While the company may withdraw some of its investments in the infrastructure that makes it run, Microsoft is still focused on AI and Copilot at least in public. The company's annual Microsoft Build Developer conference will take place from May 19-22 and will usually involve all the various platforms of the company, but it seems that AI will be a star again.
Microsoft Build is usually a very dry thing – Azure will be a lot – but over the past few years, the company has also introduced new AI capabilities using the conference, which will eventually go into consumer products. Since Microsoft also recently released a new Surface Pro and Surface laptop, the incident should all be related to the software.
You can watch the open-build keynote hosted by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CTO Kevin Scott on the Build website, or follow Engadget's LiveBlog if you want the highlight to happen. At the same time, we can make some educated guesses about what Microsoft might involve.
Add more AI to Windows 11
Microsoft talks about agents – AI that can act on your behalf – doing a lot on Microsoft Build 2024, and the work of AI automation in Windows may also be coming this year. Microsoft has announced plans to introduce agents into the setup app, which can tweak for you. Digging into the feature or other agents entering Windows 11 seems to be the obvious topic. The company may also be involved in how third-party developers build agents in their own applications.
Microsoft also shared its changes to File Explorer to allow you to find and tweak files without jumping into another application, and upgrade the Start menu so that you can find and download applications without opening the Microsoft Store. Both of these features can be highlighted at build time.
Let Copilot see your desktop
One of the most impressive features Microsoft's demonstration for Copilot is the ability of the AI assistant to selectively see what you are doing and talk to you. The feature is already called Mobile, Copilot Vision is already available on mobile devices, and Microsoft mocked an extended version of the feature that can see your desktop or select the app window. Copilot Vision is available for Windows Insiders, but when will Microsoft share it with the average user. In-depth detail on the feature and extending where it works seems to be natural things that may arise during the build process.
Microsoft introduced a new “researcher” tool to Copilot in March 2025 that uses OpenAI's O3 inference model but limits functionality to Microsoft 365 subscribers. The tool can conduct research on your behalf, collecting information from multiple sources, such as data from OneDrive and Web searches. Microsoft has not announced plans to bring researchers to the free version of Copilot in Windows, but it can be built in 2025.
Everything else
Microsoft maintains multiple platforms that act as the backbone of other huge businesses in the world. AI is more interesting to the average person, but the company may also have more Azure, .Net and Github sharing for 2025 Build Build.
