Microsoft Copilot: Will 'photographic memory' upgrade trigger privacy concerns?

Microsoft has unveiled an upgraded version of Copilot, its artificial intelligence chatbot, which will be able to remember everything a user does on their computer.

According to a report by The Guardian, the tech giant debuted a new category of personal computers, called "Copilot+", with amped up AI features as part of its efforts to confront heightened competition from advanced AI chatbots by other big tech rivals.

During the Surface AI event, held ahead of its annual Build developer conference in Seattle, the tech giant announced new features for Copilot for the Windows operating system for personal computers.

These new features included Windows Recall, which enables the AI assistant to "access virtually what you have seen or done on your PC in a way that feels like having photographic memory" and help figure out what you want to do next.

As this new feature may worry users about privacy, Microsoft has provided them with an option to choose what they don't want tracked.

The conference follows big AI announcements last week from rival Google, as well as Microsoft’s close business partner OpenAI, which built the AI large language models on which Microsoft’s Copilot is based.

Additionally, the company announced that the newly AI-enhanced Windows PCs will start rolling out on 18 June on computers made by Microsoft partners.