Microsoft’s Windows 11 brings the Start menu to the center of the screen.
Jordan Novet | CNBC
Microsoft on Tuesday said it started rolling out the next major update to its Windows 11 PC operating system. The new version contains a chatbot called Copilot that bears some resemblance to startup OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
Copilot is a generative artificial intelligence that can create human-like text and other content with just a few words of human direction. It relies on underlying large language models that Microsoft-backed OpenAI has trained on voluminous sets of data to compose email text, answer questions and automatically perform actions in Windows, augmenting its knowledge with information from websites.
Microsoft upgraded its Bing search engine with a chatbot earlier this year, and now a variation is enhancing the latest version of the world’s most widely used PC operating system. Meanwhile, later this week, the company will start selling the Microsoft 365 Copilot, an AI add-on for corporate workers that use its productivity apps.
PC-specific features in the Windows Copilot include the ability to open apps, switch to dark mode, turn on Bluetooth and get guidance on making a screenshot. While you’re looking at a website in the Edge browser, you can have the Copilot come up with a summary of what’s on the page. On Apple’s Mac computers, people can have conversations with the Siri assistant, but its answers aren’t as detailed as those from Windows Copilot.
Windows 11 now represents about 24% of desktop PCs, according to StatCounter data, while Windows 10, which will be supported until October 2025, controls almost 72% of the market. After that, Windows 11, which debuted in 2021, could become more popular.
“We are seeing accelerated Windows 11 deployments worldwide from companies like BP, Eurowings, Kantar and RBC,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on a conference call with analysts last week.
Windows remains important at Microsoft, providing one-tenth of total revenue. Microsoft wants to keep Windows relevant because it’s a foundation for the company’s Microsoft 365 productivity applications and a springboard for growth in the Azure public cloud.
Copilot is probably the biggest part of this year’s Windows 11 release. Some people are already using Copilot, by way of a “continuous innovation” release that Microsoft issued in September. The process gives the company a way to provide new features to customers a few times a year, rather than sticking to the previously announced annual schedule.
When you click on the new Copilot icon in the taskbar or hit the Windows+C keyboard shortcut, you can bring up a panel on the right side of your display where you can have a text conversation with the new virtual assistant. It’s meant to be more capable than Cortana, which Microsoft introduced in 2015 with the launch of Windows 10 and has been gradually eliminating.
Here’s a list of some of the other new features of the Windows 11 2023 Update, also known as 23H2:
A virtual video editor. An auto-compose feature in the built-in Clipchamp video-editing app is making the process of putting together a final video a bit easier, using AI. After you answer a few questions, Clipchamp will prepare a compilation of scenes drawn from your footage.
Polyglot screen reading. Last year, Microsoft introduced natural-sounding voices that use AI to read text on screen in Windows’ Narrator accessibility feature. The new update adds support for additional languages, including English in the United Kingdom and India, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish.
Lower energy bills. Some PCs have built-in presence sensors that can make your display turn off when you walk away and then wake up when you return. A new energy-saving “adaptive dimming” feature can dim your screen when you look away from the display and brighten it up when you look at it again. You can turn this feature on or off when setting up a device with this update or in the Settings app.
Boot to the cloud. If you have a cloud-based version of Windows, you can log directly into the cloud instance as your primary experience on your PC.
Smarter snipping. It’s getting easier to pull out text directly from screenshots with Windows. With the updated Snipping Tool app included with Windows 11, you can copy text from a screenshot and quickly redact emails or phone numbers.
Better backup. Microsoft will let users back up apps they’ve previously installed on a PC to restore them, along with pinned app preferences, in the future.
Paint with words. In the next few weeks — Microsoft is trying out this feature with testers — the Paint app will receive AI powers. You’ll be able to type in a few words and pick a style, and Paint will create an image according to your description. It’s similar to tools from Adobe and other companies, as well as Microsoft’s own image creator in the Bing search engine.
More taskbar customization. Windows 11 introduced a stark new taskbar that puts the Start button and a series of app icons in the center at the bottom of the screen. Now you can view app icons with labels, similar to how you could in Windows 10. Even apps that aren’t running can appear with labels. You can also hide the time and date.
Notepad with memory. Notepad will automatically save your status so that if you close the note-taking app and reopen it, you can get right back to your work.
Easier picture hunting. Microsoft wizened up the Photos app for Windows 11 so you can type in keywords and objects in the search box to find relevant images stored in OneDrive.
File recommendations at work. If you’re using Windows 11 on your work computer, the File Explorer and Start menu will start showing suggestions of files you might want to open based on your usage.
Games right away. Microsoft is starting to test “instant games,” which will let you try playing casual games you find in the company’s Store app without downloading and installing them first. Google tried something similar on Android a few years ago.
Developer landing pad. The Dev Home app gives software developers a destination for tracking activity on Microsoft-owned GitHub, monitoring PC activity and setting up a new type of PC storage volume called a Dev Drive.
A home for system stuff. When you click on the “All apps” button in the Start menu, apps that Microsoft considers system components, such as File Explorer, will display a new “system” label. Until now, you could manage them by going to Settings > Apps > Installed apps. Now there’s a dedicated page for them at Settings > System > System components.
Some of these features might not work right away and will appear in the new update over time. For example, the Windows Copilot is still in preview and is only available in North America and parts of Asia and South America. The company wants to expand the feature to other regions in the future.
How to try the new features
If you’d like to get your Windows 11 PC running version 23H2, you can open the Settings app, find the Windows Update section and hit the “Check for updates” button. A blog post has detail on the update for education and commercial customers.
Microsoft will eventually offer the update to your Windows 11 PC. If Microsoft determines that the new update could cause an issue, you won’t be given a chance to install it until everything has been ironed out.
TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.
Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.
TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.
“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”
Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.
“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.
But there may a dark side to this growth.
As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.
“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”
Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.
“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”
Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.
While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.
Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.
The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.
Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.
The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.
Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.
The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.
“GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”
The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.
Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.
Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.
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Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.
During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.
Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.
Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.
“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.