Microsoft's newly announced Surface Pro (2nd Edition) and Surface Laptop (2nd Edition) meet all technical specs for the Copilot+ PC label but aren't marketed under that name, according to Surface VP Brett Ostrum. Both machines use Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Plus chips with an 80 TOPS NPU, well above the 40 TOPS threshold Microsoft originally set for the category. Microsoft's Copilot+ PC marketing page has also been quietly replaced with one for 'performance PCs.'
Microsoft has rolled out a unified Copilot client that replaces its previously fragmented consumer and business apps, following a mobile-first rollout last month. The new release adds Code and Autopilot tabs and is described by Copilot Executive VP Jacob Andreou as faster and more capable than earlier versions. Microsoft says its pricing model for the app is still 'evolving,' with usage-based billing planned for some key features.
Microsoft launched an updated Copilot app on Friday that combines coding and productivity features previously split between 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot, organized into Cowork, Code and Autopilot components. Instead of the standard $30-per-user monthly subscription, customers will pay based on usage, echoing pricing models used by rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic. Fewer than 7% of Microsoft's 450 million-plus commercial Office 365 seats currently hold Copilot AI licenses.
Microsoft is overhauling Copilot with a redesigned structure divided into three areas: Home for organizing meetings, documents, emails and agents; Code for building apps and vibe coding; and Autopilot, a rebranded version of Scout that acts as a semi-autonomous digital teammate. The update rolls out first through Microsoft's Frontier Program for businesses and individual subscribers, with a new Copilot Managed Runtime letting enterprises host generated code within their own Microsoft 365 environment.
Microsoft is redesigning its standalone Copilot app with three new tabs: 'Home' for chats and task routing, 'Code' for building apps and dashboards from natural-language descriptions, and 'Autopilot' for agentic automation of recurring tasks. The app will also gain direct integration with Office applications, according to Jared Spataro, Microsoft's Chief Marketing Officer of AI at Work.
New Jersey regulators fined the DataOne data center in Vineland $1.07 million after inspectors found 62 unpermitted portable generators running at the site in late July, giving the operator 45 days to shut them down or seek proper permits. The facility, which supplies compute for Nebius under a $33 billion deal with Microsoft, has drawn prior resident complaints over an unpermitted LNG tank, noise, and lack of public consultation.
Microsoft and Qualcomm confirmed at the Snapdragon 2026 Summit that they will no longer market new Surface and Snapdragon-powered PCs as 'Copilot+' devices, even though the underlying AI features remain unchanged. Surface VP Brett Ostrum and Qualcomm's Kedar Kondap both told Windows Central the companies still emphasize AI capabilities, just without the Copilot+ label that debuted with Arm-based Windows PCs in 2024.
Microsoft announced it will deprecate the Windows Deployment Services (WDS) role, including its management tools, PXE boot functionality and related services, starting with the next Windows Server release. The company will stop active development after deprecation and eventually retire and remove WDS, though it remains supported on Windows Server 2025 and earlier per their existing lifecycles.
Piper Sandler's research note says eight major US tech firms are evaluating Intel's upcoming 14A chip manufacturing process. None has committed to production contracts yet, but the firm says Intel needs to land an anchor customer by late 2026 or early 2027 ahead of a planned 2028 manufacturing ramp.
A Dutch government initiative is reportedly building an alternative to Microsoft's software stack using NixOS, an open-source Linux distribution known for its reproducible system configuration. Details of the project's scope, timeline and funding were not specified in available materials.
Microsoft has released a redesigned Copilot app that merges chat, coding tools, and AI agents into three tabs: Home, Code, and Autopilot. Home combines Copilot Chat and Cowork with a new personalized dashboard called Today, while Code lets users build apps and automations powered by GitHub Copilot's technology. Microsoft also renamed its Scout personal assistant, first shown at Build, to Autopilot, now framed as a cloud-based 'digital teammate' that can keep working autonomously.
Microsoft has acknowledged that recent Windows updates, including August 2026 preview builds and this month's Patch Tuesday releases (KB5120996, KB5120998, KB5124008, KB5122880), can cause black screens after sign-in and Windows Explorer crashes. The issue mainly affects Azure Virtual Desktop hosts using FSLogix profile software. Microsoft has issued a Known Issue Rollback fix for enterprise admins and suggests manually relaunching explorer.exe as a temporary workaround for individual users.
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