Microsoft Previews a Photo App Update with AI-Powered Categories

If you have a Copilot+ PC enrolled in the Insider Program, you can test a new version of the Photos app that adds AI-powered auto-categorization capabilities.

“We’re excited to announce an update to the Microsoft Photos app, now rolling out on Windows 11 across all Insider channels,” a new post to the Windows Insider Program blog reads. “This release brings a powerful new feature on Copilot+ PCs that leverages AI to organize photos into categories for easier recall.”

Auto-categorization automatically detects and organizes your photo collection into screenshots, receipts, identity documents, and notes categories using on-device AI. There’s a new Categories entry in the app’s navigation bar, under Gallery, that lists those four categories so you can see views filtered to those photos that match whichever category (or categories, I assume). And it’s language agnostic, meaning that a Hungarian passport will still be categorized as “Passport,” even if the text isn’t in English.

Right now, this feature is limited to those four categories, so you can’t arbitrarily add others. It’s not clear if this will change, but you can help improve accuracy by manually changing the category of individual photos.

This update to the Photos app is now rolling now across all Insider channels.