Hands-On Windows 143: Copilot Vision

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hands-On Windows 143: Copilot Vision

Podcast Information:

• Title: Hands-On Windows 143: Copilot Vision
• Host: Paul Throt (TWiT)
• Release Date: June 5, 2025
• Description: Leo Laporte brings together some of the most interesting personalities in technology to discuss the most important issues. Fun, relaxed, informative, and always entertaining, TWiT offers the best tech podcasts in the world.

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1. Introduction to Copilot Vision

[00:01 - 03:31]

Paul Throt kicks off the episode by introducing Copilot Vision, labeling it as a modern iteration reminiscent of the nostalgic Clippy assistant. He contextualizes Copilot within Microsoft's expanding ecosystem:

"Copilot is getting complex... It's also part of Bing Search now. There's a standalone Microsoft 365 Copilot app, and it's integrated into individual Office apps across Windows, Mac, and mobile platforms."
— Paul Throt [00:45]

Paul highlights the fragmentation of Copilot across various platforms, making it challenging for users to track its features and functionalities.

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2. Overview of Copilot's Presence Across Microsoft Platforms

[03:31 - 04:59]

This segment includes promotional content from sponsors, which Paul instructs to skip per user instructions. The sponsors include Red Canary, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Center for Internet Security (CIS). These segments provide advertisements and acknowledgments but are not part of the core discussion on Copilot Vision.

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3. Demonstration of Copilot Vision in Microsoft Edge

[04:59 - 15:51]

a. Initial Interaction with Copilot Vision

Paul attempts to engage Copilot Vision on his Windows computer but notes its current unavailability on his device:

"This particular computer does not yet have Copilot Vision, but if it did, I would click this and then I could talk to it."
— Paul Throt [06:02]

He then showcases Copilot Vision within Microsoft Edge, where the feature is actively supported:

"Edge has this Copilot pane on the side... and it supports Copilot Vision."
— Paul Throt [06:08]

A brief interaction with Copilot AI ensues:

"Copilot AI: Hey, Paul."
— Copilot AI [06:38]

"Paul Throt: All right, so it comes up, it asks, it says, hi, Hi. Hello copilot. We can talk to it."
— Paul Throt [06:39]

b. Summarizing Text-Based Content

Paul demonstrates Copilot's ability to summarize a written article:

"Summarize the main points of this page."
— Paul Throt [06:45]

Copilot efficiently provides a concise summary of the article's content:

"It's talking about the author's journey in setting up a network attached storage device…" [07:45]

Paul appreciates this targeted summarization, especially when seeking specific information relevant to consumers within a business-focused article.

c. Analyzing Images with Copilot Vision

Transitioning to image recognition, Paul tests Copilot Vision's ability to describe an image:

"Hi, can you tell me what this is a picture of?"
— Paul Throt [07:28]

Copilot responds accurately:

"This image shows a sleek laptop, likely a Microsoft Surface, known for its detachable keyboard and touchscreen capabilities."
— Copilot AI [08:30]

d. Summarizing Videos

Paul explores Copilot's functionality with video content, using a YouTube video by Dave Plummer as an example:

"Can you tell me what the top five points of this video are?"
— Paul Throt [12:12]

Copilot summarizes the video effectively:

"First, the video dives into the origin story of the Windows Start menu…" [12:20]

e. Technical Insight into Copilot's Functionality

Paul delves into the mechanics behind Copilot Vision, explaining that it primarily relies on transcripts for summarizing content across various formats like text, PDFs, and videos.

"It's just doing the same thing. Whether it's this transcript from the video, a web article of whatever kind, a PDF file, it's using the same type of AI to examine the text, provide a summary..."
— Paul Throt [13:30]

f. User Experience and Future Prospects

Paul discusses the potential integration of Copilot Vision into the standalone Copilot app on Windows, anticipating broader availability:

"Once this comes online in the Copilot app on Windows, I would be able to do it from there as well."
— Paul Throt [14:20]

He reflects on the evolving nature of human-AI interactions, noting behavioral shifts as users engage more naturally with AI counterparts:

"It's hard... you find it's kind of strange, like how you fall into this pattern with it where you... apologize for interrupting or you say thank you."
— Paul Throt [14:50]

Paul concludes this segment by emphasizing the versatility and power of Copilot Vision, positioning it as a significant advancement within Microsoft's suite of AI tools.

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4. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[15:51 - 16:26]

The episode wraps up with a promotional advertisement involving T-Mobile and Zoe Saldana, which falls outside the scope of the content-focused summary and is thus omitted.

---

Key Takeaways:

• Copilot Vision represents Microsoft's endeavor to integrate AI assistance seamlessly across its platforms, akin to the nostalgic presence of Clippy.
• The feature is currently operational within Microsoft Edge, allowing users to interact via text and voice to summarize and analyze content ranging from articles to images and videos.
• Copilot's Integration Challenges: The widespread deployment of Copilot across various Microsoft services creates a fragmented user experience, making it challenging to locate specific features.
• User Interaction Dynamics: The naturalization of interactions with AI, such as expressing gratitude or seeking feedback, reflects the deepening relationship between users and AI assistants.
• Future Prospects: Anticipated broader integration of Copilot Vision into the Windows app and other platforms promises enhanced accessibility and functionality for users.

Notable Quotes:

• "Copilot is getting complex... It's also part of Bing Search now."
  — Paul Throt [00:45]

• "Edge has this Copilot pane on the side... and it supports Copilot Vision."
  — Paul Throt [06:08]

• "It's just doing the same thing... using the same type of AI to examine the text, provide a summary."
  — Paul Throt [13:30]

• "It's hard... you find it's kind of strange, like how you fall into this pattern with it where you... apologize for interrupting or you say thank you."
  — Paul Throt [14:50]

---

This episode of Hands-On Windows offers an insightful exploration into Copilot Vision, shedding light on its current capabilities, underlying technology, and future potential within Microsoft's AI ecosystem. Paul Throt effectively balances technical demonstration with personal reflections, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of this emerging feature.

Transcript

[Paul Throt]

Coming up next on Hands on Windows, Clippy is back. Well, not exactly, but there is something called Copilot Vision, which will feel eerily familiar. Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is Twit. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Hands on Windows. I'm Paul Throt, and this week we're going to take a look at one of many, many new Copilot features, code called Copilot Vision. Sort of the return of Clippy. You'll see what I mean by that soon. Copilot is getting complex. We've talked a lot about Copilot this year. We've talked a lot about AI, all the new features that are coming. But one of the weird things about Copilot is that it's in a lot of places, right? So I tend to focus on it in Windows, which makes sense. It is an app. That app has changed a bunch. But Copilot is also on the [e-mail] it's part of Bing Search now. It's also Bing searched as part of Copilot. Now. There's a whole mess there. There's a standalone Microsoft 365 copilot app that's in Windows 11, but it's also in the individual Office apps, right. On Windows and the Mac, right. It's on mobile. So there's a standalone Copilot app, Microsoft 365 Copilot app, and then other Microsoft apps that have Copilot capabilities. And so once you get into this weird matrix of Copilot implementations, sometimes it gets hard to know where certain things are, right? So Microsoft introduces these new features. You're like, great, well, where do I get that? It's not always obvious. So I'm going to bring up the Copilot app in Windows to show you just one example. So in Windows, if you go into settings, one of the unique features you'll see here is this phone connection feature. So in Windows only, I can have Copilot give me information that's based on things that are on my phone, right. In addition to things that are on Windows or on the web or wherever else. So that's kind of interesting. There's this voice mode where you have different voices to choose from. This is kind of a minimalist user interface. If I choose a different voice, it doesn't give me a sample. And it also doesn't have other options that are available in other places. So, for example, if you were to bring this up on your phone in the Copilot app, you would have the opportunity not to just hear, try different voices. But you'd hear those voices and you could control the speed of those voices. So you could speed them up or slow it down. Which actually, I have to say is kind of a. Kind of a useful feature. So for some reason that's not in Windows yet. So one feature that's like that, it's brand new, announced recently, and it's just starting to roll out as I record. This is something called Copilot Vision. And this is in some ways Copilot, as I think people think of it when you think of what a copilot is. Something, someone or something in this case that is next to you, helping you as you do your thing. To date, it's been a user interface, so it's a pane or whatever that you see on the side of another app. Maybe in this case, you're interacting it with your voice. And so in addition to typing queries and asking questions, you. You can actually just use your microphone and talk to it. Right. And that, you know, depending on how you do things, that might be better, worse, you know, it might be just a different way to do it. So it's just a different way to look at it.

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[Paul Throt]

This particular computer does not yet have Copilot vision, but if it did, I would click this and then I could talk to it, right? So I could say, hello, copilot. Oh, I didn't do it. Oh, I did do it. It's not listening. Anyway, I'm just going to say, not going to worry about that one because I know it doesn't work on this particular computer, but one place I do know that it works on this particular computer is in Microsoft Edge. So Edge has this copilot pane that's on the side. Start a new conversation here. And it supports Copilot vision.

[Copilot AI]

Hey, Paul.

[Paul Throt]

All right, so it comes up, it asks, it says, hi, Hi. Hello copilot. We can talk to it.

[Copilot AI]

Absolutely, Paul. We're having a.

[Paul Throt]

Okay, I'm going to cut them off because seriously. Okay, so what are the types of things you might do with copilot? Right. So I have. Let's see if I can find this article. I wrote an article recently about a NAS that I'm purchasing and why I'm getting it and so forth. And so I could go into co pilot. Actually let me turn this off. Sorry. I could go into co pilot normally and create a summary is right there. Right. So summarize the main points of this page. So it's going to look at this article that it's right next to right side by side and then give you information about the article. Okay, that's cool. That's text based, right? So I, I did, I clicked a button. But typically I would, you know, type in that Prompt and then it would answer the question. Right. It's giving me a nice little hint here about what I can do, but with Copilot Vision, I can just ask.

[Copilot AI]

Hi, Paul.

[Paul Throt]

Hello, Copilot. What is this article about?

[Copilot AI]

Hey, Paul. It's talking about the author's journey in setting up a network attached storage device. They've gone for a synology distation DS224 + with a ram up.

[Paul Throt]

Thank you. That's good enough. I'm just going to cut it off. It would go on for a little while there. Right. And then one thing you'll see every time is this kind of needy. Hey, how was it? Was I good? You know, and it wants this feedback. It's not much else you can say, but it's usually pretty good. So that's fine. I don't have Copilot, or rather Copilot Vision in Copilot, the app and Windows yet, but if I did, I could also bring up, you know, an image and say, what is this image? But I can do that. I'll just do it on the web. You get an idea of how that can work. Hi, can you tell me what this is a picture of?

[Copilot AI]

Sure thing, Paul. This image shows a sleek laptop, likely a Microsoft Surface, known for its detachable keyboard and touchscreen capabilities. It's looking pretty stylish with that colorful display, isn't it?

[Paul Throt]

Okay, thank you. That's good. Okay. It's, yeah. A little super positive about Microsoft there, but that's fine. It's fine. So when you think about what AI is really good at these days, I think that summarizing is right near the top of the list. So it makes sense you'd see. Create a summary here in the Copilot pane. You could do this in the app when you do run the app, by the way, I don't think I showed this earlier, but one of the things you can do is go into this Quick View. And the nice thing about Quick View is it it's over the top of other things because the Copilot interface itself can be kind of big on Windows and this is a smaller ui. It lets you interact with something else. Now, I don't have Copilot Vision, so I can't do that yet in this interface. That will happen very soon and it might have already happened on your computer, depending. So summarizing. Right. So I used it to summarize this article started. It got going on that. Okay, that's pretty good. This is an article about extended security Updates for Windows 10. We did an episode about this pretty recently. This program is typically for businesses, but in Windows 11, I'm sorry, Windows 10, for the first. First time, they're allowing individuals or consumers to do it for one year only. Right. And this article is mostly about businesses, but it does mention consumers. Right. And so I could go in here and ask it about that.

[Copilot AI]

Hey, Paul, how's it going?

[Paul Throt]

Good. Could you tell me what parts of this Extended Security Updates program article concern consumers?

[Copilot AI]

Sure thing. This article primarily talks about the extended Security Updates ESU program for Windows 10, which is mostly for businesses and organizations, but for consumers, the key point is that Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025. After that, the ESU program allows consumers to get security updates if they choose to continue using Windows 10. There's also.

[Paul Throt]

Stop it right there. But there you go. So, yeah, so that bit was right here. Right. You can see that text that he basically read there. But then he also went through this. I'm calling it a he already. Right. But the, the AI looked at this article and it jumped down to this bit about. About consumers, which I'm having trouble finding because it is hard. So it says for individuals or Windows 10 home customers, extended security updates for Windows 10 will be available for purchase at $30 for one year only, which would eventually be part of that summary. So that's actually really useful. Right. So this is not a particularly long article, but it's kind of long. And if you were just looking. Well, what parts of this apply to me, that's a nice way to. So it's not just a summary, but it's a very specific kind of a summary, if that makes sense. Right. So we've got summaries for articles like we did with these two things. Summary is kind of a weird term, but basically, you know, described an image using image recognition. You could do this with PDF files. Right. But you can also do it for videos. So when I switched this video. This is Dave Plummer. This is a former Microsoft engineer. Welcome to his. I love his channel. I watch every one of his videos. You can see. Summarize this video as one of the options. But I can also ask Copilot Vision to discuss this. Instead of getting a printout or, you know, like a text based response. Can this thing summarize this video for. For me.

[Copilot AI]

Hey, Paul.

[Paul Throt]

Hey, copilot. Can you tell me what the top five points of this video are?

[Copilot AI]

Sure. Happy to summarize it, Paul. First, the video dives into the origin story of the Windows Start menu, tracing its evolution from the early days of Microsoft's operating systems.

[Paul Throt]

Okay, thank you, that's enough. So it would have kept going, obviously, and that's great, right? So that's useful. But how does it do this? Right? This is only a 14 minute video. I would just watch this, frankly, but. And I would watch all of his videos. I really like this channel, like I said, but how is it doing this? It turns out that it's just doing it the same way. It summarizes any document because Every video on YouTube basically has a transcript. So it's actually just doing the same thing. So whether it's this transcript from the video, a web article of whatever kind, a PDF file, it's using the same type of AI to examine the text, provide a summary, and then it can tailor it to how you described it. I said this case I wanted, you know, the top five points. I said with that Microsoft learned article about extended security updates that I wanted only the bits that were related to consumers. And so it can kind of dive in and pull out those bits. So, you know, it's. It's useful. I could have done this like this. In fact, I will. If you prefer the text based approach, that's still part of it, so that's cool. And once this comes online in the Copilot app on Windows, I would be able to do it from there as well. So this is nice because it's built into Edge. If you don't use Edge, use Chrome or Brave or whatever browser you might use, you can still use the Copilot app to get the same functionality. You can do it with text, you can do it with Copilot vision. It's up to you. So pretty powerful and useful, right? And also one of dozens, if not now, hundreds of features that are part of Copilot that are all over the place. This particular one, I believe, is only in these two places. I believe for now it's just Edge and Windows. But inevitably it will probably appear in other places where Copilot can be found, maybe even someday on our phones. Although I think that the big screen that you get on a computer is particularly good for this kind of implementation because it's nice having those two things side by side, right? I'm not much of a talker, so I don't really interact with the AI willfully, but I bet a lot of people will. And I. It's hard. You find it's. It is kind of strange, like how you fall into this pattern with it where you, you know, you apologize for interrupting or you say thank you. Or you address it as if it were a person. Like, this is, you know, we're getting into a weird space here. But that's. That's what's happening. I mean, that's what AI is doing to us. Or for us, I guess. I don't know. So hopefully you found this educational. Certainly the copilot responses in some ways were hopefully, at least a little entertaining. We will have a new episode of Hands on Windows every Thursday. You can find out more at Twitter tv. H O W. Thank you for watching. Thank you especially to our Club Twit members. We love you as always. If you're not a member of Club Twit, do consider joining. You get these videos without any ad breaks, but also you get to support a great company that's making a lot of great content and it's good for your soul. So consider it. You can learn more about that at Twit tv. Club Twit. Thank you so much. I'll see you next week.

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