Microsoft has arguably done more to shape the evolution of the PC than any other company.
This week, Microsoft celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 4, 2025. Fifty years is a long time for anyone, let alone a company which has driven itself to move at the pace of the computer, than the Internet, and now AI. That’s decades of decisions, of launches (and lawsuits!) and apps both good and bad. Most absolutely changed how you live and work.
But which ones? Here are 25 key moments in the long, storied history of Microsoft! For each, you’ll find a bit of background, a quirky fact or two, and what it has all meant for Microsoft and for you. Happy birthday, Microsoft!
1975: Gates and Allen show off their BASIC interpreter
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen meet at Lakeside School, forging a partnership that would literally change history. The Lakeside Mothers Club bought a teletype that can connect with a General Electric timeshare computer, and Gates hones his BASIC skills while using it. He even writes a computerized class schedule for Lakeside, scheduling a “disproportionate number of interesting girls” alongside him in class. (Ahem.) At night, he reads computer manuals.
In 1975, the MITS Altair 8000 debuted, and Gates and Allen decide to write a BASIC interpreter for it after reading about it in Popular Electronics. In March 1975, they convince MITS that the interpreter works, and that MITS should distribute it as Altair BASIC.
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Gates and Allen established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, the same day Altair BASIC was released. “Micro-Soft” was registered on Nov. 26, 1976, as a pastiche of “microcomputer” and “software.”
1981: Microsoft releases MS-DOS
IBM developed the personal computer in 1980; Microsoft adapted the operating system to run it. IBM needed an operating system to power the IBM PC, and couldn’t finalize negotiations with Digital Research and CP/M — although why the two companies couldn’t strike a deal is disputed, ranging from licensing issues to whether or not DRI founder Gary Kildall was even available. IBM approached Microsoft and struck an agreement: Microsoft would supply its OS.
But Microsoft didn’t actually have an operating system, and decided to license Tim Paterson’s Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS) instead as PC-DOS. According to Allen’s memoir, QDOS was licensed to Microsoft for $10,000 plus $15,000 for every corporate license. Microsoft, in turn, asked for and received $430,000 for the deal, including $75,000 for various adaptions. A critical clause: Microsoft wanted the ability to resell its QDOS OS, and MS-DOS was born.
On Aug. 12, 1981, IBM announced the IBM PC. IBM actually sold the PC with a choice of either CP/M or Microsoft’s PC-DOS, but charged $240 for CP/M and $40 for PC-DOS. Guess which consumers preferred?
(In 2014, Microsoft published the MS-DOS source code to the Web…then apparently released a second version in a proprietary format, making no one happy.)
1982: Microsoft unveils…a game?
In Nov. 1982, Microsoft launched Flight Simulator 1.0, essentially carving out Microsoft as a videogame company just as much as a firm that would shape computing. Flight Simulator was not originally designed by Microsoft; instead, it was coded by Sublogic and licensed to Microsoft as a 16-bit product in 1982, alongside similar versions for the Apple II and Commodore TRS-80.
Since then, Microsoft has further iterated upon Flight Simulator, with its most recent version, MSFS 2024, released last year. The improved simulation features essentially a fully rendered Earth, complete with air and ship traffic, and graphics that go down to individually-rendered animals. Quite a ways from the demo above, right?
1983: Microsoft jumps into the hardware market, too
On May 2, 1983, Microsoft unveiled the Microsoft Mouse, further diversifying the company’s offerings. Though the mouse was made by Alps, Microsoft marketed it as a necessary peripheral for IBM-compatible systems that used MS-DOS.
The Microsoft Mouse kicked off decades of Microsoft-branded computer peripherals, as the company attempted to enhance the appeal of the PC with ergonomic, attractive PC peripherals from mice to keyboards to joysticks. In January 2024, Microsoft pulled out of the PC mouse and keyboard market, ceding manufacturing to Incase. That hasn’t stopped Incase from launching new Microsoft PC peripherals, however; the “designed by Microsoft” Compact Ergonomic Keyboard debuts this year for $119.99.
Charles Simonyi developed the world’s first word processor, Bravo, for Xerox’s iconic Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC. In 1981, Gates hired him. On the first day of his tenure, Simonyi set out to develop a word processor, spreadsheet, and database application, all designed originally to run on MS-DOS — and later, into Windows using the Microsoft Mouse.
Willis Lai / Foundry
“Multi-Tool” turned out to be too clunky of a name…and Microsoft Word was born. Fun fact: a free demo of Word was bundled with the Nov. 1983 issue of PCWorld! (For more, read our feature: “Microsoft Word Turns 25.”
1985: Microsoft Windows launches, ushering in the graphical user interface
Windows didn’t just happen overnight. While MS-DOS was of course successful, companies like Digital Research (GEM), Tandy (DeskMate) and others were adding graphical user interface shells to MS-DOS, moving beyond mere text on a screen. And then there was the 1983 Apple Lisa, built entirely on a GUI. Microsoft had to follow suit. But for two years after Microsoft announced what it called “Interface Manager” on Nov. 10, 1983, development stalled — it took more than two years before Windows 1.0 debuted on Nov. 20, 1985 for a price of $99. (That’s a fixed price, not a subscription.)
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Sure, Windows launched Microsoft into the modern era, but we shouldn’t forget that it also incorporated apps like Calendar, Notepad, and Paint. It’s taken literal decades for those to be freshened up, but today we’re seeing generative AI make its way inside Paint and Notepad, among others.
1986: Microsoft goes public
On February 26, 1986, Microsoft formally opened its doors in its new headquarters in Redmond, Washington, close to where Gates grew up in in Seattle. On March 13, 1986, the company went public at $21 per share.
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If you had purchased just one share at Microsoft’s IPO, it would be worth about $112,086 today, according to Microsoft Copilot. Tack on about $955 for annual dividends. But if you’d reinvested them, the total would be as much as $119,300 to $127,086 from one share alone. (If you’d done the same for Apple, your return would be about $72,800.)
1988: Microsoft ships Microsoft Office, shipping its trinity of productivity apps
While Microsoft may have debuted Multi-Tool Word in 1983, it wasn’t until the Comdex trade show on August 1, 1988, that Microsoft announced Microsoft Office. (Like Windows, Office shipped two years later on Nov. 1, 1990.) The suite included Word 1.1, but the second version of Microsoft Excel. PowerPoint wasn’t originated at Microsoft, either; Microsoft bought “Presenter” from Forethought Inc. and shipped version 2.0 inside Office. As Microsoft itself reported, the company was competing with itself: Microsoft launched Microsoft Write for the Atari at the same trade show.
Since then, Microsoft Office has become the de facto productivity suite, though free alternatives to Office exist.
1990: Microsoft releases Windows 3.0, the first major update to Windows
Microsoft released Windows 2.0 in 1987, but Windows 3.0 and 3.1 (released April 1992) were the Windows updates that put Microsoft on the map. Windows 3.0 (code-named “Cedar”) sold 100,000 copies within two weeks, and added sound to the Windows platform. Windows 3.0 also introduced the world to Windows Solitaire, which sucked up productivity worldwide. Windows 3.1 added MIDI sound and support for (.AVI) video, too, as well as Minesweeper. Both games were designed to help users become more proficient at using a mouse.
Windows 3.0 enabled “protected mode,” which enabled programs to work at the same time and share memory while still maintaining compatibility with MS-DOS. (Microsoft programmers “hacked” the Intel chipset to enable what they called the PrestoChangeoSelector.) Windows 3.1 did include some killer features, though: the modern design of File Explorer, screensavers, the Windows registry, Notepad and Calculator…and Microsoft Bob?
You can argue whether Windows 3.0 or Windows 3.1 were the more meaningful release, but Microsoft had clearly begun its matriculation from nerdy OS into a professional — some might say mainstream — market.
1995: Windows 95 starts us up as Windows goes mainstream
On August 24, 1995, Microsoft launched Windows 95, capping off a three-year development cycle for the operating system code-named “Chicago.” Jay Leno and Gates led the launch at Microsoft’s campus, backed by a $300 million marketing campaign. Microsoft was positioning Windows not as a tool, but as a rock star — pretty literally, as the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” accompanied the launch, and the launch CD-ROM included Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.”
In its first year, Windows 95 sold 40 million copies. Brad Silverberg, a former Microsoft manager, says he still has the first copy of Windows 95, shrinkwrapped.
The Stones’ song also signaled Windows 95’s signature feature: the Start menu, which served as a starting point for users to launch new applications. Underneath, Microsoft designed Windows 95 as its first 32-bit operating system, replacing the 16-bit OSes of old. But since users still needed to access old 16-bit files, Windows 95 was a hybrid of the two architectures. Windows 95 also introduced the Windows Taskbar, Windows Explorer, bult-in networking, plug-and-play hardware, support for CD-ROM drives, and Windows Update. Try Windows 95 out for yourself, inside a browser.
Windows 95 also integrated Internet Explorer, which the U.S. government would later use as a key argument that Microsoft had violated antitrust law.
1998: The U.S. government sues Microsoft
United States vs. Microsoft Corp. was the landmark case that spanned years, from 1990 when the government sent its first antitrust inquiry, to May 18, 1998, when the trial began in a courtroom underneath Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. At issue was the concept of bundling or tying services to the core operating system, which the U.S. Federal Trade Commission deadlocked on, but the Department of Justice under Attorney General Janet Reno decided to prosecute after ordering Microsoft to allow PC makers to install Windows with or without the Internet Explorer browser.
Judge Jackson’s Findings of Fact on Nov. 5, 1999 found Microsoft to be in violation of antitrust laws and ordered Microsoft to be broken up, which would have literally changed history. But Microsoft appealed, and the appellate court reversed Judge Jackson’s ruling that Microsoft’s actions did not constitute a monopoly in the browser market and that Microsoft should not be broken up. (It also found that Judge Jackson had had improper discussions with the press.)
On Sept. 6, the DOJ announced that it would drop the suit. On Nov. 1, both the government and Microsoft agreed to a settlement, requiring Microsoft to share some APIs and allow a panel of observers access to Microsoft’s source code to ensure the settlement was agreed to.
The precedent, of a sort, had been set. Microsoft was now under the watchful eye of the government to ensure that the company didn’t bundle software to try and create an illegal monopoly. In 2011, the government ended its antitrust oversight, but Microsoft’s browser dominance had been usurped by a rival: Google Chrome. It’s not over though: more than a decade later, the government is seeking more information from Microsoft about AI.
2000: Ballmer replaces Gates as CEO
The decision by co-founder and chief executive Bill Gates to step down in favor of Steve Ballmer proved to be a turning point for the company. Gates built Microsoft from nothing into a company with hundreds of millions in sales, paving the way for the brash, enthusiastic Ballmer to take over.
While Gates stepped back from his CEO role to run the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, he still maintained a presence at Microsoft as chairman and the Chief Software Architect until stepping down as chairman in 2014. Gates remained on the board until 2020, when he departed to pursue his charity work.
Ballmer oversaw the launch of the Xbox as well as Microsoft’s foray into phones, but he became infamous for his sweaty enthusiasm in promoting… well, you know.
2001: Microsoft ships Windows XP
Windows XP followed the launch of Windows 2000 and its stable Windows NT kernel, and the livelier, consumer-focused Windows 98 and Windows ME. Windows XP (“Whistler,” named after the Whistler Blackcomb ski resort in Canada), was designed to combine both. It shipped on Oct. 25, 2001, with a Home Edition, Professional Edition and later an XP Media Center Edition, Tablet PC Edition and even a Starter Edition, too.
The first thing that hit your eye when booting Windows XP was the iconic “Bliss” background, taken from a photograph of the Wine Country hills of Northern California. But Windows XP was full of visual effects, from the “Luna” theme to the ClearType rendering system designed to make fonts more readable on LCD displays. Underneath, features like protected memory helped ensure that if an application crashed, the others wouldn’t go along with it. DirectX 8.1 helped improve Windows PC gaming, and the operating system provided greater support for USB peripherals, too.
Having learned that “pop song” equals “operating system,” Microsoft launched Windows 95 with musical superstar Madonna, via the ad below:
Microsoft sold 400 million copies of Windows XP in five years, and even a decade later consumers still hung on to Windows XP, refusing to let go of the beloved OS. It died on April 8, 2014, mourned by millions.
2001: Microsoft launches the Xbox
On May 16, 2001, Microsoft announced its first game console, the Xbox, which it shipped on Nov. 8 of that year for $299. “Xbox is going to change video games the way MTV changed music,” Xbox chief Robbie Bach said at the time.
Microsoft saw the Xbox as a possible hedge against the growing influence of Sony and its PlayStation console, to show off the power of its Xbox Live gaming service (for multiplayer and eventually e-commerce) and as one of the early examples of Microsoft’s ecosystem ambitions. For a generation, exclusive games like Halo represented an alternative to the traditional PC LAN party, offering the chance for friends to sit around the TV, eat pizza, and game.
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Essentially, the Xbox was a “small” PC (with a 733-MHz Intel Pentium III inside it) that wasn’t all that small: the “Duke” earned the meme “Xbox huge” as a result. Microsoft’s Xbox didn’t wipe Sony off the map — far from it! — but the Xbox has been a consistent presence in the console market ever since.
2007: Windows Vista debuts
In Hollywood, nothing good launches in January. So it was with Windows Vista (“Longhorn,”), which was released to retail after the holidays, on Jan. 30, 2007.
While Vista did indeed launch the modern “Aero” visual interface, two annoyances killed it: laggy performance even on (for the time) powerful machines, and the emergence of the User Access Control (UAC) which would confirm that the user was taking a potentially risky action. If memes had been a thing in 2007, the ubiquitous popups would have been everywhere. Vista also helped introduce the concept of digital rights management into the mainstream, too, which absolutely no one was happy with except for the movie studios whose Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs it protected. PCWorld recommended that Vista users just make the best of it.
New features included Windows Search, the widget-like Windows Sidebar, Windows Calendar and Mail, and the debut of Windows Defender. Supposedly, Vista sold 330 million units, but few were really happy with Vista. This PCWorld video really sums up the attitude toward Windows Vista at the time.
2009: Windows 7 launches
After Windows Vista flopped, many users would have been happy with virtually anything new. In October of 2009, they got Windows 7, a rather chill OS that largely did away with all the UAC nagware that plagued Vista. Windows 7 was largely about the UI, as our Windows 7 review notes: an early instance of Windows Snap could subdivide your display; the Action Center served as a holding pen of sorts of any messages Windows wanted to show.
Essentially, Windows 7 made Windows more useful, though it didn’t offer many exciting, showstopper features. One exception: touchscreen support, accompanied by a “touch pack” that tried to show off the new technology.
2011: Microsoft buys Skype
On May 10, 2011, Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, its largest purchase in about three decades. Overnight, Microsoft was now a player in the VOIP market, buying both the popular brand as well as the underlying technology. Microsoft didn’t leave well enough alone, however, treating Skype as a fundamental technology that it could integrate into its other services.
Skype weaved its way through Microsoft’s product offerings for over a decade, going through one redesign after another, bringing in social media elements and other tweaks. In 2024, a last-gasp effort to eliminate ads altogether tried to resuscitate the service, which had been largely replicated by any number of competing VOIP and video services. In February 2025, Microsoft said it will pull the plug on Skype by May 5, ending the Skype experiment in favor of Microsoft Teams.
2012: Microsoft enters the PC market with Microsoft Surface
On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched itself into the PC space with the debut of the Surface RT, a tablet that (take that, Arm haters) was launched with an Nvidia Tegra chip inside. The 10.6-inch tablet sold for $499, or $599 with a Touch Cover bundled together. (Microsoft still hasn’t offered a Surface tablet with a cover keyboard as a unified device.)
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The launch stoked fears that Microsoft would compete with and overshadow its hardware partners. However, the Surface ended up as a device that “broke trail” and showed off what the PC platform could do. Over time, that Surface launch has given way to about a dozen Surface tablets, Surface Laptops and big-screen Surface Studios, with smaller sizes, too. Though eventual Surface champion Panos Panay left for Amazon, the Surface still remains one of Microsoft’s key products and a showcase for its software initiatives.
2015: Windows 10 launches, sparked by Cortana
On July 29, 2015 Microsoft launched Windows 10, one of the most important software launches in its history. It was a redemption arc of sorts, following the semi-disastrous launch of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, which focused on the tablet interface and less so on the desktop.
Windows 10 was not only free, but a free software-as-a-service that could be upgraded via future updates and was designed to coordinate with an ecosystem of PCs, phones, and tablets. It helped drive Windows 10 sales to over a billion devices. Windows 10 also featured an extensive Windows Insider beta program, allowing enthusiasts a chance to test out the OS before the launch, making them part of the process.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
For those who still remember Windows 10 (or still run it!) Microsoft’s OS was noteworthy for two reasons. First there was the updated Start menu, which combined Live Tiles and a column of applications; and then Cortana, Microsoft’s first stab at a digital assistant. I liked Windows 10 both initially and in its updated review, and the Cortana assistant was both charming as well as productive — well, until you set up a new PC in the middle of the night and Cortana would blare, “Hi! I’m Cortana, and I’m here to help!” (Microsoft has since abandoned Cortana.)
Although Windows 10 introduced users to applications like the new web browser, Microsoft Edge, Windows 10 mainly helped to cement Microsoft’s new vision of services, not apps. Apps didn’t need to be installed; instead, they roamed with you, added new features, and saved to the cloud. Today, “standalone apps” are almost an anachronism.
2015: Microsoft’s HoloLens is announced, but AR flops
Microsoft’s HoloLens demo in 2015 was the best I’ve ever seen. A year later, we exclusively showed the HoloLens to you from a hotel room in San Francisco days before others were allowed to.
Unfortunately, that’s probably as far as you got. Microsoft’s HoloLens technically shipped in 2016 for $3,000. The head-mounted device was an early example of augmented reality, where images were projected on to the real world. The magic — aided by the Holographic Processing Unit inside the headset — was that games and applications interacted with that world, too. Yes, you were viewing the world through a porthole, but boy was it fun. Here’s me using it, below.
HoloLens largely fizzled, though, due to the price, the absolute lack of apps, and a compelling use case. The HoloLens 2 barely made it past the announcement stage before it, too, vanished. An experiment with the U.S. Army essentially went nowhere, even after years and millions of dollars of development work.
2015: The last great Windows Phone launches
It’s difficult to boil down Microsoft’s phone business to a single moment in time, especially as it began almost twenty years earlier with Windows CE’s launch in Nov. 1996. In 2000, Microsoft tried taking on Palm with the Pocket PC and then pivoted to early smartphones with Windows Mobile 2003. In Oct. 2010, Microsoft unveiled “Photon,” or Windows Phone 7, which introduced the Metro design language and iconic “Live Tiles” user interface that became emblematic of Windows phones.
Microsoft enforced rigid limits on what hardware could be used for Windows Phone, however, and finally decided to build its own, first partnering with and then buying Nokia for $7.2 billion in Sept. 2013. That gave Microsoft total control over its phone ecosystem, which already suffered from an “app gap” compared to Android and iOS, as well as problems migrating from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8.
On Oct. 6, 2015, Microsoft launched the Lumia 950 and 950XL along with the latest version of its mobile phone OS: “Threshold,” or Windows 10 Mobile. The phone was noteworthy for its Cortana assistant and especially the Continuum dock, which allowed the phone to mirror its screen onto a display. My Lumia 950 review was positive, but a longer-term test with Continuum was brutal. By 2017, it was game over for Windows Phone, finally killed by a lack of apps.
2014: Satya Nadella takes over from Ballmer as CEO
On Feb. 4, Satya Nadella officially took over as the third chief executive of Microsoft, taking the reins from Steve Ballmer. (Bill Gates also used the opportunity to completely separate himself from Microsoft, too.) Nadella had worked at Microsoft since 1992 in a variety of roles, including leading the transformation of Windows Live Search into Bing. Nadella was the executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group before becoming CEO.
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If Ballmer embodied enthusiasm, history will probably say Nadella has been characterized by empathy and humility; Nadella told Bloomberg that he favors a “learn it all” attitude and has championed inclusive design. Nadella also pivoted the company toward (unsurprisingly) the cloud, and specifically AI, running on top of the company’s Asure services. Under Nadella, Microsoft has been less about running Windows on PCs and more about making available Microsoft’s software and services wherever customers are.
2014: Microsoft buys Mojang, making Minecraft a game and a platform
Microsoft’s announcement that it would buy Minecraft developer Mojang for a whopping $2.5 billion on Sept. 15, 2014 came as a shock, even though the news had leaked out days before. With 100 million downloads already on the books, Microsoft was confident that it wasn’t buying just a game, but a platform that could be monetized across multiple operating systems and platforms. You could argue that Microsoft made the same decision, actually, in buying Bethesda Game Studios in Sept. 2020 for $7.5 billion; Bethesda’s Skyrim sold over 60 million units by 2023.
Why did Microsoft spend so much for a blocky exploration game that its creator sold to maintain his sanity?
Few gamers can resist the urge to build something in Minecraft. That’s despite the game’s pixelated, blocky graphics.
“If you talk about STEM education, the best way to introduce anyone to STEM or get their curiosity going on, it’s Minecraft,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, as reported by Geekwire. “So I think what this open-world phenomenon will mean to the community at large, for people who builders, is pretty big, and we are very excited about the acquisition, obviously.”
Today, Microsoft just happens to be one of the largest games publishers in the world, having bought Activision Blizzard (Warcraft, Call of Duty, Diablo) for $68.7 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft turned Minecraft into a teaching tool. Microsoft has maintained the curated Bedrock Edition of Minecraft while also preserving the older Java version, which allows for heavy modification.
2021: Windows 11 launches
Windows 10 was a holdover from Windows 10X, a revision Microsoft ultimately abandoned. Windows 11 launched on Oct. 5, 2021, following a hardware fiasco that made TPMs part of the enthusiast lexicon for several months. Ironically, some users complained about not being able to access Windows 11, while others griped that Microsoft was placing Windows 11 upgrade ads within Windows 10. You just can’t win.
My initial review of Windows 11 for PCWorld called it “an unnecessary replacement for Windows 10,” an opinion I stuck with until 2024, when I advised users to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Some aspects, like the Start menu, were just plain ugly compared to the vivacity that was Windows 10.
PCWorld
Even as Windows 11 eventually exiled Cortana, Windows 11 became the operating system for Microsoft’s AI ambitions, at least in a basic sense. It’s here that Windows 11 integrated Copilot, and began adding AI to Paint, Photos, and more. Microsoft still doesn’t have a fully AI-forward operating system, but it’s getting there.
2023: Microsoft’s AI age dawns with Copilot
The most polarizing new innovation in computing is AI, and Microsoft was on the cutting edge, at least for a time. On Feb. 7, 2023, Microsoft ushered in the “age of AI” with a ChatGPT-powered Bing Search that, according to Satya Nadella, will “reshape the Web” with AI agents. He still might be right.
Of course, what most people remember from that time is when journalists got their hands on Microsoft’s AI, and everything went nuts: Bing’s crazy chatbot wondered about a reporter’s marriage; there were ethnic slurs and more. I was of two minds: I personally thought trying to “break” the chatbot seemed a little unfair — but I also recalled the deep solemnity in which Microsoft execs promised that guardrails had been designed in from the very beginning. Yeah, right.
Mark Hachman / IDG
By May, the new AI (now called Copilot) had been lobotomized and headed to Windows 11, where it was supposed to be the engine allowing you to control your PC. Then it wasn’t.
Today, Copilot on PCs is really just another app that can be turned off, and the “revolutionary” Copilot key can be reconfigured to whatever you’d like. Yet Copilot is now everywhere within Microsoft: as expensive business assistants, as editing and content-creation tools in Microsoft 365 apps like Word, plus ways to touch up photos and other art in Windows Photos and Paint. Copilot+ PCs, meanwhile, use a local CPU’s NPU, allowing companies like Qualcomm, AMD, and Intel to compete further.
Fifty years ago, Gates was coding in the foundations of what would eventually become Windows. Fifty years later, Microsoft is asking AI to shoulder some or all of the responsibility for coding entirely new apps and experiences.
What does the future hold?
