For years, Microsoft has hyped Windows 11 cas an OS with AI, and the company is finally putting the building blocks in place for that transformation.

Microsoft execs shared examples of how the company is integrating AI in Windows 11 at its Build event earlier this month, highlighting how AI models and agents will make the OS smarter, allowing users to interact with it using natural language and intent.

Specifically, Windows 11 PCs will provide unmetered intelligence so users can run AI for free without a network connection. “No token cost. No sensitive data leaves the device. It also reduces latency,” Anastasiya Tarnouskaya, product manager for Windows ML, said during a Build session.

Hardware makers introduced AI-capable hardware before the applications were available. But Tarnouskaya said more than 500 million PCs are already running local AI workloads. “Thanks to recent advancements in AI models, hardware, and the software stacks that run them, today, every Windows PC is becoming increasingly AI-capable,” she said. 

The AI experiences are blended into apps and the Windows UI, not working only as chatbots such as those offered by ChatGPT or Gemini. 

Microsoft Office, Photos and Teams already use on-device AI capabilities, with Outlook, for instance, summarizing emails using Microsoft’s Phi Silica model and a GPU on the PC.

“And it’s not just developers that are betting on local AI…, [companies] from Adobe to WhatsApp are building some incredible local AI-powered experiences.” Tarnouskaya said. Other early adopters include Canva, Affinity, and Speechify.

AI apps for Windows 11 proliferated after Microsoft shipped Windows ML last fall, she said. (Windows ML helps developers create offline AI applications without accessing cloud models. It maps applications, localized AI models and hardware such as GPUs and neural processors.)

Windows ML is part of Microsoft’s “Foundry” portfolio of products, which includes Foundry Local for running open-source models on Windows devices, and Windows AI APIs that automate tasks such as conversation summarization, speech recognition, and video upscaling.

Microsoft is also turning to AI agents to change how users interact with Windows 11. Users can describe a task through natural language, and a long-running agent will get to work and complete the action. “Windows is evolving into a platform where natural language can map to real system outcomes,” said Samantha Song, product manager for Windows at Microsoft.

Song demonstrated how users could just tell or type how they want to personalize colors, wallpaper, or menus, and the agent will do it. “There is no manual set up against themes, setting or lighting. The system treats it as one coherent action,” Song said.

For the effort to succeed, developers will need to create a skills file that maps how an agent behaves. That skill can then be reused over and over again, Song said.

“You can get optimized performance on the NPU [neural processing unit] by running the model locally…and you also implement a scheduled run of your automated agents,” said Darren Oberst, co-founder of LLMWare.ai.

Samsung, Lenovo and others are rolling out — albeit slowly and carefully — agentic AI features under the moniker of ‘personal AI,’” said Leonard Lee, principal analyst at Next Curve. “The problem is ensuring safe deployment,” he said.

Microsoft’s efforts to embed AI in Windows will force enterprises to rethink hardware strategies, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. And since AI chips excel at different tasks, Microsoft will have to support multiple chips to offer choice to enterprises, he said.

“We recommend — and others do, too — that any new PC purchases, especially for enterprise, be done with this in mind and purchase AI PCs during any upgrade cycle,” Gold said.