- Microsoft added a new icon to the Windows 11 taskbar
- It allows you to use Windows Studio effects in compatible applications
- Windows Studio Effects is exclusive to Copilot + PCS
If you have downloaded the latest update of Windows 11, which was published as part of the set of monthly fixes “Patch Mardid”, you may have noticed a new icon in the taskbar and you are asked what it is. Well, don’t ask yourself: it’s a shortcut for Windows Studio’s effects powered by AI.
Windows Studio Effects is a series of effects that use artificial intelligence to improve the quality of your video calls. It can blur the background, give the impression that you are looking at the camera directly (rather than looking at the screen), improving lighting and ensuring that you are always in the frame (as well as D ‘Apply more creative filters).
You may not have used the effects of Windows Studio before – this is a relatively new lot of effects introduced as part of Microsoft’s Pushing, and this change seems to be an attempt to present them to a wider audience. The icon will appear when you use an application that uses the effects of Windows Studio – which will include just about all the tools that use the webcam of your device.
Click on the icon reveals the effects so that you can easily activate – and if you fly over the icon, it will tell you which application uses the webcam. This is a practical confidentiality feature, as this means that applications should not access your webcam without you knowing.
However, there are many Windows 11 users (including myself) who are waiting for Microsoft to make changes to the taskbar which bring some of the features that the previous versions have had – in particular the possibility of dragging files On application icons in the taskbar to open them in the application. Microsoft rather adding icons for the features that many people do not use is disappointing, it is at least.
Easier access, but is it enough?
As I mentioned, Windows Studio Effects was introduced as part of Microsoft’s campaign to bring more people to use AI features – something in which the company has invested massively. 11 Appliances that meet certain hardware requirements (16 GB of RAM and a CPU with an NPU) to perform tasks AI locally on the device, rather than via the Internet.
For this reason, the effects of Windows Studio are exclusive to Copilot + PCS, so if you do not see the new icon, this is probably due to the fact that your PC does not meet the requirements.
This is where a part of the problem for Microsoft resides if it wants more people to use the effects of Windows Studio. Making the functionality more easily accessible by putting an icon in the taskbar is a good first step, but by limiting functionality to certain PCs will reduce its scope.
Of course, what Microsoft would like in this case is that people who are desperate to use the Windows Studio effects to go out and buy a new Copilot +laptop. But this is the other problem – is this a feature that will excite people for AI? And excited enough to buy a new laptop?
I don’t think. Certain features, such as the jamming of the background and the automatically putting online of the camera, can be carried out by other applications without the need for an NPU (Neuronal processing unit), while others features, such as creative effects, are fun, but barely essential. If you use your device to make video calls in your work, it is unlikely that you want to allow them. Worse, the visual contact function ends up being a little frightening, with a visual contact with the unnatural aspect causing a strange effect of the valley.
So far, the Copilot + PC that we have tested have been some of the best laptops you can buy thanks to their performance and battery life, but AI features are the least bits Impressive about them – which is a problem like Microsoft envisages them as a point of sale key – in particular as other Copilot + PC key features, such as the controversial recall function, do not work so well or are not yet published.
So, regardless of the ease with which Microsoft is launching these new AI features, people will continue to ignore them until the company gives us a good reason – and so far, it does not did not manage to do.
