The Copilot app for Windows now has a keyboard shortcut for opening voice mode, allowing you to talk to the AI chatbot without a bunch of clicks. It’s a bit of a throwback to the conversation mode in Windows 10’s Cortana voice assistant.
As of the latest update to the Copilot chatbot, you can now initiate a conversation with Copilot by holding the Alt + Spacebar keys for two seconds. This “Press to talk” functionality allows for hands-free control, letting query Copilot and receive instant responses without interrupting your ongoing tasks. The voice conversation ends automatically after several seconds of silence or manually by pressing the Esc key. Once the conversation is over, the microphone will stop being shown on the screen.
It’s not clarified if this feature works properly while the chatbot is not focused on the screen or you’re doing other tasks, or if the shortcut only works while the window is in focus. If it’s the former, it can be pretty cool. By just hitting those two keys rather than having to open the window, you can speak your question or prompt to Copilot aloud much quicker than the time it would take you to open the window and then hit the mic button. You could, for one, be doing something in your browser, and instead of firing up a chatbot to ask it a question (which might take several clicks), all you’d need to do is hit those keys for two seconds and start asking Copilot what you want to know.
It’s a bit like the Copilot button on Copilot+ PCs in a way. With computers that have that button, the chatbot is always just a key away. This shortcut would work with computers that don’t necessarily have the Copilot button. Plus, it’s more direct—while the button pulls up the chatbot screen, you still need to type in your prompt, while with this shortcut you can just start speaking as soon as you finish holding down the buttons for two seconds.
Copilot first added voice functionality to its chatbot back in October 2024, and it was further expanded just weeks ago. It joined other chatbots, such as Google’s Gemini and ChatGPT, who had already added these features months ago. Copilot was a bit late to the party, which was a bit surprising considering it was ahead of competitors in adding things such as GPT-4, but it’s good to see that it was added nonetheless and that it’s now easier to use.
Related
Microsoft Flip-Flops Its Way Into a Native Copilot App
After four or five Copilot app redesigns, Microsoft is finally offering more than a simple web wrapper.
As Microsoft has continued to make Copilot a central experience throughout all Microsoft apps and services, it has continued to improve on it. It announced that it would be finally bringing a native Copilot app to Windows, shortly after giving users a web app on macOS that would allow them to interact with Copilot through not just the web browser. In the case of macOS, it’s a good addition, considering the state of Apple Intelligence and how Mac users probably want to go with another chatbot anyway. It has also recently added things such as Think Deeper, which uses OpenAI’s o1 model to come up with more accurate, thought-upon answers.
This is now available for Insiders, so if you happen to be in a pre-release build, make sure to check it out.
Source: Windows Blog
