When Microsoft released Windows 11 five years ago, it felt like an operating system that was still being renovated, a work in progress. You’d think by now that those renovations would be complete, with Microsoft turning its attention to Windows 12. Instead, Windows 11 feels like it’s here to stay, forming the foundation for Microsoft’s next big ambition: transforming Windows into an agentic OS.
At a Windows and Surface event this week, Microsoft laid out its plan to bring AI agents to Windows, including hybrid intelligence that lets Windows take advantage of free local models instead of expensive cloud ones. “I think today is the day we’ll start talking and thinking about the frontier ecosystem taking maybe slightly different contours,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
After trying to sell businesses on a new Copilot last month, Nadella took a similar approach for his vision of agents and hybrid intelligence for Windows. It was so similar that when he mentioned the security, identity, and management aspects of Microsoft’s platform for securing agents, it almost seemed like he was pitching businesses again instead of AI developers, creatives, and just regular Windows users.
After a somewhat dizzying start, Windows chief Pavan Davuluri appeared onstage to try and explain why agents and hybrid intelligence are so important for Windows users. There were demos of GitHub Copilot coding locally without expensive cloud tokens; a long list of models that can now run locally; examples of agents like OpenClaw, Hermes, and Perplexity; and even deeper integration of Copilot in Windows.
I wasn’t fully convinced by any of these demos, though.
