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Microsoft Surface Laptop and Tablets

Courtesy: Microsoft

Microsoft on Thursday unveiled new Surface computers and shared details on the release of this year’s version of Windows 11, including its embedded Copilot AI assistant, during an event in New York.

The company introduced the Surface Laptop Studio 2 and the Surface Laptop Go 3, and unveiled enterprise availability for Microsoft 365 Copilot, its supplemental AI tool for core productivity apps like Word and Excel.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella began the event by speaking about how the company’s Copilot AI tools will make a broad impact across its user base for consumers and enterprises.

“I mean, it’s crazy,” he said. “It’s kind of like the 90s are back. It’s exciting to be in a place where we’re bringing some software innovation and really having fun enjoying this entire journey.”

Rivals such as Atlassian, Google and Salesforce have also been racing to update their existing products with generative AI this year.

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 starts at $1,999, while the Surface Laptop Go 3 starts at $799. Both will ship with Microsoft’s revamped Windows 11 operating system, which includes its Copilot software. The new Surface models will be available Oct. 3 and are available for pre-order today, Microsoft said. 

Notably absent from the event was Panos Panay, the Microsoft executive who presented Surface computers to the public for a decade. On Monday Microsoft announced a series of leadership changes as it disclosed that Panay was leaving.

Here’s a rundown of Thursday’s news:

Windows 11 update

Microsoft’s updated Paint app for Windows 11 will allow people to create images by just typing in a few words.

Microsoft

Microsoft said it will begin rolling out the next major update to Windows 11 on Sept. 26.

The update will include the new Copilot in the Bing search engine and the Edge web browser, and people will be able to summon the Copilot by holding down the Windows key and pressing the C key.

Here are some of the key features of the new version:

Testers have gotten access to some of these features in early builds in recent months.

Copilot for advertising

Microsoft Advertising Platform will get a Copilot assistant that will be able to create advertising copy and imagery.

Microsoft

Microsoft is also incorporating generative AI into its advertising tool, although the company did not disclose when exactly it will do so.  A Copilot for the Microsoft Advertising Platform will be able to answer marketers’ questions through a chat interface.

And over time, it will help automate the process of coming up with ads. Alphabet and Meta have both been active in this area.

“Using Copilot in the Microsoft Advertising Platform, you can tailor content, design, and strategies to your branding and advertising goals, creating stunning and effective ads in minutes,” Kya Sainsbury-Carter, corporate VP for advertising at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.

Surface Laptop Studio 2

Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio

Courtesy: Microsoft

The Surface Laptop Studio 2 has a similar look and feel to the original model that launched in 2021. It can be used like a traditional laptop with a keyboard, but customers can also lay it flat and use it like a tablet.

It offers a 13th-generation Intel Core chip, with a few options for Nvidia graphics processing units: the GeForce RTX 4050 or 4060, or the RTX 2000 Ada Generation. Models with Nvidia graphics will come with 120-watt power supplies. Or people can choose integrated graphics with Intel Iris Xe.

Microsoft has also added a single traditional USB-A port, along with a MicroSD card reader.

People can choose to include up to 64GB of RAM, compared with a maximum of 32GB in the first iteration.

The device has an 14.4-inch screen and is the “most powerful Surface ever built,” Brett Ostrum, Microsoft’s VP of Surface devices, said at the event. He added that the Surface Laptop Studio 2 is twice as fast as the previous model, and it also features an updated haptic touchpad, which is the “most inclusive touchpad on any laptop today.”

Models with 2TB of storage and Nvidia graphics boast up to 16 hours of battery life, while devices with less space and Nvidia cards can deliver up to 18 hours, while Intel graphics models have a 19-hour capacity, Microsoft said. The company claimed the inaugural Surface Laptop Studio boasted 18 hours of battery life, but CNBC found it generally lasted closer to 4.5 hours.

The new version starts at $1,999, compared with $1,599 for the original model.

Surface Laptop Go 3

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go

Courtesy: Microsoft

Surface Go 4

Microsoft Surface Go For Business

Courtesy: Microsoft

Microsoft announced the Surface Go 4, the latest miniature version of its Surface Pro tablet that’s available exclusively for organizations. The company suggested in a release that the new model could be especially useful for businesses and frontline workers.

The Surface Go 4 can be docked to a monitor, used as a laptop with a paired keyboard or like a tablet using the touch screen.

It’s powered by an Intel N200 processor. The Surface Go 4 also features an 10.5-inch touchscreen display and supports 12.5 hours of battery life, which is an increase from the 11 hours of battery life offered by the Surface Go 3.

Surface Hub 3

Surface Hub 3

Courtesy: Microsoft

Microsoft hasn’t forgotten about its Surface Hub, its large touchscreen device for use in the office.

A 85-inch model and a smaller 50-inch option offer organizations an easy way to join Teams video calls. During Teams calls, software will be able to remove the background from various participants and adjust their sizes, Microsoft product marketing director Frank Buchholz wrote in a blog post.

The smaller version can switch between portrait and landscape modes. Two people can simultaneously draw or write on the devices with Surface Hub Pens or Surface Slim pens.

Microsoft is touting 60% better performance in the main processor of these devices and a 160% bump for their graphics processing units.

Microsoft 365 Copilot release for big businesses

Large organizations will be able to start paying for Microsoft 365 Copilot starting Nov. 1.

The launch could provide a financial boost to Microsoft 365, formerly known as Office 365, a key part of the business that had 382 million commercial seats in the fiscal third quarter. Microsoft said enterprises can call their account representatives to get started.

Companies that participated in the tool’s early access program will be given first chance to deploy the software, which will cost $30 per person per month on top of Microsoft 365’s existing costs. Microsoft has also started allowing some small businesses into the early access program.

“In the testing that we’ve already done with preview customers, you’re in a meeting, you can have a meeting summary, and the AI can summarize the entire meeting and give it to you in bite-sized chunks, Yusuf Mehdi, the new head of Surface and Windows at Microsoft, told CNBC’s Steve Kovach.

“If you missed the meeting, you can tell me what happened out of it, you can say to get action items, what did my boss say, when was I mentioned, and you can get all that. That time is unbelievably precious, and for $30 a month, it’s an incredible value. People really love that capability.”

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Apple-supplier Luxshare shares pop 10% on report of OpenAI hardware deal

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Apple-supplier Luxshare shares pop 10% on report of OpenAI hardware deal

In this photo illustration, the Luxshare Precision company logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen.

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Shenzhen-listed Luxshare saw its shares jump about 10% on Monday, following a report that the Chinese device assembler had signed a deal with OpenAI to produce a consumer AI device. 

The company, which is also a supplier for Apple, is already developing a prototype of the device using ChatGPT large language models, The Information reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

One source said that one of the products OpenAI has talked to suppliers about making would resemble a smart speaker without a display, which could put it in competition with Apple devices using Siri, with the company targeting late 2026 or early 2027 for its first device launches.

Luxshare’s 10% jump brought its year-to-date gains to about 50%. Most stocks on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange aren’t allowed to trade up or down more than 10% in a single day, relative to the previous day’s closing price. The company is also reportedly considering a secondary listing in Hong Kong this year. 

Luxshare and OpenAI did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on path to profitability: Willing to run at a loss to focus on growth

OpenAI has long been signaling a desire to push into dedicated AI devices, presenting a potential challenge to Apple and its iPhone. 

As part of these plans, The Information reported that OpenAI has been poaching staff from Apple to join its hardware division, now led by ex-Apple executive Tang Tan.

Earlier this year, the AI company, headed by Sam Altman, partnered with former Apple designer Jony Ive after buying his hardware startup, io Products, in a $6.4 billion deal. Ive is responsible for designing many of Apple’s most iconic products, including the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air.

An OpenAI partnership with Luxshare would bring Apple’s longtime supplier — responsible for assembling items like the AirPods and Vision Pro — into the AI comapny’s orbit.

The AI company has also approached China-based Goertek, which also assembles AirPods, HomePods and Apple Watches, to provide components, including speaker modules, for its planned devices, according to the Information report.

OpenAI has been pushing deeper into hardware, hiring the former head of Meta’s Orion augmented reality glasses initiative in November to lead its robotics and consumer hardware efforts.

In the same month, OpenAI invested in robot startup Physical Intelligence, which focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” according to its website.

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Apple takes control of all core chips in iPhone Air with new architecture to prioritize AI

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Apple takes control of all core chips in iPhone Air with new architecture to prioritize AI

iPhone Air is the big newcomer among Apple‘s latest lineup that went on sale Friday, but inside the slim phone’s raised plateau is another new piece of hardware that signals a renewed focus on artificial intelligence. 

Apple’s custom A19 Pro chip introduces a major architecture change, with neural accelerators added to each GPU core to increase compute power. Apple also debuted its first ever wireless chip for iPhone, the N1, and a second generation of its iPhone modem, the C1X. It’s a move analysts say gives Apple control of all the core chips in its phones.

“That’s where the magic is. When we have control, we are able to do things beyond what we can do by buying a merchant silicon part,” said Tim Millet, Apple vice president of platform architecture. He sat down with CNBC at Apple Park in September for the first U.S. interview about the new chips.

Until now, Broadcom was the main provider of wireless and bluetooth chips for iPhones, although Apple has made networking chips for the AirPods and Apple Watch for nearly a decade. Apple’s N1 is in the entire iPhone 17 lineup and the iPhone Air.

Arun Mathias, Apple vice president of wireless software technologies and ecosystems, gave CNBC an example of the N1’s improved Wi-Fi functionality. 

“One of the things people may not realize is that your Wi-Fi access points actually contribute to your device’s awareness of location, so you don’t need to use GPS, which actually costs more from a power perspective,” Mathias said. “By being able to do this more seamlessly in the background, not needing to wake up the application processor as much, we can do that significantly more efficiently.”

Apple’s new custom SoC for iPhone, A19 Pro, has neural accelerators added to the GPU cores to prioritize AI workloads

Emily Park

For iPhone modems, Qualcomm has been the sole provider since 2020. That changed in February when Apple unveiled the C1 in the iPhone 16e. It’s a plan first set in motion in 2019, with Apple’s purchase of Intel’s modem business for $1 billion. Qualcomm has long warned investors of the coming change. 

Qualcomm modems remain in the iPhone 17, 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, but Apple’s C1X is in the iPhone Air. 

“It may not be as good as Qualcomm’s yet, in terms of just overall throughput and performance, but they can control it and they can make it run at lower power. So you’re going to get better battery life,” said Ben Bajarin, CEO of Creative Strategies, a technology research and consulting firm. He expects Apple to “completely phase out” Qualcomm in the “next couple of years.”

Apple’s Mathias said the C1X is “up to twice as fast” as the C1 and “uses 30% less energy” than the Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 16 Pro.

Neither Qualcomm or Broadcom saw much market impact following Apple’s announcement, and both companies will maintain licensing deals with Apple for certain core technologies.

AI accelerators on A19 Pro

Apple’s three new chips come amid increasing pressure from Wall Street about the company’s AI strategy.

“They probably won’t ever have their own Apple model like Google or OpenAI,” Bajarin said. “They’re still going to run those services on iPhone, right? They want the iPhone to be the best place for developers to run their AI.”

Apple has been making its own system on a chip, or SoC, since the A series launched with the iPhone 4 in 2010. The latest generation A19 Pro has a new chip architecture that prioritizes AI workloads, adding neural accelerators to the GPU cores.

“We are building the best on-device AI capability that anyone else has,” Millet told CNBC. “Right now we are focused on making sure that these phones that we’re shipping today, or shipping soon, will be capable of all the important on-device AI workloads that are coming.”

Privacy is a major reason Apple is prioritizing on-device AI, but Millet said there’s another reason, too. 

“It is efficient for us. It is responsive. We know that we are much more in control over the experience,” he said. 

One “built-in AI” feature Millet highlighted is the new front camera that uses AI to detect a new face and automatically switches to taking a horizontal photo. “It’s leveraging a full complement of almost all the capabilities in the A19 Pro,” Millet said.

Apple’s original AI hardware, its Neural Engine, was first unveiled back in 2017. It was barely mentioned at the launch. Instead, it’s all about adding compute power to the GPUs. 

“The integration of the neural processing is reaching MacBook Pro class performance inside an iPhone,” Millet said. “It’s a big, big step forward in ML compute. And so when you look inside the Neural Engine, for example, you have a lot of dense matrix math. We didn’t have that capability in our GPU. But now we do with A19 Pro.”

Bajarin told CNBC that Apple’s neural accelerators may work similarly to the tensor cores on Nvidia‘s AI chips, such as the H100.

“We’re integrating neural processing in a way that allows someone who’s writing a program to one of those small processors, extending the instruction set so they have a new class of computer that they have access to right there, and they can switch back and forth between 3D-rendering instructions and neural-processing instructions, all seamlessly inside the same microprogram,” Millet said.

Apple’s previous generation A19 SoC is in the base model iPhone 17, while the A19 Pro is in the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 and 17 Pro Max.

Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro shown on September 9, 2025 at Apple Park in California has enhanced 3D-rendering capabilities powered by Apple’s custom chip, A19 Pro, with neural accelerators added to the 6 GPU cores.

Katie Tarasov

Following overheating issues in the iPhone 15, a new “vapor chamber” in the Pro models keeps the custom chips cool.

“It’s actually positioned in concert with where the system on a chip, the A19 Pro is positioned,” said Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPhone product marketing. “We think about how that all goes together, including with that forged unibody aluminum design, which is incredibly thermally conductive so that we can effectively dissipate heat with the vapor chamber, with where it’s positioned with our chip. And it’s even laser welded into it, which creates a metallic bond which also helps dissipate heat.”

More chips, more U.S. manufacturing

Apple still relies on others for smaller components, like Samsung for memory and Texas Instruments for analog chips. All bigger core chips, however, may be Apple-designed in every iPhone as soon as next year, according to Bajarin.

“We expect that there would be modems coming to Mac. We would expect there’s modems coming to iPad. There’s probably N variants of the networking chip coming to Mac,” Bajarin said. “I think over the course of the next few years, it will be on all of the portfolio.”

When CNBC asked Apple’s Millet if neural accelerators will be in the GPU cores of M5, the next anticipated SoC for Mac, he said, “We have a unified approach to architecture.”

The iPhone maker plans to manufacture at least some of its custom chips in the U.S., at facilities like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company‘s new campus in Arizona, where CNBC got a tour of the first completed fab.

Apple’s A19 Pro is made at the leading edge of TSMC’s 3-nanometer node. While TSMC is working toward 3nm production in Arizona by 2028, it’s not there yet.

“If you need to be on the leading edge, it’s going to be Taiwan for the time being,” Bajarin said. 

In August, Trump announced a 100% tariff on chips from companies not making domestically. That same day, Apple increased its U.S. spending commitment to $600 billion over the next four years. CEO Tim Cook said part of that will go toward creating an “end-to-end silicon supply chain right here in America.”

“There’s really a question of what part of tariffs impact the silicon supply chain,” Bajarin said. “This is obviously why Apple and Tim Cook are on their mission and out there talking about investing in America.”

As part of that plan, Bajain said Apple could give struggling U.S. chipmaker Intel “serious consideration if 14A really does deliver on all of its promises.” Although, he added, it’s “going to be awhile” before Intel “becomes a viable option.”

For now, Apple is committed to making chips at TSMC Arizona.

“We are super excited about TSMC’s push into U.S. manufacturing. Obviously it will help us from a time zone perspective, and we also appreciate that the diversity of the supply is also really important,” Millet said.

When asked if he knows how much of Apple’s $600 billion U.S. spend will go toward custom silicon, Millet said, “I hope it’s a lot.”

Watch the video to see a behind-the-scenes look at Apple’s latest custom silicon.

Kif Leswing contributed to this report.

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Hands-on with the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses

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Hands-on with the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., wears a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Display AI glasses during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

When it comes to the new $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, it’s the device’s accompanying fuzzy, gray wristband that truly dazzles.

I was able to try out Meta’s next-generation smart glasses that the social media company announced Wednesday at its annual Connect event. These are the first glasses that Meta sells to consumers with a built-in display, marking an important step for the company as it works toward CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of having headsets and glasses overtake smartphones as people’s preferred form of computing.

The display on the new glasses, though, is still quite simplistic. Last year at Connect, Meta unveiled its Orion glasses, which are a prototype capable of overlaying complex 3D visuals onto the physical world. Those glasses were thick, required a computing puck and were built for demo purposes only.

The Meta Ray-Ban Display, however, is going on sale to the public, starting in the U.S. on Sept. 30.

Though the new glasses include just a small digital display in their right lens, that screen enables unique visual functions, like reading messages, seeing photo previews and reading live captions while having a conversation with someone.

Controlling the device requires putting on its EMG sensor wristband that detects the electrical signals generated by a person’s body so they can control the glasses via hand gestures. Putting it on was just like strapping on a watch, except for the small, electric jolt I felt when it activated. It wasn’t as much of a shock as you feel taking clothes out of the dryer, but it was noticeable.

Donning the new glasses was less shocking, until I had them on and saw the little display emerge, just below my right cheek. The display is like a miniaturized smartphone screen but translucent so as to not obscure real-world objects.

Despite being a high-resolution display, the icons weren’t always clear when contrasted with my real-world field of view, causing the letters to appear a bit murky. These visuals aren’t meant to wrap around your head in crystal-clear fidelity, but are there for you to perform simple actions, like activating the glasses’ camera and glancing at the songs on Spotify. It’s more utility than entertainment.

The Meta Ray-Ban Display AI glasses with the Meta Neural Band wristband at Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

I had the most fun trying to perform hand gestures to navigate the display and open apps. By clenching my fist and swiping my thumb on the surface of my pointer finger, I was able to scroll through the apps like I was using a touchpad.

It took me several attempts at first to open the camera app through pinching my index finger and thumb together, and when the app wouldn’t activate I would find myself pinching twice, mimicking the double clicking of a mouse on a computer. But whereas using a mouse is second nature to me, I learned I have subpar pinching skills that lack the correct cadence and timing required to consistently open the app.

It was a bit strange and amusing to see people in front of me while I continuously pinched my fingers to interact with the screen. I felt like I was reenacting an infamous comedy scene from the TV show “The Kids in The Hall” in which a misanthrope watches people from afar while pinching his fingers and saying, “I’m crushing your head, I’m crushing your head!”

With the camera app finally opened, the display showed what I was looking at in front of me, giving me a preview of how my photos and videos would turn out. It was like having my own personal picture-in-picture feature like you would on a TV.

I found myself experiencing some cognitive dissonance at times as my eyes were constantly figuring out what to focus on due to the display always sitting just outside the center of my field of view. If you’ve ever taken a vision test that involves identifying when you see squiggly lines appearing in your periphery, you have a sense of what I was feeling.

Besides pinching, the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses can also be controlled using the Meta AI voice assistant, just as users can with the device’s predecessors.

When I took a photo of some of the paintings decorating the demo room’s halls, I was told by support staff to ask Meta AI to explain to me what I was looking at. Presumably, Meta AI would have told me I was looking at various paintings from the Bauhaus art movement, but the digital assistant never activated correctly before I was escorted to another part of the demo.

I could see the Meta Ray-Ban Display’s live captions feature being helpful in noisy situations, as it successfully picked up the voice of the demo’s tour guide while dance music from the Connect event blared in the background. When he said “Let’s all head to the next room,” I saw his words appear in the display like closed-captions on a TV show.

But ultimately, I was most drawn to the wristband, particularly when I listened to some music with the glasses via Spotify. By rotating my thumb and index finger as if I was turning an invisible stereo knob,
I was able to adjust the volume, an expectedly delightful experience.

It was this neural wristband that really drilled into my brain how much cutting-edge technology has been crammed into the new Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses. And while the device’s high price may turn off consumers, the glasses are novel enough to potentially attract developers seeking more computing platforms to build apps for.

WATCH: Next important wearable tech will be glasses, says Meta’s chief product officer.

Meta's chief product officer on its latest AI smart glasses

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