Microsoft wants 2024 to be “the year of the AI-powered PC,” and to make that clear, the company today announced a new Copilot key — a physical key that will soon make its way to the keyboard and join the keyboard. The Windows key, along with its friends Control, Alt, and the Insert key that you never intentionally use. Based on the image sent by Microsoft, it appears that the new Copilot key will replace the right Control key on a standard computer keyboard, as it will be placed between the Alt key and the left arrow key.
“The introduction of the Copilot key represents the first significant change to the Windows PC keyboard in nearly three decades,” Yousef Mahdi, Microsoft executive vice president and executive director of consumer marketing, wrote in today’s announcement. “We believe it will enable people to participate in the AI transformation more easily. The Copilot key joins the Windows key as an essential part of your computer keyboard, and when pressed, the new key will invoke the Copilot experience in Windows to make it easier to use Copilot in your daily life.
In regions where Copilot is not available, the Copilot key will launch Windows Search. The first keyboards to feature the new switch will be launched at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, and will likely start shipping in late February.
If you needed any more evidence that Microsoft is on board the AI hype train, the fact that now, for the first time since the Windows logo key appeared on Microsoft’s physical keyboard in 1994, the addition of a new button is all you need to know.
Microsoft, in collaboration with its chip partners like AMD and Intel, hopes that many of its AI inferences will soon be offloaded onto homegrown silicon, which will then “unlock new AI experiences on Windows PCs.” Microsoft has never succumbed to hyperbole, noting that it sees “this as another transformative moment in our journey with Windows as Copilot will be the entry point into the world of AI on PC.”
Fortunately, your old keyboards will continue to work just as they did before — and if your keyboard allows, you may even be able to remap your right control key to act like a Copilot key. Or you can ignore the whole thing, of course.