- Windows 11’s new preview of the beta channel introduces ‘AI -actions’
- This is practical shortcuts to fire AI -skills within desktop folders
- Originally, there are only a small number of features available, all about image files – but several AI actions are in the pipeline for testing
Windows 11 receives another infusion of AI, and this time it comes directly to File Explorer, the app that allows you to see and work with the files and folders on your PC.
Microsoft introduced this feature with Windows 11’s new Preview Build (26120.4151) in Beta Channel.
File Explorer gets a new opportunity for ‘AI actions’ in its context-sensitive right-click in menu. This means that when you right-click a file, you get extra context-based choices to work with AI skills. For starters – and remembering, this is still in testing – there are four actions that relate to image files.
Two of them are practical shortcuts to change the background of an image. One allows you to blur the background of the photos app and the other removes the background completely – to cut the foreground item – in the paint app.
The idea is that if you have an image file that needs this attention, you can simply right -click and order the job done right in the folder (with Windows 11 firing up the app and the task from there).
The other two AI actions for images facilitate deletion of an object (removal of something not wanted to penetrate the photo) in photos, and you can also order a bing -visual search (a picture search on the web via Microsoft’s Bing Engine).
To begin with, these actions only work with JPG and PNG files, but this choice will be expanded in time (though most people use JPGs essentially anyway).
Microsoft also promises that AI actions for those like Word, Excel and PowerPoint files will be rolled out (in testing) soon enough. It will include an opportunity to get Copilot to summarize any Microsoft 365 file that boils the contents of a document for an exact, which is something you may well be familiar with, but there is a trick that may be new to you here: to make an FAQ.
This is signing up for copilot to transform an OneDrive file into a “nicely formatted, AI-generated Q&A list” that could come in useful for some people. However, this functionality has been around for a while, but it will of course be new to Quickfire AI actions.
The catch with these skills in Microsoft 365 is that you not only have to have a subscription to the online suite, but also a copilot subscription (via your Microsoft account). That’s because you need the latter to unlock Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps where AI is available.
In case of creating a FAQ, this functionality will only be for business users originally, although Microsoft notes: “Consumer support with a Microsoft account will come later.”
Analysis: More AI Shocker
It’s not a surprise to watch Microsoft push more AI functionality into Windows 11. This is an important driver not only for us but for Copilot+ PCS that Microsoft is investing in -these devices have exclusive AI forces, and the more ways the company can give users to reach them, the better.
Or at least that’s how Microsoft wants to see it. The argument against this continued slow infiltration of AI in Windows 11 is that if you do not use any of this, then it is just a little more. In this case, the new AI actions (previously found in Preview-Builds a long time ago) are an extra line in the right-click context-sensitive menu with files, and some people may not want it and feel it is a waste of it (admittedly small piece) space.
Expect more of this in the future and there is actually another smaller piece of AI creeping elsewhere in this Preview Build. It is in the Widgets panel that has seen its feed reorganized, and COPILOT AI now touch some stories into this feed. However, this is a more change behind the scenes than the interface fine adjustment with File Explorer, and on top of that, if you do not like the new system (called ‘Copilot Discover’), you can turn it off in the ‘Personalize MSN’ settings for the Widgets card.
