When Microsoft first released Windows 11 in 2021, Panos Panay, the company's EVP & Chief Product Officer, said at the time that Windows 11 was "the first chapter in the next era of Windows." Now, over a year later, we may finally be starting to understand what Microsoft meant.
At AMD's CES 2023 keynote earlier this month, Panos Panay was invited on stage by host and AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su. The talk was mainly about AMD's new AI engine inside the new Ryzen 7040 series hips and how it would help Microsoft release the next generation of AI-powered software.
Panos Panay reported:
Artificial intelligence is the defining technology of our time, unlike anything I've ever seen before. It's transforming industries, improving our daily lives in so many ways – some of which you see, some of which you don't – and we're currently at an inflection point. This is where computing from cloud to edge is getting smarter, more personal, and all done by harnessing the power of AI.
.. now AMD is also at the forefront of AI technology, with the Ryzen 7040 series, alongside Windows 11. It is our next step in this journey.
After that, Microsoft's senior executive “played” little me the next generation of Windows, which will have a lot more to do with artificial intelligence. While artificial intelligence isn't exactly new to Windows, its integration is likely to scale exponentially as the Redmond company looks for ways to make it happen. The Windows 12 they could be deeply integrated with the cloud as the AI processing would be very powerful.
Artificial intelligence will reinvent the way we do everything in Windows, literally. Like these big production models, thought models, code models, image models. These models are so powerful, so enjoyable, so useful, so personal. But they're also very computationally demanding, and so we couldn't have them before. We've never seen these intense workloads at this scale before. It will take an operating system that blurs the line between cloud and edge, and that's what we're doing right now.
A possible cloud-based future for Windows is probably good news for consumers when it comes to system requirements, which continues to be a hot topic of discussion in the case of Windows 11. If Windows doesn't go to the cloud then devices will they must have special hardware for AI processing. Perhaps next-gen Windows 12 with artificial intelligence is Microsoft's master plan, which explains recent rumors of the company's interest in acquiring OpenAI and integrating ChatGPT into Bing.
