- Windows 11 could receive a new Copilot feature for File Explorer
- There is a hidden button that could invoke AI in the latest preview versions.
- Additionally, hints in those preview builds indicate that Copilot might even appear in its own side panel for folders on the desktop.
Windows 11 could have a Copilot button in File Explorer that can be used to invoke some kind of side panel for the AI assistant, in a move that won’t go down well in some quarters.
Windows Central noted that a well-known leaker (PhantomOfEarth) discovered that in the latest preview builds of Windows 11, there is a hidden button in the navigation bar of File Explorer (the app that activates folders on your desktop).
In fact, this button is invisible unless you hover over the bar, but it looks like Microsoft is planning some kind of addition here. But what does that have to do with Copilot? Well, other clues, namely code strings in the same Windows 11 preview builds, mention a “Chat with Copilot” feature and functionality that offers an option to disconnect Copilot from File Explorer.
So the theory is that there will be some kind of Copilot sidebar within File Explorer that is invoked when you click the not-yet-visible (or functional) button. The idea would probably be to provide direct online feedback on your files, whether summarizing a document, for example, or possible edits to a photo.
Windows Central also noted that the latest Windows 11 preview, which arrived late last week, has some additional changes for Copilot.
One of them is to add a new function to Narrator, the operating system’s screen reading tool, which allows it to offer descriptions of images (or graphics and the like) generated by AI for Windows 11 users with visual impairments. This is a clever idea that was previously only available to those with PC Copilot+, but will now come to all Windows 11 users (when these features are rolled out in testing).
The ability to delete the Copilot app on managed devices is also rolling out to IT administrators, but only if Microsoft 365 Copilot is present on the device. Everyday Windows 11 users can now uninstall the Copilot app (although note that this doesn’t remove Copilot AI from your PC as such; it has hooks in Windows 11 all over it, but the app is, of course, a big chunk of which you can get rid of).
There are tools that can remove much of the AI from Windows 11, but I would be careful using something like this, as I have discussed in the past.
Analysis: Don’t get irritable yet, it’s still in testing
Of course, Copilot is already in File Explorer, in the context menu that appears when you right-click on a file, which offers several shortcuts to the powers of AI. That’s a pretty subtle implementation, though, and the new method of having a dedicated Copilot button, and possibly a side panel (which can be removed), would put the AI much more in your face, so to speak, in the folders on your desktop.
That wouldn’t be a surprising move given Microsoft’s renewed push for AI that’s been underway for a few months now, ever since AI agents became the next big thing in Windows 11. However, it also wouldn’t be a popular move at all, unless it was purely an opt-in experience (and you could get rid of the button).
My guess is that Microsoft would only include this as an option (or at least have an easy way to disable it) given the sensitivity around Copilot and the company including too much AI in Windows 11, which is a sore point currently (witness the whole ‘Microslop’ thing).
Of course, we don’t know if this will amount to anything yet, as the button isn’t even in testing, and there are only clues in the background of Windows 11 as to what this functionality might be. That said, some kind of Edge-like Copilot sidebar for File Explorer doesn’t seem unfeasible, but we’ll have to see how it works.
All we can do is keep watching those pre-release builds for the foreseeable future and keep an eye out for leakers digging deeper into the inner workings of those pre-release builds.
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