Microsoft is celebrating 40 years of Windows with an AI offensive: agents such as Copilot are to be firmly anchored in the operating system in the future.
On November 20, 2025, Microsoft Windows will celebrate its 40th birthday. To mark the anniversary, the annual “Ignite” developer conference took place, at which the Redmond-based company presented a preview of the upcoming changes.
Of course, artificial intelligence is the big topic here. After all, Microsoft has been eager to integrate AI tools into its operating system for years – criticism notwithstanding. Ignite 2025 also focused on such integrations, which are set to go one step further in the future: Windows is to become a “canvas for AI.”
AI agents are coming to basic workflows
As Microsoft explains to The Verge, AI agents such as the in-house Copilot will be directly and permanently integrated into the operating system in the future. This includes integration into the taskbar, which, for example, can be embedded directly into the workflow using “Ask Copilot.”
This integration is not just about adding agents, but about making them part of the actual operating system experience.
Windows chief Pavan Davuluri via The Verge
At the heart of the new approach is the “Agent Workspace,” a separate environment for AI agents that, according to the company, is controlled. This work environment basically functions like a separate Windows session with its own desktop, user account, and independent system resources – only automated.
This allows the selected tasks to be performed in parallel with the user’s applications, who retains control: All agent actions are transparently visible, permissions can be finely controlled, and every interaction is logged in a traceable manner, as Microsoft promises.
Unlike full virtual machines, Microsoft also optimizes the “Agent Workspace” for CPU and RAM efficiency and scales utilization up as needed.
The first concrete implementation is called “Copilot Actions” and is already being rolled out to Windows Insiders. This feature allows agents to access frequently used folders (desktop, pictures, videos, music) and edit local files there.
Microsoft’s examples in related blog post draw attention to everyday tasks: Sorting photo albums, organizing download folders, converting files, or extracting information from PDFs—all handled by the AI system while the user performs other tasks.
- However, it doesn’t have to stop at Microsoft’s own AI agents. With native support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), third-party providers can register their programs as “agent connectors.”
- This creates standardized interfaces for File Explorer or Windows settings, for example, which, according to Microsoft, allow AI agents to interact with the operating system in a secure, limited manner.
As usual, Microsoft’s roadmap for distributing the new features is staggered. A limited developer preview is planned for Agent Workspace in the near future, while Copilot Actions are already available as an Insider app update – except in the European Economic Area (EEA).
In the EEA (and thus also in Germany), there is no release date for Copilot Actions yet, which is presumably due to the stricter AI and data protection regulations within the EU. Microsoft itself remains silent on the reasons, as usual.
In principle, however, all new features will be opt-in when they arrive in this country anyway – so you will have to explicitly activate the AI agents in order to access them.
