Microsoft upped the ante in AI-equipped devices, unveiling a range of fresh laptops and Surface tablets running its Copilot assistant which it claimed push the PC category to fresh heights.

Along with its own Surface products, Microsoft stated OEMs including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung have Copilot+ laptops in the works, which are due to go on sale from mid-June.

Microsoft stated it “completely reimagined the entirety of the PC, from silicon to the operating system, the application layer to the cloud, with AI at the centre”. It added this is the “most significant change to the Windows platform in decades”.

It said Copilot+ PCs “are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built”, pointing to “powerful new silicon capable of” more than 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS), along with “all-day battery life and access to the most advanced AI models”.

Microsoft highlighted features including Recall, a memory function covering tasks completed on Copilot+ PCs; Cocreator, which covers the production and editing of AI images “in near real-time directly on the device”; and Live Captions, a system which translates audio from more than 40 languages into English.

A close-up rendering of a computer chip labeled

A revised system architecture combining the “power of the CPU, GPU” and a new Neural Processing Unit (NPU) along with Microsoft’s large and small AI language models deliver up to 20-times more power and up to 100-times improvement in efficiency over previous Microsoft laptops and tablets in terms of running AI workloads.

Microsoft is so confident it even engaged in a direct comparison with Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air, claiming a 58 per cent bump in “sustained multi-threaded performance” and “up to 20 per cent more battery” for local video playback.

OEM laptops are set for sale from 18 June, with prices starting at $999.

Microsoft’s latest Surface Laptop will be available with a 13.8-inch and 15-inch touchscreen, haptic touchpads and AI-enhanced camera.

Its updated two-in-one Surface Pro will offer an optional OLED with HDR, ultra-wide field-of-view camera and a keyboard which can be used when detached from the tablet.