Microsoft Photos App Gets Powerful AI Overhaul
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Microsoft is rolling out a significant update to its native Photos app, transforming it into a much smarter tool for organizing and enhancing your digital images. This new version, available in the Microsoft Store, leans heavily on local artificial intelligence, but there's a major catch: its most powerful new features are exclusive to the new Copilot+ PCs.
While not a replacement for professional tools like Adobe Photoshop, the app's focus shifts towards intelligent library management and AI-powered enhancements that run directly on your device.
Smart AI-Powered Photo Organization
The standout feature of the updated Photos app is its ability to automatically classify your entire image library. Using the power of an onboard Neural Processing Unit (NPU), the app can scan your photos and intelligently sort them into useful categories like receipts, documents, screenshots, and even handwritten notes. This is designed to eliminate the tedious process of manually sorting through years of accumulated digital clutter.
Microsoft also highlights that this classification system is language-agnostic, meaning it can correctly identify and tag a receipt or document regardless of the language or script used. Paired with an improved keyword search, users can now filter and find specific images much more efficiently.
Breathe New Life into Old Photos with AI Upscaling
Beyond organization, the update introduces a "super resolution" feature. This tool uses local AI to upscale low-resolution images, restoring detail and clarity that is often lost when enlarging older or heavily compressed digital photos. Because the process happens entirely on the device without needing to upload anything to the cloud, it's both fast and private.
This feature is particularly useful for revitalizing old family photos or images saved from early digital cameras, bringing them closer to the quality standards of modern high-resolution displays.
The Catch: Exclusive to Copilot+ PCs
Unfortunately, these groundbreaking AI functions come with a significant limitation. They are only available on the new wave of Copilot+ PCs, which are equipped with powerful NPUs from Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm. This requirement means the majority of current Windows users will not be able to access these new features.
This decision positions the Photos app update less as a universal tool for all Windows users and more as a showcase for Microsoft's new AI-centric hardware strategy. While the convenience is undeniable, the hardware barrier suggests that many users will likely continue to rely on their existing photo management tools and editors for the time being.
