Microsoft adds AI button to keyboard in first change in 30 years

Microsoft is adding a button to keyboards that gives instant access to its new artificial intelligence search tools, the first such addition in 30 years.

Several new laptops and PCs launching in 2024 will include a Copilot button, Microsoft announced on Thursday, giving users instant access to Microsoft's new chatbot tool with the click of a button. The button will replace the menu key or application key, which sits next to the Windows key on the standard PC keyboard. The button will launch the Windows Copilot function, which is now built into Windows 11 and offers a ChatGPT-like experience.

"Nearly 30 years ago, we introduced the Windows key to the PC keyboard that enabled people all over the world to interact with Windows," Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president at Microsoft, said in a blog post. "We see this as another transformative moment in our journey with Windows where Copilot will be the entry point into the world of AI on the PC."

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The feature will be available on several new PCs depending on whether the country has authorized Copilot. The changes will be available from early February through spring, including on new Surface devices.

Companies such as Dell and LG have already announced their new laptops ahead of CES 2024, one of the leading conferences in the technology industry.

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The feature is designed to get more users to use Copilot, which uses an AI-powered version of Bing to process and gather information. The chatbot was presented by Microsoft executives as a tool to compete with Google's search engine dominance, a subject that has been under scrutiny due to the Department of Justice's court trial in the fall of 2023, in which Google was accused of holding a monopoly over search engines through prewritten agreements with tech manufacturers.