Windows Copilot+ Readiness

Pro Tips #75

With Windows 10 somewhat in the rear-view mirror, its time to look at the future of Microsoft. And whether you like it or not, its AI. Under the branding of Copilot+, specific devices get special AI features designed to increase productivity. In this month’s pro tip we look a little closer at how you can get prepared for the inevitable “Are we AI enabled” question.

Co What?

If you’ve been avoiding AI and are out of the loop, Microsoft’s Copilot is an AI assistant designed to make your everyday computing more intuitive, helping you write, create, summarize, and find information directly within Windows and across apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook. Think of it as Clippy on steroids

Copilot+ PCs take this experience to the next level. They’re new AI-optimized devices built with dedicated neural processing units (NPUs) that enable features like real-time translation, image generation, and “Recall”, the ability to search your past activity visually. Together, Copilot and Copilot+ represent Microsoft’s vision of personal computing powered by AI.

As is standard when Microsoft has a vision, it doesn’t take long until it starts seeping into your environment, whether you like it or not. So its best to be prepared.

Windows Copilot+ Requirements

Microsoft lists the Copilot+ requirements on their official Windows 11 requirements page.

Key Hardware Components

• NPU: A neural processing unit capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (40+ TOPS) is the most critical requirement for a Copilot+ PC. Currently, these are the following CPUs:
  • AMD Ryzen™ AI 300 series
  • Intel® Core™ Ultra 200V series
  • Snapdragon® X series
• RAM: A minimum of 16GB of DDR5/LPDDR5 RAM is needed. 
• Storage: A 256GB SSD or UFS (Universal Flash Storage) drive is required.

To help you see which devices meet these requirements, and therefore likely have the copilot+ features enabled, I’ve created a dedicated report similar to our Windows 11 requirement report to show you exactly which devices do or do not qualify.

Run the Copilot+ Requirements Audit

Copilot Usage

Regardless of whether you meet the previously mentioned requirements, users can still be using the regular Copilot unless you’ve already blocked it. Copilot is available for free form the Microsoft store.

To get a better view of copilot usage in your environment there are a few options. Obviously, the simplest method is to just look for Copilot in your software view.

Additionally, with the upcoming Dashboards, you can make an interactive dashboard that shows you a view of all assets with copilot software and their data.

Managing Copilot and Copilot+

This is where it gets a bit more complicated. It seems that management of these features has been a bit of an afterthought.

Blocking Copilot

For regular Copilot, Microsoft currently recommends using AppLocker since it deprecated the group policy setting. Alternatively, you can prevent installation of the Copilot apps to begin with.

Managing Copilot+

Copilot+ is a whole different story. Currently no policies are available yet to manage the individual features that are part of Copilot+.

Microsoft instead provides WindowsAI Policy CSP. A Mobile Device Management (MDM) configuration area introduced in Windows 11 24H2 to control local AI features.

When a policy is applied, Windows translates it into the corresponding registry path under:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsAI

Each configured CSP setting (like AllowRecallEnablement or DisableAIDataAnalysis) appears as a REG_DWORD or REG_SZ value there.

As I’ve shown many times, you can scan those registry keys and then also report on them. Maybe further down the line as this policies become available I’ll create a pro tip specifically focused on managing all these new AI features.