Microsoft has a branding revolution sitting in their back pocket and I don’t think they realize it.
When Microsoft previewed its upcoming Windows AI experiences alongside a smaller Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, they did so by showing off what they presented to the public: a collection of experiences that could take advantage of the NPU within Copilot+ PCs. One of the most important experiences is the “agentic AI” that’s coming to the Windows 11 Settings menu.
Agentic AI will allow Windows to basically research, troubleshoot, and solve your PC problems for you. If your screen is too dim, Windows will show you how to adjust the brightness. If the font is too small, Windows will show you how to enlarge it. More importantly, Microsoft says that the agentic AI can (and will?) simply do it all for you.
Microsoft
How it’ll do all of that isn’t clear. But in one example, Microsoft showed a list of problems that a user could experience, such as “How do I reduce eye strain from screen time?” Microsoft showed two solutions—turning on dark mode and increasing text size—as well as a button labeled “Fix it.” There’s a ton of potential brewing in that little button.
The “Fix it” button is what we want
Every single day, people march over to their doctor (“My stomach started hurting and it hasn’t gone away”) or their mechanic (“My car’s making this weird sound”) or their representative (“Why am I paying all these taxes for a library with no books?”) or their IT department (“How do I make my screen more legible?”) for answers and assistance.
Nobody knows the cause of that clunking noise in their engine or why they’ve suddenly developed aches and pains. But every one of those interactions ends with the same plea: “Fix it!”
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Windows can solve every problem or that AI is going to make all of your ills go away. But Windows already has enough built-in troubleshooters for when you have issues, and they do a pretty decent job of autonomously diagnosing and fixing common PC problems. A focused, AI-driven approach to a finite number of problems doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
There’s a lot of cynicism about AI these days—and about Windows, too. But a button like “Fix it” sounds like the solution Americans are increasingly asking for, Microsoft. Why not try it?
