashboard in Dev Home
Dev Home also helps you manage any type of project you're working on - Windows, cloud, web, mobile or AI - by putting all the information you need at your fingertips in one customizable dashboard. You can enhance your Dev Home environment by adding GitHub widgets to efficiently track all your coding jobs or pull requests and projects from one central location, as well as system widgets to track CPU and GPU performance.We're working with Team Xbox to bring the GDK to Dev Home to make it easier to get started with game development. Want to add your own custom extensions? You can do it in Dev Home.
The developer's homepage is open source. We value the community's contribution to this experience and want to build it with you. Contribute and collaborate with usGitHub Magazine
Dev Home is in preview from today, you caninstallateur Dev Homefrom the Microsoft Store today.
Your favorite tool, Windows Terminal, gets smarter with GitHub Copilot X
GitHub Copilot users can use natural language AI in both inline and experimental chat to recommend commands, fix bugs, and perform actions in the Terminal app. We are also experimenting with AI powered by GitHub Copilot in other developer tools like WinDBG to help you get things done with less consumption.
Join the GitHub Copilot Chat waiting list to gain accessto these features as they become available.
It reduces wear and tear and unlocks the fun and enjoyment of Windows programming with new features and improvements
The team has listened closely to which improvements you're most focused on, including taskbar improvements:
- You can now quickly identify and open any instance of any application on the taskbar with a single click. All application instances are not grouped by taskbar labels.
- You can now hide your time and date using a taskbar setting. This option allows users to hide the time to stay focused, take screenshots without editing to hide the time and date. This feature is located on the Time and Date Settings page in Windows Settings.
- Quickly and easily close applications with a single right-click on the application directly from the taskbar without opening the task list.
Apart from…
- We've added built-in support for additional archive formats including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz and many more using the libarchive open source project. You now get better archiving performance when compressing in Windows.
- We've added tab tearing to Windows Terminal so you can easily organize different shells into windows according to your needs.
Continue to innovate and accelerate the development of Windows on Arm
We started last yearDeveloper Kit for Windows 2023, and native ARM versions of Visual Studio and .NET to accelerate development in ARM. Windows continues this momentum by adopting more third-party Windows applications, middleware partners, and open source software built into ARM.Learn how to add shoulder support to your applications.
- Visual Studio 17.6 now ships with MAUI support for Arm.
- Visual Studio 17.71 Preview 1 now ships with support for Linux development in C++.
- LLVM v12.0 and above for cross-compilation and native compilation options for Arm.
- Node 20.0.0 will be available in April with built-in support for Arm.
- The WiX v4.0 installer is available for creating native installers for Arm.
- New middleware projects released in the last 12 months: Qt 6.2, CMake 3.24, Basel, 5.1, OpenSSL 3.0, OpenBLAS, 0.3.21, Python 3.11.
- Unity-speler:Unity Player is now generally available for Windows on Arm. Developers using the game engine can easily target Windows on Arm devices for native performance on current and future titles.
- Additional fixes coming soon in Arm64 For example GNU GCC, Flutter & Dart, PyTorch, GIMP.
In addition to Microsoft's investment in the ARM platform, there are many developers who recognize the value of native ARM support and have released native ARM64 versions of their experience to provide the best experience for their customers.
Here are just some of the latest products launched:
- Luminarny Neo
- TopHatch Concepts
- adobe to
- magnification
- Best movie
- Brave browser
- Sketchy plus
- Symantec Endpoint Security
- VMware black carbon
- Full McAfee protection
- BitDefender Endpoint Security
- Fully secured endpoint
- THE CAKE
- Libre Office
And many others with plans to publish in the near future:
New features to keep users engaged
Illuminated accessories are gaining in popularity and can add energy and excitement to using a computer. Currently, many of these improvements rely on third-party apps and integrations that are highly fragmented. Dynamic lighting allows Windows users to effortlessly configure and customize their devices with RGB lighting right from Windows settings. It's never been easier to get all your RGB accessories to work seamlessly with your Windows apps. This month, we're rolling out a preview of Dynamic Lighting to Windows Insiders so developers and hardware partners can experiment with new accessories and RGB component integrations.
New features and experiences in the Microsoft Store on Windows
We're committed to not only providing the best tools to build great apps, but also improving the Microsoft Store, the open platform on Windows that gives you the reach and growth you want.
Today we are proud to announce new AI-powered features, expanded Microsoft Store advertising, and new tools to help you reach your customers:
- Microsoft Store AI Hub:Soon we will introduce a special section in the Microsoft Store for Windows that brings together the best AI experiences from the development community and Microsoft.
- Keywords generated by artificial intelligence in the Microsoft Store:To help optimize app discovery, we're introducing a new tool in Partner Center that uses AI to generate and suggest app search tags to improve visibility.
- IN-Summary of the generated rating:We're making it faster and easier for customers to browse app reviews by using the power of AI to compile thousands of reviews into a simple overview so customers can easily discover new content.
- Microsoft Store ads:Starting in June, Microsoft Store ads will expand outside the United States to more than 150 regions around the world. You also have more ways to reach your customers with a new high-traffic premium spot in Store and Bing.com search results.
- To backup and restore apps:To help you retain customers when they switch devices, we're improving app backup and restore.This update is in preview and available to Windows Insiders starting today.
To learn more about what we announced today in the Microsoft Store for Windows, including new AI-powered experiences and developer tools, visitvisit this blog post.
Building the future of Windows together
It's an exciting time for developers, especially on Windows, and we're excited to be on this journey with you. From the moment you open your device, you'll have the best productivity tools at your fingertips to do your best work. With the incredible momentum surrounding the new AI era, we can't wait to see what you create next.
We want you to spend your time creating and building code that only you can write. We believe that with a renewed focus on supercharger developer productivity, Windows now provides the best platform to create groundbreaking customer experiences, and is also the best platform to reach those customers with minimal cost and effort. We are honored to be with you on this journey.
Check out our new one to learn more about these great new featuresWindows Developer Centercollects our news and resources in one place. Our Windows Insiders will get access to a range of these new features in the Insider Preview build later this week. And don't forget to check out our various Microsoft Build sessions to learn more about everything we've announced.
Update May 24, 2023: This blog post has been updated to add more information about the AI library