Microsoft has just announced what it presents as a major innovation on future “PC AI” oriented on artificial intelligence: a keyboard key specifically dedicated to the launch of Copilot, its AI assistant.
Artificial intelligence is definitely the current obsession of the major players in IT, and in particular Microsoft. The company has just announced, via blog postthe arrival of a seemingly anecdotal change but revealing the importance given to AI in its strategy for the future: the addition of a new key on the keyboard dedicated to Copilot, its AI assistant integrated into Windows.
Keyboards are highly standardized peripherals, which have changed very little in recent decades. The advent of laptops, with their space constraints, has favored the appearance of some additional shortcuts based on combinations with the famous Fn key, and certain keyboards specialized for video games or development offer keys dedicated to macros. -commands, customizable action sequences. And that’s about it.
Carried away in its new passion for artificial intelligence tools, Microsoft is today announcing the introduction of a brand new key on the keyboards of certain Windows PCs, the role of which will be to launch the Copilot application… and that’s all. As practical as this function may be, it certainly does not deserve the deluge of superlatives and hyperboles with which Microsoft presents it to us: “The introduction of the Copilot key marks the first significant change to the Windows PC keyboard in almost three decades. Just that !
Windows PC keyboard: still waiting for really useful functions
Improving the ergonomics of keyboards is undoubtedly a major area of progress in terms of accessibility, comfort of use and productivity, but in this regard there seem to be other more urgent and certainly more relevant projects. Entering accented characters and diacritics, omnipresent in all languages other than English, is for example always very difficult and often requires acrobatic key combinations.
Furthermore, the increasingly reduced space on ultra-portable computers pushes manufacturers to pack the keyboard ever further, to the detriment of the size and spacing between the keys, and at the cost of the almost systematic disappearance of the keyboard. numeric keypad, a very practical tool for many uses. Not sure that adding an additional key dedicated to a single function will improve things. Especially since a simple keyboard shortcut would produce the same result.
Finally, Microsoft takes the trouble to specify, in a note at the end of its announcement, that the availability of Copilot may vary according to regions and devices, its new revolutionary key will simply launch the Windows search function in the event of unavailability of its AI assistant. Users residing in the European Union, who do not have access to Copilot at the moment, and those who do not care about this gadget, will therefore be delighted to have a completely useless new key on the keyboard of their future computer.