At a Windows event on October 7, Microsoft described how Copilot on Windows is turning from a chat window into an assistant that works with your computer. Copilot will be able to use local context from a user's PC, take actions on it and run models locally. According to coverage of the event, this reaches Copilot+ PCs in the coming months.
Sandboxes for AI agents
Microsoft also made Microsoft Execution Containers generally available. They provide a containment layer for AI agents on Windows: agents run inside policy-controlled containers that limit what they can reach. On the same day GitHub made local sandboxing for GitHub Copilot generally available at no extra cost, so coding agents can run commands without free access to the whole machine.
New hardware
Microsoft also introduced the Surface Laptop Ultra with Nvidia's new chip, priced from about $2,600.
Why it matters
Agents that click, type and change files on your PC are useful and risky in equal measure, as recent reports of AI agents overstepping their tasks have shown. Built-in sandboxing is the part to watch: if you plan to let an assistant act on your computer, prefer tools that run it in a contained environment and ask before irreversible steps.