Over many years computers have become faster, thinner, lighter and more powerful.
Today, Microsoft announced what they claim to be an entirely new era of computing with artificial intelligence at the core of a modern PC. They call them "CoPilot Plus PCs".
CoPilot is the name Microsoft gave to its AI assistant, launched last year to allow users to ask questions, find information and even generate images. It draws on Microsoft's partnership and investment with OpenAI -the company behind ChatGPT.
However, until now most of the AI we have seen, used or heard about is happening in the cloud - so when you request something, even if it's just a re-write of your email into a more formal tone, that happens on the internet, sending your information from your computer into the cloud, processed by AI and sent back to you to see.
CoPilot Plus PCs are a genuinely new style of computer, with the traditional "processor", "graphics processor" and the addition of a new "NPU", which is a "neural processing unit". It's that NPU which allows the processing of AI on your device, rather than in the cloud.
This little chip is capable of 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS) - which means it can process what you're doing, what you're asking and even anticipate what you might need.
From one-click replies to email notifications, to finding something you remember doing or seeing on your PC but can't find - AI is integrated to assist you.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said of this new generation that it was about "empowering every person to be more knowledgeable and more productive".
Microsoft themselves are launching new "Surface" devices, with a Surface laptop and Surface Pro, while other PC brands such as HP, Asus, Dell and Lenovo will also bring "CoPilot Plus PCs" to market.
While AI is the headline-grabbing feature of these new computers, the complete re-engineering of a Windows computer actually has far simpler but greater benefits - battery life being the most critical to average PC users.
New CoPilot Plus PCs offer battery life up to 22 hours browsing the web. These numbers have only been seen before on Apple's MacBook range since Apple introduced their own Apple Silicon processors. In what appeared to be an acknowledgement of that leadership by Apple, Microsoft didn't hold back with their comparison.
Microsoft says that from a performance perspective, these new CoPilot Plus are "58 per cent faster than a MacBook Air with M3".
While performance and battery life are big advances for all users, this announcement today is so much more than just device specifications for Microsoft.
Integrating AI across Windows is core to what Microsoft is now offering. It's as if CoPilot as an AI brand is as important to Microsoft as Windows itself.
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One example of that is a new feature in Windows called "Recall". This app allows users to search for something they did or saw on their PC - across the entire computer.
More than just a file search, this is about what you saw. The AI processor is basically seeing everything you see, and remembering it. Critically all of this is done on-device, and therefore has privacy in mind, but can also be disabled across particular apps, websites or at times you choose.
Opening Recall and searching for something like "blue sports car" might show you documents where you've written those words, but it will also show you websites you looked at, or photos you browsed that match that description.
Using AI, a CoPilot Plus PC can understand and categorise what you see, and thus, serve it to you as a search result in Recall.
It's a powerful concept that will come into its own as people use their new PC's over time.
While a lot of this might seem a tad "nerdy" to some, this event, this news and these features feel as important to Microsoft and to everyday computing as Windows 95 was all those years ago.
In addition to Microsoft's new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, new CoPilot Plus PC's will launch over the months ahead, with HP already announcing two products, the HP OmniBook X AI PC and the HP EliteBook Ultra AI PC which will launch on June 18.
Trevor Long travelled to Seattle as a guest of Microsoft Australia
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