Key Points
- Microsoft has released a major update for its Windows Photos app, powered by AI.
- The new version can automatically sort photos into categories, such as documents and receipts.
- A “super resolution” feature uses AI to upscale and enhance low-resolution images.
- The catch: These new AI features are only compatible with new “Copilot+” PCs equipped with a special NPU chip.
Microsoft has rolled out a major update to its Photos app for Windows, transforming it into a more intelligent tool for organizing and enhancing your photos. The new version relies heavily on artificial intelligence, but there’s a big catch: its best new features will only work on the latest “Copilot+” PCs.
The updated app isn’t trying to be a full-blown Photoshop replacement. Instead, it focuses on using AI to sort your photo library automatically. Using a special AI-focused chip called a neural processing unit (NPU), the app can scan all your pictures and categorize them into categories such as screenshots, receipts, documents, and even handwritten notes. This is designed to save you from endless scrolling through messy folders.
The app’s new “super resolution” feature is another highlight. It utilizes on-device AI to upscale low-resolution images, restoring detail and enhancing the appearance of old or compressed photos on modern screens.
But the biggest downside is the hardware requirement. Because these new AI features run locally on your computer, they need a PC with an NPU. This means that for now, the most exciting parts of the new Photos app are out of reach for the vast majority of current Windows users.
This makes the update feel less like a universal upgrade and more like a showcase for Microsoft’s new hardware strategy, a way to convince people to buy a new Copilot+ PC.
