The future of Windows is cloud and AI

The Windows 365 Link device shows how committed Microsoft is to transitioning Windows to the cloud.

by Tom Warren

Nov 22, 2024, 7:00 PM UTC

Image: Microsoft

Tom Warren is a senior correspondent and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years.

Microsoft has spent years working toward a future where Windows and its many components exist entirely in the cloud. That reality looks a lot closer this week, with Microsoft revealing the Windows 365 Link mini PC, which streams a version of Windows 11 from the Windows 365 cloud service. It boots up in seconds, and there’s no ability to store data or run apps locally. It’s all about the cloud.

When Microsoft announced the Link onstage at Ignite, there were loud cheers from the IT professionals gathered in the audience, so this could become a popular option for some businesses looking to simplify and secure their Windows user base as we approach Windows 10 end of life next year.

While this might not sound immediately appealing over a traditional laptop or PC, the Link is designed specifically for businesses. Many have already migrated some or all of their user bases to virtual machines that live in the cloud to ensure no data is stored on any laptop or PC in the event of an employee leaving or a device getting lost or stolen.

I got to speak to Windows chief Pavan Davuluri earlier this week about the Link device, and I came away thinking the Link is, in many ways, a direct link to the future of this business.

“We think the future of Windows… two large elements of our strategy going forward are cloud and AI,” says Davuluri. “And what you are seeing now at Ignite is perhaps the start of that journey when it comes to the differentiated offering you’re seeing from the Windows team in a cloud context.”

The Windows 365 Link device.

Image: Microsoft

You could argue Microsoft is late to these thin client devices, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), or desktop as a service (DaaS), but the software maker has been increasingly integrating its Windows 365 cloud service into Windows 11 and preparing this specialist hardware to sell to businesses.

It’s perfectly timed, too. Microsoft is trying to get everyone off of Windows 10 before ending support next year, and Link will be available in April just ahead of the October 2025 cutoff date. Businesses could just pay for extended security updates to Windows 10, but Link offers up a secure way for them to move employees over to a cloud version of Windows instead that can also be accessed from another laptop, PC, web browser, phone, or tablet.

Windows 365 is appealing to businesses because it simplifies the security aspects of device management but also because it means employees can easily move from device to device without any configuration needed. If your laptop starts acting up or you drop coffee all over it, IT has to get involved to fix it. With Windows 365, you could hop on any other PC, tablet, or phone and immediately access your Windows desktop again. Cloud PCs aren’t for everyone, especially if you run a lot of graphically intensive apps, but for workers who live in Office or web apps, they’re a good solution.

The Link device itself has an Intel chip inside, 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, but none of this matters because you won’t be relying on this local hardware. Link streams a virtualized version of Windows 11 from Microsoft’s Azure data centers, much like how Citrix and other competitors offer cloud versions of Windows. There’s not even a local full version of Windows on this Link device, as Microsoft has stripped this back to just the very basics to get this hardware to support peripherals, monitors, and other Bluetooth and USB devices that connect up to the cloud PC.

The fascinating part of Windows 365 Link is this very basic operating system that’s running locally, and it shows how committed Microsoft is to this type of product. It’s very Xbox-like, secured down with sandboxing security techniques so that it can’t be tampered with. “The way to think about it is that it’s a super hardened version of Windows,” says David Weston, vice president of enterprise and OS security at Microsoft, in an interview with me earlier this week.

This lightweight OS will be available on other devices next year, as Microsoft looks to allow its OEM partners to build secure hardware that connects to Windows 365. The secure aspects of Link will undoubtedly appeal to businesses, but I think some of its future AI capabilities could also differentiate this device and Windows 365 from Microsoft’s VDI and DaaS competition.

The other intriguing part of Link is that Microsoft is currently working on bringing NPU support to Windows 365 so AI experiences in Windows 11 can work in the cloud in much the same way that they do on existing Copilot Plus PCs. As Davuluri says, cloud and AI are the big two focus areas for Windows, and this work unites these together in the clearest way yet.

After speaking to a variety of IT professionals this week at Ignite, I think it will be harder to sell them on the AI future of Windows, though. Microsoft is launching its controversial Recall feature today, with a preview for Windows Insiders. It’s going to be a big test for Microsoft’s AI ambitions, particularly after the company had to rework it with a much bigger focus on security.

Recall is removed by default on PCs managed by IT admins as well as enterprise versions of Windows 11. That should help put a lot of businesses at ease, particularly because Recall is a powerful feature that can take snapshots of mostly everything you do on a Copilot Plus PC.

Microsoft is also previewing its new AI-powered Click to Do feature on Copilot Plus PCs today that’s very similar to Google’s Circle to Search. With Click to Do, you hit the Windows key on a keyboard and left-click on a mouse to see an interactive overlay appear on your screen, which lets you select images or text to perform clickable actions.

Recall and Click to Do are just the start of Microsoft’s Windows AI ambitions, and I think we’re going to see a lot more of this in Windows in the future. The Microsoft 365 Copilot, which Microsoft is trying to sell to businesses, will soon leverage the hardware inside Copilot Plus PCs to run models locally and reduce the need for internet connections for AI writing assistance in Outlook and Word. That lessens the reliance on cloud models for some of Microsoft’s AI work, and I think we’ll increasingly see more of this hybrid model of local and cloud AI inside Windows.

Microsoft has been marching toward this future of cloud and AI in Windows ever since it moved the core development of Windows over to the AI and cloud team in 2018. Windows 365 then ushered in the beginning of Windows in the cloud a few years ago. Internal Microsoft documents from 2022 also revealed Microsoft has ambitious plans to eventually move Windows fully to the cloud. With the Link device and Windows 365, we’re starting to see how that future might eventually emerge.

The pad:

You can now try Microsoft’s Recall feature. It’s been delayed a few times, but Recall is finally here for Copilot Plus PCs. Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel can try out Recall and Click To Do on the latest Qualcomm-powered laptops. Recall, which creates screenshots of mostly everything you see or do on a Copilot Plus PC, is now an opt-in feature that can be fully removed. I’ll be trying it out over the next week or so before I offer up my first impressions.
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Microsoft Ignite 2024: all the news from Microsoft’s IT pro event. A lot of the pad news this week is straight from Ignite, but there was plenty more at the show, including Azure AI Foundry, Windows in mixed reality for Meta VR headsets, and a new Microsoft 365 app icon. Catch up on all the Microsoft Ignite news right here.

Thanks for subscribing and reading to the very end. I’m taking a break next week during the Thanksgiving period, so Notepad will return the following week, on December 5th. In the meantime, you can reach me via email at notepad@theverge.com.

If you’ve heard about any of Microsoft’s other secret projects, you can also speak to me confidentially on the Signal messaging app, where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m also tomwarren on Telegram, if you’d prefer to chat there.

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