Microsoft Reveals New Windows 11 Start Menu and Upcoming Copilot+ Features

Microsoft detailed today a couple of upcoming Windows 11 features alongside its new Surface Pro, 12-inch and Surface Laptop, 13-inch. The redesigned Start Menu that was recently discovered in Windows Insider builds is one of them, but there are also more actions coming to Click to Do, Windows Search improvements, and more.

“We recently made improved Windows search, Recall (preview), Click to Do (preview), and more generally available across Copilot+ PCs, so you can find what you’re looking for, pick up where you left off, and do more with less time and hassle. Today, we’re sharing even more feature functionality coming soon to Copilot+ PCs — rolling out first to Windows Insiders over the next month,” said Navjot Virk – Corporate Vice President, Windows Experiences.

New Copilot+ PC features:

Here are the new Windows 11 experiences that will be coming soon to Windows Insiders with Qualcomm-powered Copilot+ PCs, with support for AMD and Intel models coming later:

AI Agent in Settings: On Copilot+ PCs, users will be able to describe what they need help with, and the new AI Agent in the Settings app will be able to recommend what to do and even perform the action on users’ behalf.

New Click to Do Actions: Later this month, Insiders will be able to use Click to Do to schedule a meeting with Teams, send a message with Teams, ask a question to Microsoft 365 Copilot, convert data into an Excel table, and draft content in Word.

Photos relight: This new option in the Photos app will add dynamic lighting controls and automatic lighting styles to improve how pictures look.

Paint sticker generator: Later this month, Insiders with Copilot+ PCs will be able to create custom digital stickers from a simple text prompt.

Paint object select: This new feature, coming to Insiders later this month, will make it easy to highlight and isolate individual elements on an image without manually tracing or outlining them.

Snipping tool perfect screenshot: This new tool will intelligently adjust the capture area to better frame content on the screen. A new text extractor tool will also let users to extract and copy text directly from images and screenshots, and a separate color picker tool will make it possible to capture exact color values from anywhere on screen.

Rich image descriptions in Narrator: The accessibility feature will be able to recognize charts, photos, and UI elements on Qualcomm-powered Copilot+ PCs.

Other upcoming Windows 11 features

The other new features below, including the redesigned Start Menu with the phone companion sidebar, will be available in the coming months for Windows Insiders, and they won’t require a Copilot+ PC:

New Start menu with phone companion: The redesigned Start Menu has a larger layout and lets users choose between three different views for the all apps list: The classic Name list view, the more spacious Name grid view, and the new Category view that intelligently puts apps into different folders. The Phone Link sidebar also makes it easy to access core phone features.

AI actions in File Explorer: When right-clicking on files, File Explorer will suggest users relevant actions such as summarizing content, editing images in Paint and Photos, and more.

Notepad updates: The decades-old note-taking app is getting a new Write function to create text from a prompt, a Summarize feature, and lightweight formatting options.

Copilot improvements: Copilot Vision, which is already available for Windows Insiders in the US via the Copilot on Windows app, can analyze what’s on the screen and answer questions about any visible content. Microsoft is also planning to let users invoke Copilot with the phrase “Hey, Copilot.”

Microsoft Store AI Hub: This new Store section highlighting AI experiences on Windows 11 will show personalized recommendations to users and better surface apps designed for Copilot+ PCs.

“This is just the beginning of what’s possible, and we’re excited to shape the future together with you — one innovation at a time,” Virk said today. At the moment, however, Copilot+ PC experiences aren’t available in all markets. The flagship Recall and Click to Do features won’t be coming to the European Economic Area until later in 2025.