- Microsoft Edge has a new hidden function in the tests
- ‘Journeys’ uses its navigation activity to produce “useful summaries” with AI
- This could be a very convenient touch: captures are that they may require a subscription to Copilot Pro and some privacy concerns are attached.
Microsoft has another planned characteristic for its web browser Edge, or at least that seems to be the case, but here is a capture here.
Windows last noticed the new functionality, called ‘Journeys’, in Testing With Edge, where it is currently hidden in the last Canarian construction of the browser. You must establish a flag to enable it, but even then, the function actually does not work.
All you can see is the option to activate trips in the interface, which lives in the ‘AI Innovations’ panel in Edge’s configuration, and the accompanying text that explains what trips are about.
We are told that Journeys use AI to convert its navigation activity, including the content of the web pages, in “useful summaries” to facilitate the review of the past work or resume any task that may have previously carried out.
Let’s go back to the aforementioned capture with this new trick of AI for Edge, which will not be free. At least if it is implemented as the interface shows in the tests, because next to the sliding control to enable it, it is an ‘update to Pro’ button.
In other words, this characteristic seems to be available for those who subscribe to Copilot Pro (currently at the price of $ 20 per month).
Of course, I would not pay those $ 20 only for access to trips, but a lot of other things that are provided in the Copilot Pro package. Even so, the fact is that this is not something that its average edge user will benefit, unless Microsoft changes on the positioning of the function between now and liberation.
Analysis: how trips could work, and some privacy concerns
Of course, Microsoft can never realize this concept as part of Copilot Pro or in any other way. This is still a very early job in the tests. However, the company is obviously interested in pushing AFE strongly (and more widely, Windows 11), so I bet this is a fairly probable development for the future.
As for how it could work, we do not have much on the path of the tracks, although the name ‘trips’ suggests that there will be several threads of activity maintained by Edge, presumably organized by what should be a useful way.
It sounds like a potentially useful characteristic, although anything that implies the monitoring of its navigation activity, and it is likely that the content of the web pages that visits will induce cold sweats for the conscious of privacy, particularly after all the ongoing retirement debacle.
That said, in the case of trips, the propaganda revealed in the tests also contains a guarantee that “their data is safely stored in their device and are never used for training and advertising of AI.” I suppose that it means that the relevant data will be used locally by edge, and will not be sent to the cloud, thus maintaining the privacy of their navigation history, although the cloud is not explicitly ruled out as such. Then, the concerns remain at this stage (certainly early) of the game.
Microsoft will undoubtedly explain more when, or rather, yes, the company makes the trips part of Edge. As the last of Windows points out, Edge has a built-in model (Phi-4-mini) that could be used to deal with the necessary processing locally, on the device, stay out of the cloud (and make the function more Snapply), so that could be the plan.
However, if this turns out to be a vehicle to help boost the subscriptions of Copilot Pro, you can see limited use anyway.
