Transforming the PC Landscape: Microsoft’s Vision for AI Integration with Copilot+ PCs | The Six Five Summit

And for this next session, we had the great honor of filming it while we were with the Microsoft Surface team in Taipei Signal 65 President Ryan Shroud. And I had the pleasure of sitting down with Microsoft's Pavin Duri, he's the corporate VP of Windows and Devices. And we talked to him about how the company is integrating AI into its products with a focus on its new and exciting, copilot Plus, and of course the overall PC portfolio.

There's no doubt that AI is transforming the PC landscape. We saw it on display at computex, we saw it recently at Microsoft Build. And in this conversation, Pavin is gonna talk to us all about that.

Tune in, watch it now. Thank you both for having me. And we are grateful to be a part of this copilot Plus journey for sure.

And we are absolutely grateful for the partnerships across our ecosystem to bring 'em to life. It's, it's been, uh, it's, it's really been an impressive kind of last month, uh, of things moving forward with this. So the first question I want to ask you is really about kind of your ambitions for ai, uh, on a larger scale with Microsoft.

Microsoft's been integrating AI into data center, into client for a while. We've seen co the original version of Copilot Yeah. Kind of come out there, um, with Copilot Plus, right?

You're taking that to the next step, but I'm curious if you can give me a, a high level view with as much detail as you want. Kind of the, what's the next wave? Like how do you see user experiences kind of fundamentally changing because of this AI adoption?

It's a great question, Ryan. And you're right. You know, when we talked about it at Build, you know, a couple of weeks ago at this point, yeah.

Uh, Asha references as a really year two for us in the AI journey. And, uh, in many ways, I think we're at the start of what is probably going to be a multi-year, you know, decade long, perhaps evolution, transition in the space. And for us, I think what we are kind of amazed and excited about is happening at a pace that we had not seen, or quite frankly, you know, most perhaps not, not expected.

Um, to answer your question, Ryan, I think there's a couple of places where, uh, copilot plus PCs and AI and Windows and and devices take themselves. I think one thing we are learning and seeing is a desire for having copilot and agent experiences show up more pervasively in the operating system. Mm-Hmm.

It was literally in January that we started with the idea of a copilot key. And now we're in a place where we're talking about a more fully, you know, supercharged OS that is powered by, you know, models running real time all the time. And so I think the first thing we're gonna see is, um, at the Shell and user experience level, we're going to continue to see Microsoft trying to meet customers where they're at in the flow activity and bring AI capabilities into task flows, and just have the operating system kind of be a, an agent for taking them through those flows in a seamless manner, as seamless as we possibly can.

So I think you'll see us continue to innovate on the Windows UX itself to take advantage of AI and just have AI be a more pervasive part of the experience. The second big piece, of course, is the copilot plus PCs, all the excitement and energy here in the last couple of weeks. And the, the, one of the powerful things that copilot plus PCs is the new platform capabilities with the hardware itself.

It allows us to start running a class of models on device and that in itself brings a new class of capabilities to the operating systems themselves. And so we're very excited about the fact that the OS will have, you know, new superpowers as well, um, apps that are gonna show up, especially for Microsoft in the, in the near term. The third big thing is the thing that we announced in Build called the Windows copilot Runtime Windows Copilot Runtime is important for us 'cause it really gives developers and namespace to target to start building AI capabilities into their apps and experiences.

And for us from a Microsoft standpoint, to provide them a platform where, you know, it's a spectrum from they can build their own models and capabilities to just take advantage of inbox, you know, models and capabilities. So I think the three of them together are going to, uh, you know, fuel I think for the next year or two, a bunch of new experiences on these devices going forward. Yeah.

And the developer is so important, but I gotta ask you, Pavan, I need you to be the arbiter a little bit here. So Microsoft has pretty much set the standard of what is a copilot plus pc and it's not, you know, there's also kind of talk about IPC. Yeah.

And these things are not exactly the same. So can you kind of, for the audience out there, just Sure. Talk a little bit about what it entails to specifically be branded as a co-pilot plus pc.

Yeah, sure. Daniel, I think maybe we should start with I PCs. 'cause I think we are seeing a strong signal with I PCs right now in the market.

And the, with, with what we started with in January. IPCs in my mind have, um, certainly they have the copilot key. The copilot key is a gateway to a set of OS capabilities that are gonna show up, that are agent driven, that are AI driven.

They're copilot driven for us. So that's an important attribute for IPCs for us, for sure. IPCs in themselves have NPUs of varying degrees in size.

And one great example where a IPCs are actually celebrating NPU, you know, capabilities right now are things like studio effects. For example, teams, zoom, WhatsApp, all use camera and uh, audio and microphone stacks for AI real time today with these IPCs a IPCs are more performant. And I think of a IPCs as a start of the journey.

And copilot plus PCs take us to another level of capability. Copilot plus PCs, Daniel certainly have a bunch of silicon attributes that define a performance and capability standard for sure. Uh, but copilot plus PCs is really a platform experience where yes, the silicon is a huge part of it.

Uh, we, Microsoft had to do work around the operating system itself to unlock these capabilities in the silicon. Um, it was a lot of work with our OEM partners for making sure, in addition to memory and storage, we were doing a bunch of work at the platform level because at the end of the day, customers wanted to see a set of experiences. And so you want to deliver these in a way that is a compelling complete set of, you know, capabilities.

And so copilot plus PCs really embody all three elements of silicon capabilities are, you know, well-defined, tailored for this quantum leap in compute in my mind instead of os work that celebrates those OS capabilities. And then, uh, our OEM partners doing a bunch of system and platform work that completes the device experience and the system solution for us. You, you, you brought up, uh, some of your OEM partners earlier.

Um, I, I'm talked with one or uh, today in this very room where we were looking at how does the PC ecosystem itself kind of fundamentally change and how much of it is driven by AI versus how much of it is just coincidental with ai? Um, when I think through the idea of maybe a PC doesn't look like a PC anymore in three years or five years, right? Uh, I don't need a keyboard, I don't need a touch pad, I don't need a mouse.

Great question. Um, how do you kind of view that shifting Right now everything's kind of a laptop Yeah, right. That has some added capabilities, but I think long term that could change a lot.

Yeah. I think this is a space where, you know, a ton of opportunity, uh, and I can see a variety of different things playing themselves out. What I would tell you there is, the two things that have been helpful for me is, uh, first is I actually think we are, well, we have a long runway of actual capabilities with the current form factors in themselves.

I think people are going to be more surprised by, by the way, of what is possible, uh, than what they see today with their form factors. The example that I use for our own journey within Surface, for example, uh, is the, the flex keyboard on the Surface Pro. And, you know, AI is increasingly going to become multimodal.

So yes, it looks like a chat, you know, you know, prompt input response thing outta the gates, but really as models get multimodal touch and pen and ink and voice are all options. And so just the idea of detaching the keyboard from the screen, allowing you to use both pen and touch and ink at the same time opens a set of app experiences that we had not conceived of even two years ago. And I would say they're relatively speaking in the form factors that we know and love today, for instance.

So that's the first thing is I think you're going to see a lot more value in the current form factors. And it's actually kinda exciting 'cause like Daniel, we talked about, those developers I think are gonna target them outta the gates and push the envelope for what's possible. The second point that you're making, which I, I think we are in the infancy of really appreciating what this is gonna look like, is I think the ability for us to have these models do things that are not possible otherwise for us.

Uh, we oftentimes think about, uh, new capabilities and a platform shift in compute is really what drives innovation in form factors. And it's this sort of, this sort of virtuous cycle between what's possible in compute, what's possible in form factor and what's possible in interaction and software design. And I think that cycle is, is in its early cycles when it comes to AI driven devices or AI first devices in themselves.

So, so I'm very excited about the ladder as well, I think, and, and I think a lot of what's happening on PC and phone will in fact spur what those new devices can look like. Mm-Hmm. I wanna talk about something that's a little bit more baseline in this whole copilot plus it's power.

Okay. Okay. So, you know, we've got a handful of apps, very powerful, exciting apps that are going to make these new devices super cool to use.

Having said that, I think a lot of people are still, how does the developers build, what are they gonna build? And part of the whole Copilot Plus is, is about efficient. Yes.

You know, it's about bringing that mobile experience that says we can go 16 hours and you can watch videos and be social and use your apps and your thing's gonna go. Yeah. How do you balance that, stay super performant, but at the same time meet those efficiencies?

Yeah, that's a great question, Daniel. I think, you know, going back to your, your end of your question, I think we start with a customer orientation on this. I think people, you, they have an expectation for the devices to be just great devices.

So they want them to be instant on, they want them to be able to have all day battery life. They want them to be, you know, responsive at the end of the day. And I think all of those things require those attributes rather require a platform that is indexed on energy efficiency.

And I think that is a, an attribute for us when we think about modernizing the platform over time is gonna continue to be important. One of the things that we value with the Snapdragon X Series really is the focus on energy efficiency for the NPUs. Because in turn, what makes those app experiences delightful is the, is the fact that the AI is available on a high performance basis and on always on basis when you need it.

The step function improvement that you get with always on background running capabilities is really fueled by the ability to have a tremendous amount of energy efficiency. We talked about our launch event having like a hundred x the efficiency for running AI workloads, those step functions are hard without, you know, entirely new neural architectures and NPUs and ability to be efficient with matrix math fuels that. And I think the next step really will be growth on both those vector.

I think we will continue to push on, be more energy efficient so we can then reuse that currency in a variety of ways for devices and experiences. And we will push the envelope for what is possible compute wise. Uh, 'cause I think hopefully we will see people finding value and leading in and generating, you know, momentum for it.

I think the technology is critical for that. It's, it's a interesting kind of outlook of the roadmap and kind of how all this goes forward. I, I wanna ask, uh, a little bit on the kind of commercial side of this.

Sure. Um, as you look through, again, we talked at the beginning how Microsoft is playing in AI in, in all these spaces, client devices, data center, uh, services, everything. Yeah.

How do you see copilot PCs, a I PC in general come into the, the Microsoft kind of commercial strategy? How do you monetize this? How do you make it, you know, interesting for partners and ISVs to, to come join the, the, the group?

Yeah. It's a, it's a really good question. Clearly, Ryan, I think the future is going to look like distributed compute for us.

You're seeing huge investments with Azure for sure. You're seeing large language models get more performant. It's a breathtaking pace of innovation in that space.

And I think we truly believe in scaling laws, bringing new capabilities through the cloud. At the same time, I think we will move into a world of an efficient frontier. You see small language models showing up, you see capabilities on devices in themselves that in turn creates things like copilot plus PCs.

At the end of the day, I think what will drive us is a world that looks more of a hybrid pattern where we will build apps and experiences that are the most efficient use of AI and its capabilities, both from a performance standpoint, from a cost standpoint, from a privacy standpoint, security standpoint. And that in turn dictate what does that hybrid pattern look like across both the cloud and the client. And I think the, the business models will look like a version of what we have today and involve version based on what subscriptions and consumption and device capabilities look like.

Yeah. I definitely give a lot of credit to Microsoft. It's abilities to go left to right.

At least that's how I explain it. Like really from the edge to the cloud. Like there's a lot of kind of what I would say market architecture about that.

But you've really accomplished that and you've done it with things you own, things you build, things you share, um, democratizing, and of course, this is a great example. I'm gonna thread a needle here 'cause you do it every day. Pavin threading the needle is here.

You are celebrating with all of your OEM partners that they're building these wonderful devices. Yeah. Microsoft also has worked very hard and I think it's underneath your, uh, your tutelage is building surface.

Yes. And Surface builds some wonderful devices, use 'em every day personally. Great to hear.

Big fan. Um, but you've launched some exciting co-pilot plus PC experiences in the Surface portfolio. So I'm gonna give you a timeout from trying to be the ecosystem person.

I want you to talk to your book a little bit, talk a little bit about kind of the surface and how you see that evolving. 'cause you gotta be excited, you're glowing. Thank you, Dan.

You're Glowing. Yes. Yes, we are.

We are super excited about them. We are, I think our collective team is very jazzed. It's been a multi-year project with the Qualcomm team for sure.

We announced two new products, um, recently. Uh, both devices are on pre-order right now. They, you know, uh, customers can buy them today.

They'll be available generally on June 18th. Um, and one of them is a surface pro. Uh, the surface pro.

It is a modern definition of what, you know, our view of what two in ones can look like. It is by far the most powerful two in one we have built. It has the best battery life of the products we have created so far.

The Flex flex keyboard we talked about earlier is delightful in my mind because it brings a set of new capabilities, celebrates copilot plus experiences in a way that's not possible. It has a new gorgeous OLED HDR display that I love. Um, I use that device, in fact.

Uh, thank you for, for your usage of those surface devices. I certainly use it pro All the time. I only talk my book when it's true.

That's Lovely. And we also have a new laptop, uh, a brand new laptop, which is a completely redesigned surface laptop, which also pushes the envelope for us by way of performance and battery life in itself. Um, I love using both those devices for sure.

The, the one thing with that laptop that I find particularly kind of compelling is as my work machine, I'm in calls and meetings and connecting with team and folks a bunch. And a lot of the features that we're building in the product, we get to use them. And so whether it's live caption type stuff or camera stacks and audio stacks and studio effects, our team's team is building on them, zoom builds on them.

Uh, what's happening using those features right now? So, uh, so we're, we're super excited about both those devices. I, I've been using them for, uh, a little bit as well.

We did some testing on them with Signal 65. It was, it was a great experience. Um, Papa, I wanna thank you for taking some time and coming out and talk with us today.

I know you're super busy, you've gotta to run to a bunch of different spots. Uh, so thanks, thanks for coming on. Absolutely.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you.