To emphasize its intention for 2024 to be recognized as the “year of the AI PC,” Microsoft unveiled a new physical key, an AI button, for Copilot today. This key will soon be available on your keyboard, alongside the Windows key, Control key, Alt key, and that Insert key that you’ve never intentionally utilized. It appears, according to the image provided by Microsoft, that the right Control key will be substituted for the Copilot key on standard PC keyboards. The Copilot key will be positioned “between the Alt key and the left arrow key.”
“The introduction of the Copilot key marks the first significant change to the Windows PC keyboard in nearly three decades,” writes Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for consumers at Microsoft, in today’s announcement. “We believe it will empower people to participate in the AI transformation more easily. The Copilot key joins the Windows key as a core part of the PC keyboard and when pressed, the new key will invoke the Copilot in the Windows experience to make it seamless to engage Copilot in your day-to-day.”
When Copilot is unavailable in a region, pressing the Copilot key will initiate Windows Search. At this year’s CES in Las Vegas, the first keyboards featuring the new key will be unveiled; shipments are anticipated to commence in late February.
The addition of a new icon by Microsoft for the first time since the Windows logo key debuted on the Microsoft Natural Keyboard in 1994 is sufficient proof that the company is fully invested in the AI hype train.
Microsoft and its semiconductor partners, including AMD and Intel, anticipate that a significant portion of the AI inference will be relocated to local silicon shortly. This relocation is expected to “unlock new AI experiences on the Windows PC.” Constantly drawn towards exaggeration, Microsoft describes “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.”
Fortunately, your older keyboards will keep working as they did previously; if your keyboard supports it, you might even be able to alter the right Control key to perform the same function as the Copilot key. Another option is to just ignore it.
