I used a Copilot+ PC for 2 months, and it's game-changing

Summary

Copilot+ PCs offer integrated neural processing units for local AI tasks, ensuring data privacy.
The Surface Pro 11 with Copilot+ features blends mobility, performance, and integrated AI.
Early-stage AI enhancements on Copilot+ PCs show promise, transforming work efficiency.

Approximately two years ago, my wife embarked on her entrepreneurial journey, starting her business despite having no design background. Facing the challenge of bootstrapping her vision, she turned to generative AI — a move that proved crucial in her early successes. She leveraged tools like Copilot CoCreate to design her corporate logo and combined Copilot with ChatGPT to craft copy for her website, corporate documents, and social media posts.

Inspired by her success, I became intrigued by the opportunity to try a Copilot+ PC. I wanted to see how much more effective this system could be for creative professionals like my wife and others who find generative AI transformative. Additionally, I was curious about the performance of the new Snapdragon ARM processors featured in Surface Pro PCs.

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My goal for this article isn’t to go deep into the weeds on things like “TOPS” or be an exhaustive read on Copilot+ AI, but to share my experience using a Copilot+ PC for the last few months. My goal is to provide insights for anyone considering a Copilot+ PC purchase — whether directly from Microsoft or through another vendor. I’ll also compare the integrated Copilot+ experience on the PC with the standalone Copilot app available on the web and in mobile app stores. Let’s dive in.

A render of the Surface Pro 11th Generation

Surface Pro 11th Edition

Brand: Microsoft
Storage: Up to 1TB
CPU: Snapdragon® X Plus (10 Core), with LCD display Snapdragon® X Elite (12 Core), with OLED display
Memory: Up to 32GB
Operating System: Windows 11
Battery: Up to 53Wh
Ports: 2 X USB-C®/ USB 4 ports, Surface Connect port
Display type: 13” PixelSense™ Flow (LCD, OLED) display
Price: Starting at $999.99
Connectivity: WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 (LE Audio support)
Measurements: Length: 11.3 inches (287 mm) Width: 8.2 inches (209 mm) Height: 0.37 inches (9.3 mm)
Headphone jack: No
Colors: Sapphire, Dune, Platinum, Black
Weight: 1.97 lbs (895 g)
Model/s:: Surface Pro, Surface Pro with OLED
Front Camera: Quad HD front-facing Surface Studio Camera with ultrawide field of view
Rear Camera: 10 MP Ultra HD rear-facing camera
GPU: Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU
Extras: Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU with 45 TOPS

Copilot+ PC vs. Copilot

What’s the difference?

Microsoft

At its core, privacy is the difference between the Copilot app and Copilot+ PCs. The standalone Copilot app processes tasks in the cloud, meaning your data and requests are handled on remote servers — stored on hardware not under your control. In contrast, Copilot+ PCs include integrated neural processing units (NPUs) that perform AI tasks locally, ensuring that your data remains on your device. This distinction also extends to performance, as local processing can offer advantages in speed and responsiveness without compromising privacy.

In practical terms, this difference has significant everyday implications. The cloud-based Copilot app functions much like ChatGPT, letting you upload documents and images to perform tasks such as summarization or content modification. However, on a Copilot+ PC, AI features are built directly into Windows and its applications. For example, on my Surface Pro 11 demo unit, the built-in webcam can apply mobile-like effects during video chats.

By accessing quick settings in the taskbar, I could activate features such as “Eye Contact” — a function that uses local AI processing to adjust your gaze so that even when you’re reading content on-screen, or on a teleprompter, your eyes appear to be looking directly at the camera.

A Surface Pro 11 with CoPilot+'s studio effects settings.

These early-stage AI enhancements are promising, but there are some limitations. For example, Microsoft released their new Outlook desktop app, but I can’t log into it with the Microsoft Exchange account I pay for through Microsoft, not a third-party vendor. Exchange email is one of the biggest reasons to use Outlook. Instead, I’m using Outlook on the web.

Several features still display “coming soon” notices for certain Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses. One particularly intriguing function is Recall. This feature takes screenshots of your activity on the PC at regular intervals to aid in search and retrieval, creating a visual history of your actions that you can scrub through on a timeline.

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Screenshots of your activity? Yes — scary. That said, you have control over which specific apps or websites Windows screenshots, and, again, the NPUs make it so that your content doesn’t leave your computer.

I didn’t activate Recall on my first term using the Surface Pro 11 because I wanted to use it as most regular consumers would. To access the feature, you must be enrolled as a Microsoft Insider (their Beta program) and have installed a Windows 11 Insider Preview built onto your device — at least for right now. Preview builds can be buggy, so I didn’t want to add that to my demo unit for this first article.

Surface Pro 11, Windows 11, and AI

My organic interactions with artificial intelligence

My experience with the Microsoft Surface Pro 11 over the past couple of months has been both enjoyable and eye-opening. I first encountered the Surface line with the Surface Pro 3, which impressed me with its ability to handle lightweight content creation tasks like video editing. The introduction of Copilot+ PCs represents a significant evolution in this product line. The Surface Pro 11 is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X-series processor — a departure from the more Intel chips. Microsoft has even made comparisons to this processor/PC combo and Apple’s MacBook Air running M-series chips.

The review unit provided by Microsoft is their premium Surface Pro 11 model. It features a 120Hz OLED display that delivers vibrant visuals and solid outdoor readability — even in direct sunlight. The device is powered by a Snapdragon X Elite 12-core X1E80100 processor running at 3.40GHz and is backed by 32GB of RAM. Accompanying the device was a Flex keyboard with Slim Pen, which made typing a pleasure. However, I preferred using a mouse during extended sessions instead of the built-in trackpad. For the ergonomics — no matter the laptop — I prefer mice over their built-in trackpads.

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The display’s brilliance and outdoor performance make the Surface Pro 11 an excellent companion for work in cafés, public spaces, or anywhere away from a power outlet. In my experience, the battery life has been fantastic, allowing me to work for extended periods without needing to plug in.

Over the review period, I put the Surface Pro 11 through its paces with various creative tasks — including video and photo editing — while also exploring its AI capabilities. Although the integration of Copilot+ into some applications is still evolving, the overall experience has been impressive.

Remarkably, this performance was comparable to that of my iMac Pro — even though the iMac boasts far more robust hardware on paper.

For video editing tasks, I experimented with both Adobe Premiere Pro 2025 and Microsoft’s Clipchamp. Adobe Premiere Pro, despite running in emulation on this ARM processor (since native support is still pending), handled 4K UHD smartphone videos more smoothly than I anticipated. Basic tasks such as scrubbing the timeline and editing multiple layers of 4K footage were efficient, although intensive effects processing did expose some limitations in a system without a discrete graphics card. For example, exporting a two-minute 4K video for my TikTok channel took about 12 minutes — a pace that may improve once native support is implemented.

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In contrast, Microsoft’s Clipchamp offered a mixed experience. Its export times were notably faster — completing the same two-minute video in approximately three minutes — but the editing process was hampered by frequent buffering when scrubbing through timelines or individual clips. Additionally, Clipchamp’s reliance on an internet connection poses a limitation for users with less reliable connectivity.

Enhanced with its latest generative AI features, Adobe Photoshop showed just what professional apps optimized for the Surface’s ARM processor are capable of. Running natively on the device, Photoshop delivered snappy performance when applying multiple layers of filters and edits. Its AI-driven content masking was fast, and accurately identified subject boundaries, and the generative AI quickly produced creative options in response to my prompts. Remarkably, this performance was comparable to that of my iMac Pro — even though the iMac boasts far more robust hardware on paper.

Other local AI applications such as Studio Effects, Notepad, and Paint with Image Creator and Cocreator were fun to try out. While I’m more proficient with Photoshop and favored it over Paint for more complex editing tasks, the AI functionalities in these applications were generally useful. Users with different skill levels or needs may have varying experiences with Paint’s AI features.

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Microsoft Notepad, showing AI enhancements.

I had some initial concerns regarding Notepad’s requirement for users to log in. As someone who uses macOS and enjoys the convenience of a synchronized Notes app across devices, I didn’t find this requirement problematic. However, for many Microsoft users, the absence of a mobile Notepad version might diminish the benefits of this feature. Essentially, the value of logging in must be weighed against its practicality, and Microsoft appears to be listening to user feedback by reconsidering its approach and no longer requiring users to log in.

AI Integration in Office Applications

While a detailed discussion of Copilot integration in Microsoft Office products like Word and PowerPoint warrants its own dedicated review, I have some brief thoughts on my use. I utilize a combination of Grammarly’s AI-powered editing tools and Copilot to edit my final drafts. The process has been very smooth and helpful for me, since I wasn’t an English or journalism major. They aren’t perfect, but they are practical editing tools.

Again, I use these for editing only — no prompts to write the article for me. I write it, then use AI to help me with grammar conventions and to surface any of my content whose structure doesn’t adhere to official writing style guides.

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Final reflections on the Copilot+ experience

The utility is far more than Surface deep

Using the image creator and cocreator tool in copilot.

The Surface Pro 11 with Copilot+ features offers a compelling blend of mobility, performance, and integrated AI. Without the Copilot+ enhancements, the Surface Pro 11 is a great convertible PC that delivers a full operating system experience in a highly portable form factor. The inclusion of local AI capabilities, however, adds a new dimension by enabling tasks that previously required cloud-based applications.

It’s still early days, so it is entirely possible that, for some people, the addition of local AI functionality may feel like an “add-on” rather than core functionality.

For others like my wife, who not only used Copilot to create her business logo and help her with marketing copy, but as an Executive Assistant, she’s found generative AI to take weeks of transcription work into hours of work. Instead of having to transcribe meetings and conference calls “by hand,” she now has tools that can record conference calls (with everyone’s consent) and then take and summarize the contents of those calls for the C-Suite folks she supports. For people like her, Copilot+ PCs are a game-changing tool that has the potential to save countless hours of labor so you can focus more on the things that truly move the needle in your life.

Surface Pro 11th Edition

Brand: Microsoft
Storage: Up to 1TB
CPU: Snapdragon® X Plus (10 Core), with LCD display Snapdragon® X Elite (12 Core), with OLED display
Memory: Up to 32GB
Operating System: Windows 11
Battery: Up to 53Wh
Ports: 2 X USB-C®/ USB 4 ports, Surface Connect port
Display type: 13” PixelSense™ Flow (LCD, OLED) display
Price: Starting at $999.99
Connectivity: WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 (LE Audio support)
Measurements: Length: 11.3 inches (287 mm) Width: 8.2 inches (209 mm) Height: 0.37 inches (9.3 mm)
Headphone jack: No
Colors: Sapphire, Dune, Platinum, Black
Weight: 1.97 lbs (895 g)
Model/s:: Surface Pro, Surface Pro with OLED
Front Camera: Quad HD front-facing Surface Studio Camera with ultrawide field of view
Rear Camera: 10 MP Ultra HD rear-facing camera
GPU: Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU
Extras: Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU with 45 TOPS