Microsoft (MSFT) is preparing to roll out its long-delayed artificial intelligence-powered Recall feature for Windows 11 PCs to developers as part of its Windows Insider program.
The company initially announced Recall back in May when it debuted its Copilot+ PCs, AI PCs that have a specific set of features for running native AI applications. Recall is designed to capture screenshots of the various tasks you perform while using your computer, whether that’s browsing the web or working on a document.
The idea is for you to be able to search through Recall’s screenshots and then be able to take action on them. Say you were searching for flights and hotels for an upcoming trip or doing research for a work project but closed out your browser. You’d be able to search Recall for information related to those topics and pull up the appropriate screenshots.
With Microsoft’s Click to Do feature, which is also in preview, you’d then be able to take action on those screenshots. For instance, you’d be able to copy text, navigate back to the website Recall captured, or edit images.
It sounds very convenient for keeping track of your activity and going back to tasks you need to finish, but Recall immediately set off alarm bells among security researchers and privacy experts. The fear is that hackers or other cyber criminals could gain access to Recall’s screenshots and get their hands on sensitive user data.
Microsoft subsequently made a series of changes to Recall including making it an opt-in feature, rather than an opt-out feature, meaning users have to choose to use it instead of it automatically being available.
The company also said Recall screenshots, or Snapshots as Microsoft calls them, are encrypted and can only be accessed using the company’s Windows Hello authentication feature. You can also choose whether or not Recall saves information from specific websites. The app will also recognize when you’re entering sensitive information like credit card numbers, passwords, and other personal identification numbers and temporarily stop saving screenshots.
Microsoft also says you’ll be able to disable Recall through the Windows settings menu and that the feature is automatically removed from PCs that are managed by administrators for work and school.
The Recall preview will initially only be available for Windows 11 laptops running Qualcomm’s (QCOM) Snapdragon processors. Intel (INTC) and AMD (AMD) laptops will have to wait.
All of this is part of Microsoft’s effort to get users to buy into its Copilot+ PC effort. The general idea for the platform is to bring generative AI capabilities to Windows PCs through both on-device and cloud-based AI services.