Windows 11’s awful search is getting an AI boost soon, and that’s not all

Based on a number of new features being rolled up within new “Release Preview” updates for Windows 11, Microsoft appears to be readying a push for AI-powered enhancements in the coming weeks.

Although Microsoft typically reserves major feature releases for the fall, April 2025 is a key month for the software giant because it marks the 50th anniversary of the company’s founding. With two preview releases of Windows 11, Microsoft has tipped off what features your PC will be receiving soon—most likely in April.

Both Windows 11 Build 26100.3613 and Windows 11 Build 26100.3624 are part of the Release Preview Channel for Windows 11 Insiders, meaning you can try them out early yourself by joining the Windows Insider program. If you do, note that Microsoft isn’t releasing all of these features in one fell swoop. Some of them will be released “normally” while others are rolled out in a “gradual” cadence.

Optional non-security feature releases typically launch on the fourth week of every month, usually on a Tuesday. (In this case, that’d be April 22, 2025.) Those features then typically roll out to everyone else about two weeks later. Nothing guarantees this timeline, of course. It’s our best guess based on past releases and when they’ve occurred.

Remember, though, Microsoft’s emphasis is on the “new”—and the sexiest new Windows features use AI. That means you’ll need a Copilot+ PC, and Copilot+ PCs mean NPUs. (But NPUs are only available on a subset of PCs, and even then certain features are only available for certain NPUs.) Basically, if you want everything that Microsoft has to offer, you should buy a laptop with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip in it, like the Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition.

New AI features coming to Windows 11

Right now, it appears that semantic search will be Windows’ flagship AI feature for the near future. Semantic search, which was first shown off back in January, allows you to forego the exact word or title you’re searching for and describe it instead. For example, you could search for “photo of children at school” without knowing the exact file name.

Microsoft

Semantic search may also help offset Copilot’s inability to monitor and control your PC, something that was originally planned but fell by the wayside. In its place, you’ll be able to describe what you want Windows to do inside the Settings menu.

Put another way, semantic search will be a part of Windows Search as well as Settings. Unfortunately, semantic search will only be available for Windows on Snapdragon PCs; users with AMD- or Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs will have to wait. But since it will run locally on your PC, you won’t have to be connected to the internet for it to work.

Microsoft is also kinda-sorta bringing semantic search to photos—but only in File Explorer, not the Photos app. The Photos app already allows you to search via words like “snow” to identify photos of snowy mountains. Going forward, File Explorer will now allow you to search using words like “summer picnic,” Microsoft says.

Microsoft

File Explorer, like Photos, will now show photos stored on OneDrive in the cloud alongside photos stored locally on your PC. It’s not quite clear whether Microsoft is using the PC’s NPU to perform these searches… but it must be since this feature is reserved for Snapdragon PCs, too. It’s “coming soon” to Copilot+ PCs with AMD and Intel inside.

That said, if you do own a Copilot+ PC powered by either AMD or Intel processors, here’s some good news: live captions and real-time translation are going to be available.

Live Captions first debuted in the Windows 11 2022 Update, though it used the power of the CPU back then, not the NPU. Now, up to 44 different languages can be captured and translated into English on AMD and Intel Copilot+ PCs via video calls, recordings, and streamed content. If you own a Snapdragon PC, the opposite is true: you can now translate English (or 25 other languages) into Chinese using real-time translation.

Chris Hoffman / IDG

Your voice can also be used to better effect in Voice Access, too. One of the issues I’ve had with Voice Access is that it’s unbearably rigid—you either know the commands or you don’t. Now, Microsoft is using AI to “loosen up” Voice Access by allowing you to describe what you want to do instead of using the exact syntax. Chinese support for Voice Access is being added, too.

If you use an app with support for Windows Studio Effects, you should see an icon on the system tray that shows when Windows Studio Effects is in use. It’s a bit redundant since Microsoft already indicated that the icon would appear in a February Windows update.

Other changes coming to Windows

Microsoft is also changing how it monitors your system. You may start seeing “cards” that show off your PC’s key specifications, such as the CPU, memory, and storage. This is a reorganization of sorts since the Windows Settings app already consolidates these features, but these “top cards” will simply pull this information out and put them at the top of the Settings > System > About portion of Windows Settings.

Microsoft also says that it will track CPU utilization a bit differently in Task Manager, though it’s not clear how this will play out. A separate, hidden tab will show off the old way of measuring it.

Microsoft

You’ll see new ways of interacting with Windows, too. Laptops place a keyboard right under your fingers, but desktop PCs don’t. You might end up in a situation where your desktop’s keyboard is off to the side (perhaps if you’ve turned your PC into an arcade or virtual pinball cabinet). In that case, you can use a new Xbox gamepad keyboard interface, where you can use an Xbox gamepad to type just like on the console.

A new emoji interface is being added, too. You might know that you can access the Windows emoji menu via the Windows key + Semicolon shortcut, but apparently no one else does given that Microsoft is adding a new system tray icon to the taskbar to highlight the emoji panel.

Chris Hoffman / IDG

Microsoft is also working with developers to add improved widgets, something that’s been promised for a while now. But one change you should see in this release, given what Microsoft has announced, is greater control over which widgets you see on your lock screen. How will that work? We’ll know soon enough.

We’d like to think that features such as Windows’ new battery icons will be released soon—but those are still stuck in the Dev Channel, so they probably still have a ways to go. We also haven’t heard much about Windows Recall lately either, which has already been released for testing. Remember, there’s always more to come.