Apple is going with the wind, allegedly confirming plans to integrate OpenAI’s latest GPT-5 model for ChatGPT within its 26 series of operating system releases for iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Apple Intelligence already integrates with ChatGPT, but only the 4o model. Apple allegedly told 9to5Mac that it intends to integrate GPT-5 when it ships its new operating systems, potentially next month.

OpenAI introduced GPT-5 in early August. “Our smartest, fastest, and most useful model yet, with thinking built in,” the company said.

GPT-5 a ‘significant leap,’ says OpenAI

The ChatGPT maker claims its new AI system delivers a “significant leap” above previous models, featuring a deeper reasoning model for harder problems and the capacity to filter enquiries to the relevant parts of the engine. GPT-5 outperforms previous models on benchmarks and answers questions more swiftly than before, the company also said.

It also hallucinates less, the company said, and “minimizes sycophancy.” (How reassuring.) It seems particularly strong on coding skills, health, and assisting you in creative writing — with or without an em-dash! You can read more about how OpenAI thinks GPT-5 is great in the company press release. The model is available to Plus, Pro, Team, and Free users, with different usage models depending on what you pay.

Apple, of course, provides integration with ChatGPT via Apple Intelligence, which sends requests to OpenAI’s system when Apple can’t handle them alone. Within this integration, users are warned if they are about to use the third-party AI service. Apple has also built in privacy protection so if you use ChatGPT through Apple Intelligence, OpenAI shouldn’t store requests and your IP address should be obscured. If you pay for ChatGPT access, then the service’s own privacy promises apply.

Apple continues to develop its own AI

While Apple has extended support to the new ChatGPT model, it continues to invest in developing its own more targeted AI solutions.

The upcoming operating systems will also introduce Live Translation and Visual Intelligence improvements, and the company has consistently said the contextual intelligence features it promised in 2024 will arrive eventually. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently confirmed the the plan is to introduce these features next year, saying the team is “making good progress on a more personalized Siri.”

Cook’s company is also working to introduce AI solutions for specific tasks. It allegedly intends to introduce a generative AI-powered support assistant tool within the Apple Support app, and may also be preparing to exploit the vast amount of data gathered by the Apple bot for use in a new Answers engine. The latter is described as a “stripped-down” version of ChatGPT, capable of crawling the web to answer questions, and is likely to be used to support Siri, Spotlight, and Safari, as well as being a standalone app. 

“We’ve rarely been first…”

One thing we do know is that Apple has no intention of giving up in the AI race. During a recent meeting, Cook stressed that Apple’s approach isn’t about being first but being best, and that the battle for dominance in the AI space isn’t over yet. Apple has time and power in the race.

“We’ve rarely been first,” he said. “There was a PC before the Mac; there was a smartphone before the iPhone; there were many tablets before the iPad; there was an MP3 player before iPod. But Apple invented the modern versions of those product categories. This is how I feel about AI.”

Cook also promised to make investments to get to where the company wants to get to. We’ve heard plenty of speculation concerning potential takeover targets. While big targets such as Perplexity are frequently mentioned, smaller AI firms such as Runway AI, Eleven Labs, and Pika AI may also prove attractive.

“We’re very open to M&A that accelerates our road map,” Cook said during Apple’s July 25 earnings call. “We basically ask ourselves whether a company can help us accelerate a road map. If they do, then we’re interested.” 

The flipside is that in the event Apple does successfully acquire a company and its talent, it may also need to figure out how to keep them, given the aggressive attempts competitors are making to poach its people.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

The ambitious $500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure project is moving significantly slower than anticipated, with SoftBank Group CFO Yoshimitsu Goto publicly acknowledging the delays during the company’s Q1 2025 earnings call.

“It’s taking a little longer than our initial timeline,” Goto said during the call, describing the project as proceeding “slower than usual.”

Ever since OpenAI opened ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, the AI world has served as an information-discovery playground. Dozens of companies followed OpenAI with services based on large language models (LLMs), ranging from chatbots to search engines and everything in between.

Now, these companies’ products — including OpenAI ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, xAI Grok, Inflection AI Pi, Mistral AI Le Chat, Cohere Coral/Command-R, Adept ACT-1, Glean Enterprise Search Copilot, Character.ai Character, and Perplexity AI Perplexity Search — have attracted hundreds of millions of users.

Behind the scenes, these LLM-based, generative AI tools have sucked up tens of billions of dollars in funding and investment. And the investors want their pound of flesh.

Most users don’t pay anything. A minority pay subscriptions for premium service. But those subscriptions don’t even come close to paying for the service.

So the AI companies have to monetize. But how?

The Truman Show model

In the 1998 movie, The Truman Show — starring Jim Carrey as a man named Truman Burbank who is unwittingly part of a reality show in an artificial world where everyone else is an actor playing the role of a stranger, friend, or his wife — things start to get weird halfway through.

When Truman walks into the kitchen and starts asking his wife, Meryl, uncomfortable questions, she pivots, holds up a box of cocoa, and says with a dazzling TV smile: “Why don’t you let me fix you some of this new Mococoa™ drink? All-natural cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mount Nicaragua — no artificial sweeteners!”

Two AI leaders are proposing such sponsored conversations with AI chatbots.

On Wednesday in a live broadcast on X, owner Elon Musk told advertisers that brands will soon be able to pay for spots that appear inside answers from Grok, the AI chatbot built by his startup xAI. He said this move will help cover the high GPU costs behind Grok and follows the July exit of chief executive Linda Yaccarino, who had previously managed advertiser ties.

Amazon is thinking along the same lines. In late July, Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy told investors on the company’s second-quarter earnings call that Amazon plans to place paid ads inside answers from Alexa+, the AI version of its voice assistant, so the ads emerge in the middle of user conversations and point listeners straight to products sold on Amazon.

Presumably, these sponsored placements would be unlabeled, and the users would not know their results were bought and paid for.

After all, why would they? Other types of monetization take place on some chatbots without user notification.

The payola model

In the 1950s, payola referred to the illegal and undisclosed practice of record companies paying radio stations, DJs, or their employees money or providing gifts or favors in exchange for playing specific songs on the radio. This ensured a song’s airplay not because of its artistic merit or popularity, but due to financial incentives. Audiences were allowed to believe that the records were chosen for their merit.

Some AI chatbots work this way.

For example, OpenAI and Perplexity AI both run paid prioritization programs for content partners, which means certain publishers get their content prioritized and their brands more visible in AI-generated answers.

Perplexity AI has formed partnerships with publishers like Le Monde, The Independent, The Los Angeles Times, Time, Fortune, and Der Spiegel to supply content directly used for AI answers. These partners are not just scraped for data but receive a share of advertising revenue generated by Perplexity. Their brand names and sometimes logos appear prominently whenever their content is cited in responses, driving user traffic to their sites.

OpenAI has a similar program under the name “Preferred Publishers Program.” Since 2023, OpenAI has secured deals with more than 30 media companies including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, the Associated Press, Vox, Condé Nast, News Corp (owner of The Wall Street Journal and New York Post), and Axel Springer. These agreements provide OpenAI legal access to high-quality, trusted content for training and live AI responses. Participating publishers receive financial compensation, priority content placement, and prominently highlighted links when ChatGPT uses their content to answer prompts.

On the one hand, it’s nice that the AI companies are paying for content used for answers, at least in the minority of instances where they’ve established these partnerships.

On the other hand, it’s also true that these revenue-sharing and content-sharing deals are changing the outcome of results for users, with the partners’ content, links, and branding giving favorable treatment — and this arrangement is not explicitly disclosed to users, who are allowed to believe the chatbot answers are based on merit alone.

The affiliate link marketing model

OpenAI recently announced plans to monetize product purchases made through ChatGPT by integrating an in-chat checkout experience and earning commissions from sales. The new system will allow users to discover, select, and buy products directly within ChatGPT without leaving the chat interface, with merchants paying OpenAI a small percentage as a commission for each transaction. CEO Sam Altman reportedly mentioned a potential 2% affiliate fee on sales generated this way.

While it’s unknown how this policy will evolve over time, it clearly provides a financial incentive for OpenAI to promote products it earns a fee on.

The shrinkflation model

Shrinkflation is a practice where companies reduce the size, quantity, or weight of a product while keeping its retail price the same. This means consumers are effectively paying more per unit of the product without an obvious price increase. It allows manufacturers to manage rising production costs without raising the sticker price, often escaping immediate consumer notice.

There is credible user-based anecdotal evidence pointing to some decline in performance or quality, especially among free or lower-tier access models, as companies may be optimizing costs. This can mean simpler, faster, and less resource-intensive responses at the expense of depth or advanced capabilities for free-tier users.

As the public is generally dazzled by the rapidly growing capabilities of LLM-based genAI chatbots and search, the quality of the free versions appears to be increasingly lagging behind the paid versions.

The charge for everything model

The major AI chatbots monetize via subscriptions, API usage fees, custom AI solutions, affiliate marketing, advertising revenue sharing, digital content licensing, and consulting services.

And it’s still not enough. They’ll have to come up with even more ways to monetize. I worry about what comes next.

The truth is that AI is expensive. It costs a fortune to crunch those numbers and perform those calculations to answer simple chatbot questions.

And there’s no such thing as a free crunch.

Mobile web browsing is all about finding what you need quickly and with as little hassle as possible — well, in theory, anyway. In the real world, the act of surfing sites from your smartphone is often anything but efficient.

From sites that have not-so-friendly mobile interfaces to browser commands that take far too many steps to execute, hopping around the World Wide Internuts from a handheld device can frequently leave something to be desired.

Fear not, though, my fellow finger-tappers: There are plenty of tricks you can learn to make your mobile web journey more pleasant and productive. Try these next-level tips for Google’s Chrome Android browser and get ready for a much better mobile browsing experience.

1. Switch tabs the simpler way

First things first: Got multiple tabs open? Move between ’em with minimal effort by sliding your finger horizontally across the address bar. You’ll be zapping between sites in seconds.

2. Manage tabs like a pro

For more advanced tab management, swipe down on a tab, starting at the address bar. That’ll take you to Chrome’s tab overview interface, where you can see all of your open tabs as cards.

From there, tap on any tab to jump to it, swipe sideways on it to close it, or touch and hold it to drag it to a different place in the interface. You can even drag a tab on top of another tab to create a group and keep all of your open stuff organized.

3. Close all of your tabs at once

When you have tons of tabs open and want to clean house quickly, tap the three-dot menu icon within that same tab overview interface — and whaddya know? There’s a handy hidden command there for closing all of your tabs in one fell swoop.

4. Let Chrome close (and open!) tabs for you

If you really want to save time and stop futzing around with all those tabs you’re always leaving open, Chrome has a relatively recent feature that can actually clean house on your behalf — with absolutely no active effort required.

Tap the browser’s three-dot menu icon, select “Settings,” then select “Tabs” followed by “Inactive.” There, you can tell Chrome to automatically archive untouched tabs for you after seven, 14, or 21 days and move ’em into a special separate section of the browser — then close ’em entirely if you still don’t mess with ’em after a few months.

Note, too, the option in that main “Tabs” menu to “Automatically open tab groups from other devices.” Flip that switch into the on and active position, and anytime you create a new group of tabs within Chrome on another device, it’ll automatically appear within the browser on Android as well.

5. Copy a site’s URL in no time

Sure, you can copy a site’s address by opening the main Chrome menu, selecting “Share,” and then tapping the double-box icon (what looks like two overlapping rectangles) next to the site’s name from the menu that pops up — but sweet sassy molassey, that sure seems like a lot of steps.

Snag a URL with less work by tapping the address bar at the top of the screen and then hitting that same exact copy icon directly next to the page’s URL instead.

6. Embrace invisible address bar shortcuts

Speaking of handy hidden commands within Chrome’s address bar area, make yourself a mental note of the following out-of-sight extras lurking within your browser’s buttons:

• Pressing and holding the Home button (assuming you have that button set to be visible) will surface a one-step shortcut to editing the Chrome home page and customizing it to your liking.
• Pressing and holding the tab indicator icon will reveal handy commands for closing and opening tabs without all the usual steps.
• Pressing and holding the shortcut button — the one right next to the browser’s address area (which we’ll go over more in a moment) — pops up an easy way to edit that button’s function.

And one more thing, while we’re thinking about this sort of saucy step-saver…

7. Take the superspeed path to Chrome’s settings

You can always get into the Chrome Android settings via the browser’s main menu, as we’ve already mentioned — but, little-known fact: There’s an even easier way to zap yourself directly into that area, if you know where to look.

So here it is: From the default Chrome new tab page, simply press and hold your finger onto your profile picture for a split second.

And now you know.

8. Share with a single step

Sharing a page is probably the command I use more than any other in Chrome on Android, whether I’m sending something to a friend or colleague, saving it into my notes for later reference, or emailing it to random strangers. (Hey, we all have our quirks.) And yet, that blasted sharing button is never as readily available as it oughta be.

Well, here’s the fix: With one quick adjustment to an out-of-the-way Chrome setting, you can enable a permanently present one-tap button for sharing a page from the browser to anywhere else on your phone. It’ll save you precious time, and there’s absolutely no downside.

Just tap the three-dot menu icon in Chrome’s upper-right corner, select “Settings,” then:

• Look for the line labeled “Toolbar shortcut,” within the “Advanced” section of browser options.
• Tap that, then make sure the toggle at the top of the screen that comes up next is in the on and active position.
• And, last but not least, select “Share this page” from the list of options in that area.

Or, if you’re really feeling fancy, use the trick we just went over to take a shortcut to that same area of the Chrome Android settings — then make the same selection.

However you get there, once you make your way back out of those settings and into the main Chrome interface, you’ll see a spiffy new dedicated sharing button right in the browser’s upper-right corner — directly next to the open-tabs indicator.

Much easier, no?

9. Share a link to specific text within a web page

When it comes to website sharing, a link alone isn’t always enough. Sometimes, you want to point someone to a specific section of text within a page — and typically, there’s no great way to do that.

Or so you’d think. When such a need next arises, press and hold your finger to the text in question within the page in Chrome. Use the selectors to highlight the exact area of text you want, then tap “Share” in the menu right above the words.

Click the button to copy the link or use one of the other available sharing options to send it to another app, and the link will be specially structured so that the page will automatically scroll down to your selected text and highlight it as soon as it’s opened — like this:

Point made, seconds saved.

10. Send a link to one of your other devices

Forget sharing with other people for a minute: What about when you need to send a link to yourself — from your phone to a computer or maybe even another Android device?

The Chrome Android app has a handy option that’ll handle that for you. All you’ve gotta do is tap the share icon within the main Chrome menu (or at the top of your browser, if you followed our earlier tip!) and then select “Send to devices” from the menu that shows up.

That’ll give you a list of available devices where you’re signed into Chrome, and once you select any of ’em, your current page will pop up on that device as a notification — no wires or self-emailing required.

Who knew?!

11. Edit and expand screenshots with minimal effort

Sometimes, a picture can be worth a thousand words (or at least a couple hundred). If you feel the urge to capture and share a screenshot of something you’re viewing in Chrome, make a mental note: You can do it from right within the browser and even rely on Chrome’s built-in tools for expanding your screenshot without ever having to leave that environment.

Just hit that share command once again, and this time, look for the “Long Screenshot” option in the menu that appears at the bottom of the screen. Tap it, and you’ll find yourself in a fancy editor where you can both crop and extend the area you’re capturing to show as much of the page as you want — even with scrolling, if needed.

Once you’re finished, it’s just one more tap — of the checkmark icon at the bottom of the screen — to save your creation and either store it locally or share it to any other destination on your device.

12. Save a page for offline viewing

The next time you’re about to head onto a flight, into a tunnel, or into a time machine that’s transporting you back to an era without Wi-Fi, plan ahead and save some articles for your offline reading enjoyment.

You’d probably never know it, but Chrome actually makes that easy to do: While viewing any web page, open the main Chrome menu — by pressing the three-dot icon in the app’s upper-right corner — and tap the downward-facing arrow icon at the top. And that’s it: Chrome will save the entire page offline for you. Whenever you want to find it, just open up that same menu and select “Downloads.”

All of your saved pages will be there and waiting, regardless of what place, year, or dimension you happen to be visiting.

13. Convert a page into a PDF

Maybe you want to make a more permanent and easily shareable offline copy of a web page. Hey, no problem: Just save it as a PDF.

Open Chrome’s main menu while viewing the page, then select “Share” followed by “Print.” Make sure the printer is set to “Save as PDF” — if you see some other printer name at the top of the screen, tap it to change it — and then tap the circular “PDF” icon in the screen’s upper-right corner and hit the “Save” button on the next screen.

(You can also take a moment to clean the page up before saving it, if you really want to get fancy.)

All that’s left is to fire up your favorite Android file manager to find the document.

14. Edit a PDF from right within Chrome

While we’re thinking about PDFs, ever find yourself needing to fill out a form, sign a document, or make other quick ‘n’ simple changes to a PDF you’ve opened on the web? If so, take note: Chrome now has a snazzy new PDF editor built right into the Android browser — and while it may not be enough for advanced PDF editing needs, it can be precisely what the metaphorical doctor ordered for basic document modifications.

Just tap the link to any PDF, anywhere on the web. (The World Wide Web Consortium — an organization responsible for developing global web standards — has a simple dummy PDF you can use for testing, if you want.)

That should instantly open the PDF right within Chrome — and from there, you can tap the pencil-shaped editing icon to mark up, highlight, and erase stuff as you see fit.

If you aren’t seeing the new native Chrome PDF editor, don’t fret: It’s a very recent addition, and it may not be fully rolled out to everyone yet. You can force it to appear, anyhow, though, with a quick ‘n’ easy under-the-hood adjustment.

And if you need even more robust Android PDF editing powers, I’ve got you covered there, too.

15. Turn any page into your own personal podcast

Whenever you’re next trying to catch up on Very Important Business Reading™ whilst driving, walking, or maybe even waltzing around city streets, why not let Chrome save you from distraction-induced dread and read the info aloud?

The Android Chrome app has an excellent reading system that can save you time by letting you ingest info even when your eyes are (or at least should be) otherwise occupied. Tap the browser’s three-dot menu icon and look for the “Listen to this page” option to try it out. (The option will appear only when you’re actively viewing a page with lots of text, like an article, that Chrome thinks it can read.)

Once a page is being read to you, you can tap the playback bar at the bottom of the screen to uncover additional controls and options — including the ability to adjust playback speed and change the voice being used for the reading.

And if this possibility tickles your fancy, you might also enjoy exploring Chrome’s specific text reading capability as well as the excellent (and all too easily overlooked) Android-wide Reading Mode system — which features its own out-loud reading mechanism and works almost anywhere on your device, even outside of the browser.

16. Act on text within a web page

Why waste energy typing things into Chrome when you can just tap to find what you need? Anytime you see text on a web page that you want to act on, press and hold your finger on the words — then use the sliders that appear to adjust what’s selected.

Chrome will pop up a small menu with options to perform a web search on the phrase or to share it to any other app on your device (like a messaging service or note-taking app, for instance). If you’re using 2017’s Android 8.0 release or higher — and at this point, you’d better be! — the system should also automatically recognize and offer appropriate one-touch suggestions for things like phone numbers, physical addresses, and email addresses.

17. Adjust your addresses

One of the most annoying chores around web work — especially on a phone — is filling out forms and plopping in things like your mailing address (or your company’s address) time and time again.

Chrome can eliminate that hassle and make your life meaningfully easier. Look in the “Addresses and more” area of the browser’s settings and see what you find.

If you already have some addresses stored in that area, take a moment to clean ’em up and winnow ’em down so that only addresses you actually need are present — and so that all the info is complete and up to date for easy automatic filling. You can also manually add in new addresses while you’re there.

And if that section isn’t yet activated for you, tap the toggle at the top of the screen to fix that and then take a few minutes to add in pertinent addresses and other form info you might find yourself filling in on sites over time.

Trust me: Your future self will thank you.

18. Search without stopping

There’s an even simpler way to perform a web search when you only need a quick peek at the information: Highlight the phrase you want to look up, as described in the previous tip — and then look for the Google bar that appears at the bottom of your screen.

Either tap that bar or slide up on it, and you’ll be able to glance at the results for the term right on top of the page you’re already viewing. You can then tap on any result you see to open it in a new tab, tap the icon in the upper-right corner of the panel to open that as a new tab, or slide your finger down on the panel to close it altogether.

And if you aren’t seeing that bar when you select text, head back into Chrome’s settings and tap “Google services” followed by “Touch to Search,” then make sure the toggles for that feature are in the on and active position.

19. Get answers right in Chrome’s address bar

Sometimes, you don’t even need to open a thing to get the information you require. The Chrome Android browser is able to serve up instant answers right within its address bar — so if, for instance, you want to know how old Mark Zuckerberg is (the correct answer is always “old enough to know better”) or how much $25 is in euros, just type the question directly into the box at the top of your browser. Chrome will give you the info right then and there, and you can go right back to whatever else you were doing without having to load another page.

20. Preview a link before you commit

I don’t know about you, but I tend to open up an awful lot of links while I’m looking around the web. And more often than not, I end up looking at the resulting pages for approximately 2.7 seconds before deciding to close ’em and move on.

The Chrome Android app has an incredibly useful command that saves me tons of time with that manner of browsing. Just open up any web page (heck, even this one!) and press and hold your finger on any link you see.

Select the “Preview page” option from the menu that appears, and there ya have it: You can see the linked page in an overlay panel, just like with the search results in our earlier tip. You can then tap the box-with-an-arrow icon in the panel’s upper-right corner to open it as its own tab and slide it downward (or tap the “x” in its title bar) to dismiss it entirely.

Convenient, wouldn’t ya say?

21. Find what you need faster

Chrome has a hidden way to scan a page for a particular term without much effort: Open the browser’s main menu, select “Find in page,” and type in the term you want. Hit the down arrow at the top of screen once — and then, instead of hitting that same arrow over and over to see every place the term appears, slide your finger down the vertical bar at the right side of the screen.

That’ll move you rapidly through the page, with every instance of your term highlighted for hassle-free viewing.

22. Zoom single-handedly

Pinch-to-zoom is, like, so 2013. When you’re using your phone with a single hand, as so many of us tend to do these days, Chrome has two far easier methods of magnifying a specific part of your screen.

First, on many devices, you can simply double-tap anywhere on a page to zoom into that area and have it take up the full width of your display. Double-tapping a second time will then zoom back out.

Second — and especially nifty — you can double-tap and leave your finger down, then drag downward to zoom in or upward to zoom out. It sounds a bit strange, but give it a try; it’ll get you where you need to go without all the awkward finger yoga that comes with one-handed pinching.

(Note that these advanced zooming methods won’t work on all web pages; generally, if a site is already optimized for mobile viewing, you’ll be limited to the regular ol’ pinching action. But more often than not, the need to zoom comes up when a site isn’t properly optimized — or when you’re deliberately viewing the desktop version of a site — and that’s when these techniques are typically available.)

23. Zoom where you wanna zoom

For some inexplicable reason, lots of websites prevent you from zooming in on your mobile device in any manner. And for a variety of reasons — whether you want to make the text larger or get a closer look at something that catches your eye — there are bound to be times when you want to move up close and personal.

Thankfully, Chrome lets you take back control. Head into the app’s settings, open the Accessibility section, and find the option labeled “Force enable zoom.”

Activate the checkbox alongside it and get ready to zoom to your heart’s content — whether the website you’re looking at wants you to or not.

24. Make the web easier to read

Let’s face it: Some websites don’t exactly make reading pleasant. Whether it’s an annoying layout or a font that hurts your cerebrum, we’ve all come across a page that could be a little easier on the eyes. (Uh, no need to name any specifics, OK?)

Google has a solution: Chrome’s simplified view mode, which makes any website a bit more mobile-friendly by simplifying the formatting and stripping out extraneous elements such as ads, navigation bars, and boxes with related content.

Look in that aforementioned Accessibility section of Chrome’s settings and make sure the box next to “Simplified view for web pages” is activated. Then, whenever you’re opening an article, watch for an icon that looks like a screen with lines on it — at the right side of Chrome’s address bar, between the box with the current site’s URL and the tab indicator icon.

Tap that, and the entire page will transform right in front of your tired eyes.

Need easier reading yet? Go back to that Accessibility section of Chrome’s settings and play with the “Default zoom” slider at the top of the page. It’ll make all the text you encounter across the web larger, independent of your system-level text size setting.

25. Fine-tune your simplified reading settings

Now that you’ve got those tidied-up pages ready and available, take another several seconds to customize exactly how Chrome is optimizing the web for you — so that your decluttered view is as optimized for you as possible.

After activating the “Simplified view” for a page (as described in our previous tip), tap the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner of the screen and select the “Appearance” option.

That’ll pull up a nifty customization panel that lets you change all sorts of stuff about how the page looks — ranging from its color scheme to the font used for its text and even the size of the words on the screen.

Find the setup that’s easiest on your eyes, then know you can enjoy that specific visual every time you flip the “Simplified view” on moving forward.

26. Silence a site in no time

Sites that automatically play videos you didn’t ask for are bad enough (insert awkward eye darting here), but sites that include audio in their autoplay videos are absolutely inexcusable.

You’d never know it, but Chrome has a super-fast way to get any site to shut up when it’s barking at you at the wrong time. Just tap the little control panel icon next to the site’s URL in the Chrome Android address bar, and you’ll see a secret on-demand control panel for adjusting all sorts of useful site-specific settings.

If the site is making sound, the “Sound allowed” permission will be there and waiting. And all you’ll have to do is tap it to reveal a toggle that’ll let you muffle that misbehaving web-kitten once and for all without having to dig deep into any out-of-the-way menus.

27. Refresh with a flick

Need to reload a page? Swipe downward from anywhere in the main browser area. (You’ll need to be scrolled all the way to the top of the page in order for it to work.) Once you see a circle with an arrow appear, you can let go, sit back, and say: “Ahh. Isn’t that refreshing?”

28. Slide your way through Chrome’s commands

Excessive tapping is for amateurs. Instead of tapping Chrome’s menu icon, lifting your finger, and then tapping the item you want (pshaw!), slide downward on the button to move right into the menu without ever lifting your precious paw. Just keep swiping down until you reach your desired option, then let go — and Chrome will select it for you.

29. Pick up where you left off

One of Chrome’s most powerful features is something you might not even know exists: The browser always keeps all of your tabs synced and available across devices — which means you can open up Chrome on your Android device and get to the same tabs you left open on your laptop or desktop computer.

All you’ve gotta do to take advantage of it is open up Chrome’s main menu and select “Recent tabs.” There, you’ll find a full list of tabs currently or recently open in Chrome on any devices where you’re signed in. Just tap the tab you want, or press and hold on a device’s name to find an option to open all of its listed tabs at once.

30. Find that site you surfed to earlier

Maybe it’s not a recently open tab you need but one you had open a while ago — say, a page you were viewing from your laptop last night, before you shut it down and put on your favorite pink footie pajamas.

Well, no problemo: Tiptoe your way back to Chrome’s main menu, and this time, select the line labeled “History.”

Here’s the secret about that section: It shows every page you’ve had opened in Chrome while signed in on any device — including desktop and laptop computers along with any other phones or tablets — all in a single searchable list. You can browse through the pages chronologically or look for specific keywords using the box at the top of the screen.

This might also be a good time to remind yourself about the existence of Chrome’s Incognito mode for the type of web surfing you don’t want kept on record. And don’t forget, too: You can always clear your full browsing history from Chrome on any device, should the need ever arise. (Don’t worry: I won’t ask for details.)

31. Make a site especially easy to access

For any site you visit routinely, make your life a little easier by placing a one-tap shortcut directly to it on your device’s home screen. Just look in Chrome’s menu for the “Add to home screen” option. That’ll put the current site’s icon right where you’ll always see it for fast future access.

With some sites, you might see an “Install app” option instead. That indicates the site is available as a progressive web app, and installing it will give you an even more robust app-like experience — sometimes with the benefit of built-in offline access.

32. Give your browsing a simple speed boost

These tips all revolve around the notion of saving time — so how ’bout one that quite literally makes web pages load faster, with next to no waiting required on your part?

Chrome’s “Preload Pages” feature is a powerful yet out-of-sight system for doing exactly that: When activated, the feature automatically predicts which links within a page you’re likely to tap and open, then it preemptively preloads those pages for you — using Google’s servers to handle the heavy lifting.

That way, when you actually tap the link, the page is already there and ready and thus pops up almost instantly.

You can try it out by opening the Privacy and Security section of Chrome’s settings and then tapping the “Preload pages” option. Select either “Standard preloading” or “Extended preloading” and see how much of a difference you notice from either of those paths.

33. Swim into a wilder channel

You may know that Chrome offers different release channels for its desktop browser — but did you know you can also opt to be more adventurous with Chrome on your Android device?

If you like trying out new features before they’re released, grab Google’s Chrome Beta app. It gets new elements and interface changes before they’re ready for prime time (which, fair warning, means they might occasionally be a bit unpolished).

If you want to go a step further, try out the Chrome Dev app. It’s described as the “bleeding edge” version of Chrome, with experimental elements that are guaranteed to be “rough around the edges.” (Careful with those fingers!)

And if you’re really feeling bold, give the Chrome Canary app a whirl. It’s the most unstable and frequently updated channel of Chrome, with features so fresh they’re bound to be partially uncooked on occasion.

The best part? All of the Chrome Android channels exist as separate standalone apps. That means you can install any or all of them and run them right alongside the regular Chrome app, with no major commitment and no real risk involved.

And that, my friends, is what we call livin’ on the edge — in the most gentle and hazard-free way imaginable.

For even more time-saving magic, come check out my free Android Shortcut Supercourse to uncover advanced options for zooming around your device, typing out text faster than ever, and all sorts of other buried treasures.

This article was originally published in June 2018 and most recently updated in August 2025.

More than two years after GPT-4’s release, OpenAI has unveiled GPT-5, boasting sharper reasoning, multimodal input, better math skills, and cleaner task execution, according to the company.

The large language model (LLM) — now rolling out to ChatGPT users and available in the API — is “smarter, more stable, and more versatile” and built to handle real-world tasks more like a human expert, OpenAI said.

In anticipation of OpenAI’s new AI model, Anthropic released the latest version of its own chatbot, Claude, earlier in the week.

Claude Opus 4.1 came with improvements particularly in two key areas: it significantly improved its coding capabilities, solving up to 75% of real-world programming tasks based on SWE Verified benchmarks; and the model is capable in detailed research and analysis, especially in tasks that require tracking lots of information and intelligently finding answers, according to Anthropic.

For developers, OpenAI claims GPT-5 is its most powerful coding model to date, outperforming GPT-o3 in benchmarks and real-world tasks. The model is “fine-tuned for agentic tools” like Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, and Codex CLI, and it set new records in testing, the company stated in a blog.

According to OpenAI, GPT-5 delivers sharper reasoning, handling complex problems and multi-step instructions with greater accuracy and focus. It stays on track, follows directions more precisely, and produces more useful, reliable output, the company said.

Users will see fewer hallucinations and have better customization tools, making GPT-5 more dependable and easier to adapt to specific industries and needs, OpenAI said.

It also builds on GPT-4o’s multimodal abilities, offering smoother interactions across text, images, and audio, according to OpenAI.

According to research firm Gartner, GPT-5 improves safety and compliance and hasbetter transparency than previous models, making it more enterprise-ready. OpenAI’s newest model offers CIOs a chance to accelerate AI efforts with better reliability and context handling, enabling use cases like document automation and advanced customer interactions. But its impact depends on strong data, governance, and strategy, Gartner said in a report.

Its safe outputs and reasoning aid auditability, though it poses new risks due to stronger reasoning and multimodal abilities, including potential misuse and system bypass. Jailbreak resistance has slightly improved, but API vulnerabilities remain. Gartner warned that human oversight is crucial. “While risk fundamentals haven’t changed, leaders should watch for unsafe integrations and practices like vibe coding that may expose data or bypass guardrails,” it said.

GPT-5 will be OpenAI’s “most significant do or die moment yet,” according to Nathaniel Whittemore, CEO of Superintelligent, a New York-based AI education platform.

“Ever since the launch of ChatGPT, they’ve been the model state of the art. While competitors like Google and Meta can take advantage of hundreds of millions of existing users to put AI products in front of, OpenAI relies on winning new users by being far ahead of the other AI labs,” Whittemore said.

OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said ChatGPT is now in use by more than five million business users — up from three million in June.

Biopharmaceutical company Amgen is one of the early adopters of GPT-5. Sean Bruich, senior vice president of AI & Data at Amgen, said AI only works in science if it meets the highest bar, and “GPT-5 clears it,” delivering sharper accuracy, better context, and faster results across Amgen’s workflows.

“GPT-5… is doing a better job navigating ambiguity where context matters. We are seeing promising early results from deploying GPT-5 across workflows,” he said. He also said the model was faster, more reliable, and had higher quality outputs than GPT-4 and other earlier models.

Ethan Mollick, an associate professor at The Wharton School, had early access to GPT-5. “It is a big deal,” he said in a blog post. He asked the model to do something dramatic to prove that point. The model thought for 24 seconds and then delivered a poetic manifesto of AI capability — specifically, a rhetorical, alliterative showcase of “a multifunctional intelligence system.”

“GPT-5 just does stuff, often extraordinary stuff, sometimes weird stuff, sometimes very AI stuff, on its own. And that is what makes it so interesting,” Mollick said.

After “many AI conversations,” Mollick said he has found two big issues that limit most people’s success in using AI models: First, most people don’t know which model to use — so they get fast, weak results instead of more complete answers from the powerful reasoning models.

“The longer [the models] think, the better the answer, but thinking costs money and takes time. So OpenAI previously made the default ChatGPT use fast, dumb models, hiding the good stuff from most users,” Mollick said. “A surprising number of people have never seen what AI can actually do because they’re stuck on GPT-4o, and don’t know which of the confusingly named models are better.”

Second, most people also don’t know what AI can do or how to ask — especially with newer agentic AIs. GPT-5 fixes both problems by choosing models well and suggesting actions, he said. “It is very proactive, always suggesting things to do.”

GPT-5 is beginning to roll out to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Team, and Free users, with access for Enterprise and Edu customers coming next week. “Once free users reach their GPT‑5 usage limits, they will transition to GPT‑5 mini,” OpenAI said.

More OpenAI news:

• OpenAI challenges rivals with Apache-licensed GPT-OSS models
• Google snatches Windsurf execs in a $2.4B deal, derailing OpenAI’s biggest acquisition yet
• OpenAI and Perplexity enter browser wars to take on Chrome
• OpenAI tests Google TPUs amid rising inference cost concerns
• Microsoft/OpenAI AGI argument unlikely to impact enterprise IT
  

Administrators with hybrid Exchange Server environments are urged by Microsoft and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to quickly plug a high-severity vulnerability or risk system compromise.

Hybrid Exchange deployments offer organizations the ability to extend the user features and admin controls of the on-prem version of Exchange within Microsoft 365. Hybrid deployment can serve as an intermediate step to moving completely to an Exchange Online organization, Microsoft said.

The benefits include secure mail routing between on-premises and Exchange Online organizations, mail routing with a shared domain namespace (for example, both on-premises and Exchange Online organizations use the @contoso.com SMTP domain) and calendar sharing between on-premises and Exchange Online organizations.

Leverage is everything in today’s White House, with the administration using tariffs to force business leaders and nations to toe the line.

But leverage doesn’t just run in one direction. While you can achieve a certain amount through strong-arm tactics, there does come a point at which limited concessions must be made or those golden goose eggs will stop appearing with the dawn. It’s all in Art of the Deal.

Apple promises billions in US investment

As expected, Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared at the White House to promise an astonishing $100 billion in investment in the US, including pouring cash into the development of next-generation technologies. That investment means Apple will now invest $600b in the US across the next four years, he said.

Cook stopped short of bringing iPhone assembly to the US but seems to have made sufficient serious commitments to satisfy the current administration, which has excused Apple from some of the steep tariffs it had threatened to hammer the business with.

Behind the smoke, mirrors, presentation glass, and pure gold of the announcement, a couple of significant strategies have emerged:

• Apple will contribute to the future development of US industry through its new Apple Manufacturing Academy.
• Apple is also investing in the development of new technologies, which will be made in America.
• Agreement has also been reached to make billions of chips used inside Apple’s devices in the USA. 
• Apple is also investing in the one big vulnerability the US has when it comes to silicon manufacturing: its lack of rare earth supply. Apple’s recently disclosed $500 million investment in MP Materials represents a big investment in creating an end-to-end silicon supply chain in America.
• These commitments to a more US-centric future supply line are being supplemented by big investments in the existing US manufacturing supply chain, including in the Apple American Manufacturing Program.

The iPhone won’t be made in America for a while (though we were told “Tim Cook is working on it”), but put together, these announcements mean that Apple is making significant and highly strategic investments to help build the future for US industry. It also means all the glass made in iPhones and Apple Watch will “soon” be made in the US.

Solving big problems, one challenge at a time

Through these targeted investments, Apple is grappling with the big problems that hold back the expansion of the US tech manufacturing industry: Training, facilities investment, technological optimization of manufacturing processes, raw materials supply, and investment in new tech the US can hope to become a unique supplier for.

All of these challenges have to be solved if the current US government’s vision of a larger manufacturing industry that creates millions of jobs is to be realized.

These are existential challenges that need to be solved before manufacturing jobs have any chance of returning to the US in larger quantities. Take staff, for example: the reality is that if you can’t find trained staff, there’s no point building a factory, which means you need to train the staff first.

Equally, if you can’t get the raw materials locally, then it makes more sense to work with them at factories close to their source. Finally, the best industries are unique industries — unless the US sees wages collapse, then it can’t realistically compete in labor costs against lower-wage nations. 

What I’m saying is that Apple’s now $600 billion investment in US manufacturing appears to reflect a realistic attempt to ease some of the pain points that need to be solved if a tech industry manufacturing renaissance is to be unleashed in the US.

Unless these problems are solved, then that kind of enlightenment just can’t take place.

We have a long way to reach the mountain top

But, as with any journey to any so-called “Promised Land,” it’s going to take time to get there, and no one presently at the top of the pile appears to have the capacity to travel in time or part the seas. 

The big challenges Apple has put its money into solving are real barriers to the overall US manufacturing investment plan. That, presumably, is why the current administration appears to have accepted Apple’s point and given the company more time before imposing those huge but fluctuating tariffs that so threaten its business.

You can argue whether these moves represent compromise or capitulation, but those questions at present don’t seem to figure anywhere in US media, despite which the “athletic” form of Tim Cook, who rises at 5am most days to go to the gym, seems to have identified an arrangement that can easily be seen as victory.

$600 billion to save Apple’s US business while also enabling it to invest in more jobs on its home turf may seem a small price to pay eventually, particularly if you are among the tens of thousands of Americans likely to find employment as a result. Though the always present danger when dealing with any authoritarian is that the more you give, the more they demand to take.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he will impose 100% tariffs on semiconductor imports while exempting companies manufacturing in the US, a policy shift that threatens to disrupt enterprise technology budgets and force fundamental changes in vendor relationships across the industry.

The announcement, made during a White House event with Apple CEO Tim Cook, comes as organizations plan $4.9 trillion in global enterprise technology spending for 2025.

A noteworthy new feature is starting to make its way into Windows 11 machines. Called Quick Machine Recovery (QMR), it offers novel, interesting, and possibly OS-saving capabilities.

Announced last November at Microsoft Ignite 2024 in Chicago, QMR began trickling into Beta and Dev Channel Insider Preview releases in March 2025 or thereabouts. In July 2025, it went into gradual rollout for Windows 11 24H2 production releases (Build 26100.4652 and higher).

Given the time it takes for a gradual rollout to cover all bases — usually 90 to 120 days — QMR is unlikely become a truly general Windows 11 facility before the 25H2 release appears later this year (in October, if history is any guide). The rollout could even stretch into 2026, if telemetry from users who gain early access to QMR turns up issues that need fixing before it goes into fully general distribution. (Search for “Quick Machine Recovery” on the Windows Roadmap for the feature’s current status.)

In other words, QMR is still a work in progress. Even so, it’s very much worth knowing about — and testing, especially in business environments.

What is Quick Machine Recovery?

As the name suggests, QMR is an optional Windows feature that, if enabled, permits Windows devices to recover should they experience some error that prevents them from booting. Most interestingly, QMR can search in the cloud for remediations for errors it recognizes — notably, an update of some kind that renders a machine unbootable — and apply relevant fixes so that Windows devices recover more or less automatically.

As the Microsoft Learn article about QMR notes, somewhat understating things, when QMR works it can “significantly reduc[e] the burden on IT administrators when multiple devices are affected.” Indeed, the feature was introduced as part of Microsoft’s Windows Resiliency Initiative in response to the CrowdStrike incident of July 19, 2024, when a misconfigured software update caused Blue Screens of Death (BSODs) and boot failures in more than 8 million Windows PCs around the globe.

Had QMR been available at that time, systems that experienced outages as long as 5 days while waiting for IT intervention could have been put right in minutes instead. That’s the kind of benefit that makes it hard to overstate QMR’s potential value, especially for business computing.

QMR: Cloud or auto remediation?

QMR supports two primary modes for recovery: cloud and automatic remediation. Cloud remediation relies on Windows Update to find remediations and apply fixes to devices. For this option to work, such devices must use Windows Update during recovery. If QMR is disabled, Windows uses Startup Repair (part of the Windows Recovery Environment, a.k.a. WinRE) to attempt recovery on a local (per-machine) basis.

Microsoft provides a useful caveat regarding QMR in general and cloud remediation in particular: “Quick machine recovery is a best-effort feature. It might not always be able to find a solution for every issue.”

That said, if both QMR and auto remediation are enabled, no user action is needed to attempt quick machine recovery. Only if QMR is enabled and auto remediation is disabled will a user action be required to click the QMR entry in a WinRE screen to launch that action.

Indeed, auto remediation supports automation for its recovery processes. That means a device need only trigger QMR through a failure to boot. The PC will boot into WinRE, and then connect to Windows Update (WU) automatically and seek remediation. If a first attempt should fail, the device will retry remediations (or other options) with no manual intervention required.

If auto remediation is disabled or not configured, affected Windows devices do require manual intervention to continue recovery, typically through the WinRE recovery options screen shown in Figure 1.

According to Microsoft, Windows Home devices will have cloud remediation enabled and auto remediation disabled by default. On the other hand, Windows Pro, Education, and Enterprise devices will have both disabled by default. If auto remediation is enabled, admins will be able to set scanning intervals and time-outs.

The QMR process, step-by-step

When a Windows device fails to boot two or more times, the affected device boots into WinRE to initiate QMR. This leads to a sequence of efforts:

• Diagnosis: With WinRE controlling the target device, QMR seeks to identify the problem or issue causing boot failure.
• Network connection: With information to share about what it finds on the target PC, QMR connects to Windows Update in the cloud.
• Solution search: The diagnostic information is checked against known solutions or fixes.
• Remediation: If a solution is identified, it is run on the target PC to attempt a repair.

If all goes well, QMR works through these stages in order, and in reasonably good time. When testing QMR (as described in the next section), users will see a series of outputs, each overtopped by the Windows 11 logo and the spinning balls that indicate processing is underway.

Taking QMR for a test drive

Given a specific sequence of commands (described below and depicted in Figure 2), you can get a sense of how QMR works and watch it go through its paces. To test QMR, you must be running Windows 11 24H2 Build 26100.2652 or newer — or, for those in the Windows Insider program, Dev Channel Build 26200.5722 or newer / Beta Channel Build 26120.3653 or newer.

And, of course, QMR must be enabled.

To get started, open an administrative PowerShell session. To check if QMR is enabled or not, run these commands:

Reagentc /GetRecoverySettings

If the output shows the value for CloudRemediation as 0 (zero), you need to enable QMR. The best way to do that is to enable the recovery agent environment itself by typing:

Reagentc /Enable

Turning on the test will ensure that QMR is ready to work on your behalf in test mode. Here’s how:

Reagentc /SetRecoveryTestmode

Next, you’ll instruct the recovery agency to boot to the Windows Recovery Environment (and invoke QMR because of the previous test mode setting) like this:

Reagentc /BootToRE

Please note that the command interpreter doesn’t care about capitalization, so you needn’t include initial or inter-caps at the command line. But I’m showing what Microsoft does in its Learn article, if only for consistency.

After you enter these commands, you’ll need to restart the test PC. (But don’t do so until you’ve saved anything open you may need again in the future.)

Figure 2 shows all of the foregoing commands, plus a second GetRecoverySettings command to show current WinRE settings, capped off with a shutdown and restart command to forcibly restart your test PC.

After you reboot Windows, it should come up in QMR’s test mode. QMR will report through a sequence of individual [Test Mode] phases as it works through its process. As shown in Figure 3, such screens feature the white text on a black background typical of boot-time activities overseen by WinRE. Each one appears by itself, but they’re shown stacked in order of appearance to make things easier to follow.

When the QMR test is done, Windows will reboot normally. That’s how you know the test has succeeded as well: Windows is running again. In a real-world situation, this turns a non-booting PC into one that boots normally, after all.

Completing this test went pretty quickly for me: on a 14^th Gen Intel laptop, it took less than 4 minutes from start to reach the desktop after QMR did its thing. Because I’ve not used QMR to fix an actual boot failure, I can’t say for sure that the test run is quicker than the real thing would be. But that’s my best guess, and I’ll stick to that line until experience teaches me otherwise.

After the test, a notification

After you perform the test and the OS reboots, Windows 11 posts a related notification to the Notification Center. It looks something like Figure 4 (but may come in a light theme format, rather than the dark theme shown). The text reads “We removed some recently installed updates to recover your device from a startup failure” — the same message you’d receive if Windows had recovered from a real startup failure, not just a test. (Learn more from Microsoft Support.)

Presumably, if QMR comes into play to fix a real startup failure — not a simulated one, as occurs during the test — this notification serves to inform users of the change that’s occurred to restore their Windows device to working order.

Caveat: The test platform matters

In attempting to use QMR, I worked from a number of PCs with CPUs of varying generations. I observed that older PCs (up to and including Intel 10^th-gen CPUs) did not support QMR testing. On an 11^th-gen system running the Beta Channel Insider Preview, the QMR test ran, but it did not show KB5056862 in Update History in Windows Update. On a 13^th-gen system also running the Beta Channel Insider Preview, the QMR test ran and the aforementioned update appeared in Update History, as shown in Figure 5.

Depending on which version of Windows 11 you’re running, the actual Knowledge Base (KB) article number will differ. Thus you’ll want to look for an item that starts with “Quick machine recovery update for Windows 11…” and whatever KB number goes along with what’s running on your test PC at the time.

Though Microsoft doesn’t seem to document this limitation of QMR, the tool does work on newer systems I tested, but not on older ones. Keep this in mind, should you wish to conduct your own tests.

Open questions about QMR

Right now, testing is about all one can do with QMR. The rubber will meet the road when a rogue update comes along that needs undoing to restore affected Windows PCs to normal operation.

In my opinion, the most likely instructions in a QMR remediation will be DISM commands to remove packages with known pathologies that restore Windows to working order after they’re gone. Microsoft hasn’t published developer instructions yet (not that I can find, anyway) that explain how to create QMR remediations for third-party updates. Given what happened with CrowdStrike last summer, however, I’m sure that’s just a matter of time and circumstances.

QMR promises to make things much, much easier for admins who need to undo ill-behaved updates, either from Microsoft or makers of other software. In the next few months, we’ll learn if it lives up to that promise and see if it can automatically fix things when Windows won’t boot.

Related reading:

• How to handle Windows 10 and 11 updates
• How to troubleshoot and reset Windows Update
• How to repair Windows 10 or 11 in 4 steps
• More Windows and Office tutorials

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence organization comprised of the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. and several for-profit subsidiaries. The company is perhaps best known for its ChatGPT chatbot, which launched in 2022, kicking off a period of massive disruption in the tech industry and beyond.

A complicated and increasingly contentious relationship with Microsoft, ongoing legal issues over copyright infringement, and frequent product announcements keep OpenAI in the news. Follow this page and never miss a beat.

Latest Open AI news and analysis:

OpenAI drops GPT-5: smarter, sharper, and built for the real world

August 7. 2025: More than two years after GPT-4’s release, OpenAI has unveiled GPT-5, boasting sharper reasoning, multimodal input, better math skills, and cleaner task execution, according to the company.

OpenAI challenges rivals with Apache-licensed GPT-OSS models

August 6, 2025: OpenAI has released its first open-weight language models since GPT-2, marking a significant strategic shift as the company seeks to expand enterprise adoption through more flexible deployment options and reduced operational costs. The two new models — gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b — deliver what OpenAI describes as competitive performance while running efficiently on consumer-grade hardware. 

Google snatches Windsurf execs in a $2.4B deal, derailing OpenAI’s biggest acquisition yet

July 14, 2025: Google has recruited CEO Varun Mohan and co-founder Douglas Chen of AI coding startup Windsurf in a $2.4 billion talent acquisition deal, just two months after Windsurf agreed to be acquired by OpenAI for $3 billion. Mohan, Chen and select research and development staff, will join Google’s DeepMind AI division

OpenAI and Perplexity enter browser wars to take on Chrome

July 10, 2025: Google Chrome’s dominance in the browser market is facing new threats as OpenAI and Nvidia-backed Perplexity unveil AI-powered browsers aimed at reshaping how users interact with the web. Comet is a new web browser with built-in AI search capabilities, the company said.

Microsoft brings OpenAI-powered Deep Research to Azure AI Foundry agents

July 8, 2025: Microsoft added OpenAI-developed Deep Research capability to its Azure AI Foundry Agent service. The move is designed to let developers use Deep Research API and SDK to embed, extend, and orchestrate Deep Research-as-a-service across data and existing systems.

Oracle to power OpenAI’s AGI ambitions with 4.5GW expansion

July 3, 2025: OpenAI has signed a significant compute leasing deal with Oracle, under which it will access 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of data center power, marking one of the largest single leasing arrangements in the industry.

OpenAI tests Google TPUs amid rising inference cost concerns

July 1, 2025: OpenAI has begun testing Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), a move that — though not signaling an imminent switch — has raised eyebrows among industry analysts concerned about the escalating costs of AI inference and its effects.    

Microsoft/OpenAI AGI argument unlikely to impact enterprise IT

June 26, 2025: The contract between the two AI giants has an exit clause once AGI is achieved. The problem: It is impossible to prove when that happens. Either way, IT execs at Macy’s, Bank of America, doubt it will matter.

OpenAI productivity suite could change the way users create documents

June 26, 2025: OpenAI’s planned productivity suite could dismantle traditional habits of how users create and consume documents in the same the way the company changed browsing and search habits.

o3-pro may be OpenAI’s most advanced commercial offering, but GPT-4o bests it

June 24, 2025: In a head-to-head comparison of the two models, researchers found that o3-pro is far less performant, reliable, and secure, and does an unnecessary amount of reasoning. Notably, o3-pro consumed 7.3x more output tokens, cost 14x more to run, and failed in 5.6x more test cases than GPT-4o.

Microsoft and OpenAI: Will they opt for the nuclear option?

June 24, 2025: The fight between Microsoft and OpenAI over what Microsoft should get for its $13 billion investment in the AI company has gone from nasty to downright toxic, with each of the companies considering strategies against the other that can only be described as their nuclear options. 

OpenAI walks away from Scale AI — triggering industry-wide rethink of data partnerships

June 19, 2025: OpenAI has ended its long-standing partnership with Scale AI, the company that powered some of the most complex data-labeling tasks behind frontier models such as GPT-4.

OpenAI’s o3 price plunge changes everything for vibe coders

June 18, 2025: o3 used to be too slow and too expensive for daily coding—no longer. The latency is now bearable, the price is sane, and the chain-of-thought pays off.

Sam Altman: Meta tried to lure OpenAI employees with billion-dollar salaries

June 18, 2025: After reports suggested Meta has tried to poach employees from OpenAI and Google Deepmind by offering huge compensation packages, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman weighed in, saying those reports are true.

OpenAI-Microsoft tensions escalate over control and contracts

June 17, 2025: The relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft is under growing strain amid extended talks over OpenAI’s restructuring, with OpenAI reportedly considering antitrust action over Microsoft’s influence in the partnership.

OpenAI’s MCP move tempts IT to trust genAI more than it should

June 16, 2025: OpenAI late last month announced changes to make it much easier to give its genAI models full access to any software using Model Context Protocol (MCP). Here’s why that’s a bad idea.

OpenAI launches o3-pro, slashes o3 price by 80% in bid to widen AI lead

June 11, 2025: OpenAI has unveiled its most advanced AI model to date, the o3-pro, which surpasses competitors on key benchmarks and replaces the o1-pro. The o3-pro is now available for ChatGPT Pro and Team users, as well as through the developer API, with access for enterprise and education sectors beginning next week.

What Microsoft hopes to get from its breakup with OpenAI

June 11, 2025: The once-tight bond between Microsoft and OpenAI has been fraying for well over a year — and it’s getting worse. What the two companies want from each other now is very different from when Microsoft made its original $13 billion investment.

Oracle to spend $40B on Nvidia chips for OpenAI data center in Texas

May 26, 2025: Oracle is reportedly spending about $40 billion on Nvidia’s high-performance computer chips to power OpenAI’s new data center in Texas, marking a pivotal shift in the AI infrastructure landscape that has significant implications for enterprise IT strategies.

OpenAI’s Skynet moment: Models defy human commands, actively resist orders to shut down

May 30, 2025: OpenAI’s most advanced AI models are showing a disturbing new behavior: they are refusing to obey direct human commands to shut down, actively sabotaging the very mechanisms designed to turn them off.

Jony Ive and OpenAI plan ‘bicycles’ for 21st-century minds

May 21, 2025: OpenAI has announced that it will purchase io, the AI startup founded by acclaimed former Apple designer Sir Jony Ive, who helped create the iMac, iPod, and iPhone. 

OpenAI launches Codex AI agent to tackle multi-step coding tasks

May 19, 2025: OpenAI’s most advanced AI coding agent, Codex, will bring parallel task automation to developers—but analysts caution that speed without scrutiny invites “silent failures.”

Cisco taps OpenAI’s Codex for AI-driven network coding

May 16, 2025: Cisco is working with OpenAI and its newly released Codex software engineering agent to give network engineers access to better tools for writing, testing and building code.

OpenAI’s IPO aspirations prompt rethink of Microsoft alliance

May 12, 2025: Microsoft and OpenAI are renegotiating their multibillion-dollar partnership deal to better align with each company’s evolving goals in the artificial intelligence race

OpenAI hires Instacart CEO Fidji Simo to oversee customer-facing apps

May 8, 2025: The hire indicates that OpenAI’s roadmap will involve more structured, productized offerings rather than just API access.

OpenAI offers help promoting AI outside the US, but analysts question why countries would accept

May 7, 2025: OpenAI, acting as part of the US government-led Stargate AI project, rolled out a program called OpenAI for Countries. The idea is for Stargate to help other countries create their own genAI environments, including data centers and genAI models.

OpenAI reaffirms nonprofit control, scales back governance changes

May 6, 2025: OpenAI has scrapped plans to reduce its nonprofit parent’s oversight and will keep its existing governance structure intact, a move that limits CEO Sam Altman’s influence and responds to mounting external pressure.

OpenAI to acquire AI coding tool Windsurf for $3B

May 6, 2025: The acquisition comes just months after Windsurf explored funding at this same valuation from investors, highlighting the premium being placed on specialized AI coding capabilities, according to reports.

Former OpenAI employees urge regulators to halt company’s for-profit shift

April 23, 2025: A broad coalition of AI experts, economists, legal scholars, and former OpenAI employees is urging state regulators to keep OpenAI’s nonprofit foundation in control of the company.

OpenAI’s new models can ‘think with pictures’

April 17, 2025: OpenAI has released o3 and 04-mini, two reasoning AI models designed to be extra good at programming, math, and science and that can use images to “think,” according to Engadget, This means that users can upload sketches or diagrams, for example, and even if they are of low quality, o3 and 04-mini will understand what is meant.

OpenAI GPT-4.1 models promise improved coding and instruction following

April 15, 2025: The GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano models, available only via the API, will provide better performance than GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini at a lower price, OpenAI said.

OpenAI slammed for putting speed over safety

April 11, 2025: According to a Financial Times report, the ChatGPT maker is now assigning staff and third-party groups only a few days to assess the risks and performance of its latest large language models (LLMs) as compared to several months they were given earlier.

OpenAI fears irreparable harm from Musk, files countersuit

April 10, 2025: OpenAI has filed a countersuit against Elon Musk, accusing the billionaire of a sustained campaign to damage the company and urging a US federal court to block further actions it described as unlawful and disruptive. The legal filing, submitted in a California district court, marks the latest escalation in a dispute between Musk and the AI startup he helped establish in 2015.

Senators probe Google-Anthropic, Microsoft-OpenAI deals over antitrust concerns

April 9, 2025: Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden have launched a formal inquiry into partnerships between tech giants Google and Microsoft, and AI startups, demanding detailed information about arrangements they fear may be circumventing antitrust scrutiny while consolidating power in the rapidly evolving AI market.

Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s new AI education initiatives offer hope for enterprise knowledge retention

April 4, 2025: Two of the biggest names in artificial intelligence are independently developing new AI tools that encourage learning, at a time when the technology has been criticized for dumbing down smart users in the enterprise and discouraging critical thinking. While the new initiatives from OpenAI and Anthropic are aimed at transforming how AI is used in higher education, the opportunities they open up extend beyond universities.

Amazon, OpenAI, and China’s Zhipu unveil new AI tools amid intensifying competition

April 1, 2025: A wave of new AI products is hitting the market, signaling a shift toward more autonomous, task-completing systems that could reshape how businesses and consumers interact with digital services: Amazon has unveiled Nova Act, an AI agent designed to operate a web browser much like a human user; OpenAI said it will release an open-weight language model; and China’s Zhipu AI introduced a free AI assistant aimed at strengthening its position in the domestic market and competing with Western tech giants.

OpenAI, Google AI data centers are under stress after new genAI model launches

March 28, 2025: New generative AI models introduced by Google and OpenAI have put the companies’ data centers under stress — and both companies are trying to catch up to demand. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman tweeted that his company was temporarily restricting the use of GPUs after overwhelming demand for its image generation service on ChatGPT.

Microsoft abandons data center projects as OpenAI considers its own, hinting at a market shift

March 26, 2025: OpenAI has privately discussed building and operating its first data center to house storage, which is essential for developing sophisticated AI models. Microsoft, on the other hand, has pulled back on its buildouts, canceling data center projects in the US and Europe.

OpenAI calls for US to centralize AI regulation

March 13, 2025: OpenAI executives think the federal government should regulate artificial intelligence in the US, taking precedence over often more restrictive state regulations.

New tools from OpenAI help companies create their own AI agents

March 12, 2025: OpenAI launched Responses, a new api intended to eventually replace Assistants. The big draw? Responses provides a number of new tools that companies and organizations can use to create their own AI agents.

Microsoft is developing its own AI models to compete with OpenAI

March 10, 2025: Reports suggest Microsoft has decided to seriously challenge Deepseek and OpenAI by developing its own set of reasoning AI models called Microsoft AI (MAI). If successful, Microsoft would eventually not have to use its partner OpenAI’s o1 models in Copilot

Microsoft-OpenAI investigation closed by UK regulators

March 5, 2025: The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) spent a great deal of time deciding whether it should investigate Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI as a potential merger situation, but in the end, decided to open and close the investigation within 24 hours.

OpenAI revamps AI roadmap, merging models for a leaner future

February 13, 2025: OpenAI will integrate “o3” into GPT-5 instead of releasing it separately, streamlining adoption while signaling a shift toward fewer, more controlled AI models amid rising competition and cost pressures.

Musk’s $97B offer to buy OpenAI rejected as leadership stands firm

February 11, 2025: In a message to staff, Altman said the board has no intention of considering Musk’s offer, stating that the proposal does not align with OpenAI’s mission

OpenAI launches deep research agent for multi-step research tasks

February 3, 2025: Hot on the heels of its launch of the o3-mini model, OpenAI announced another component for ChatGPT that allows the generative AI tool to do more in-depth research. “Deep research is built for people who do intensive knowledge work in areas like finance, science, policy, and engineering and need thorough, precise, and reliable research,” OpenAI said in a blog post announcing the new capability.

OpenAI unleashes o3-mini reasoning model

January 31, 2025: OpenAI released the latest model in its reasoning series, o3-mini, both in ChatGPT and its application programming interface (API). It had been in preview since December 2024.

Indian media houses rally against OpenAI over copyright dispute

January 27, 2025: The legal heat on OpenAI in India intensified as digital news outlets owned by billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani joined an ongoing lawsuit against the ChatGPT creator. They were joined by some of the largest news publishers in India including the Indian Express, and Hindustan Times, and members of the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), which includes major players like Zee News, India Today, and The Hindu.

Altman now says OpenAI has not yet developed AGI

January 20, 2025: Confusion over whether OpenAI’s o3-mini has reached the major milestone of artificial general intelligence (AGI) or not deepened following a post on X by CEO Sam Altman that completely contradicts what he said two weeks earlier in an interview with Bloomberg.

Microsoft sues overseas threat actor group over abuse of OpenAI service

January 13, 2025: Microsoft has filed suit against 10 unnamed people (“Does”), who are apparently operating overseas, for misuse of its Azure OpenAI platform, asking the Eastern District of Virginia federal court for damages and injunctive relief.

With o3 having reached AGI, OpenAI turns its sights toward superintelligence

January 6, 2025: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reinvigorated discussion of artificial general intelligence (AGI), boldly claiming that his company’s newest model has reached that milestone.

Now US government agencies can use OpenAI’s ChatGPT too

January 28, 2025: OpenAI has rolled out ChatGPT Gov, a version of its flagship frontier model specifically tailored to US government agencies. The platform has many of the same capabilities as OpenAI’s other enterprise products, including access to GPT-4o and the ability to build custom GPTs — and it also features a much higher level of security than ChatGPT Enterprise.

OpenAI debuts AI agent Operator to transform web task automation

January 24, 2025: OpenAI has unveiled “Operator,” a new AI agent designed to perform web-based tasks, offering potential productivity enhancements for enterprises. The tool enables interaction with on-screen elements, positioning it as a solution for automating routine processes in business workflows amid growing competition in the generative AI space.

OpenAI opposes data deletion demand in India citing US legal constraints

January 23, 2025: OpenAI has informed the Delhi High Court that any directive requiring it to delete training data used for ChatGPT would conflict with its legal obligations under US law. The statement came in response to a copyright lawsuit filed by the Reuters-backed Indian news agency ANI, marking a pivotal development in one of the first major AI-related legal battles in India.

OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle lead $500B Project Stargate to ramp up AI infra in the US

January 22, 2025: Several large technology firms including OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, Nvidia, and MGX have partnered to set up a new company in the US to ramp up AI infrastructure in the country.

OpenAI is losing money on its pricey ChatGPT Pro subscription

January 7, 2025: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in a post on X, says the AI ​​company is currently losing money on its ChatGPT Pro subscription. “People are using it much more than we expected,” he wrote.

Fine-tuning Azure OpenAI models in Azure AI Foundry

January 2, 2025: Microsoft Azure’s new AI toolkit makes it easy to customize OpenAI large language models for your applications.

OpenAI still hasn’t released tools to deny data collection

January 2, 2025: OpenAI has failed to release the tool to opt-out or customize data collection the company promised to make available by 2025, according to Techcrunch.

Once upon a time there was an amazing little voice assistant that ended up being exclusively available in Apple products. It was called Siri and it was ahead of its time.

Because Siri seemed pretty magical when it first hit the iPhone; it would answer requests, find out information, and even do useful things such as taking photographs or naming songs you heard on the radio.

Available in numerous languages and with a range of male and female speaking voices, Siri remains the most widely distributed on-device chatbot in terms of language support. The assistant also scaled well, eventually appearing across Apple’s product lines. But critics and competitors now agree, Siri was too ambitious and failed to keep up with the times.

Back to the future

Cast your mind back to 2010 when Siri first appeared for iPhone. At that time, research into artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous technologies, ongoing since the launch of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) in the 60’s, really accelerated. Apple led the charge, at least in terms of media profile, and Siri (which the company acquired soon after its introduction) was a leading-edge challenger in the nascent field

What was great about Siri was its fluffy, friendly image. 

Being an Apple product gave the solution access to a huge market of engaged and happy consumers willing to overcome their general concern at the dystopian application of AI to give the friendly little assistant a try. 

Building acceptance one error at a time

Arguably, Apple’s little assistant helped drive acceptance of technologies that have become critical to today’s cutting edge generative AI (genAI) systems, including:

• Speech recognition
• The idea of intelligent machines
• Devices equipped to listen for your commands 24/7
• Fast and real-time access to information on spoken request
• Andr even real-time transcription.

Siri’s well-publicized errors actually helped build acceptance. After all, if you think about it, the fact that Siri sometimes made mistakes somehow helped humanize it. It is better to think that AI is stupid than to see it as threateningly smart.

This helped a skeptical public come to terms with AI, even while Apple’s assistant embodied a range of concepts people resisted. The logic was that it couldn’t be too bad if machines had this kind of intelligence built inside, right? It’s not as if they are smart enough to fully understand. Did it really matter if the tech listened to you when you thought it was switched off? 

What use would the information picked up be? (The answer: around 81% of UK consumers now claim to have experienced targeted consumer advertising generated by AI.)

Trust in me

We’ve had many debates on these topics since then — debates that show Apple’s commitment to user privacy in AI to be unique, and under attack from competitors and authoritarians alike. It’s almost as if, when some leaders heard Apple CEO Tim Cook warn this is surveillance, they chose to exploit it as an opportunity, rather than protect against it.

All the same, Siri helped people become more capable of placing trust in AI. 

Years later, OpenAI was introduced to a public already more accepting of such tech. That acceptance was to some extent built on the back of Siri adoption, and the appearance of other big name search assistants across the industry.

That acceptance means around 77% of devices in use today have some form of AI, and roughly 90% of organizations are using AI. Investment in the sector is booming, with the tech giants (Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta) spending $92.17 billion on capital expenditures in Q2 2025 alone. That’s up a whopping 66.67% on the year ago quarter, mainly on the strength of big investments in data centers, servers, and AI infrastructure.

Hope, hype, and history

The hype around AI is growing as fast as the investments.

Firms in the space are signing massive multi-billion dollar deals, governments are investing vast quantities of cash and resources to support AI industry development, and consumers are preparing to pay for all this investment come the inevitable industry collapse. 

Consumers will pay? Just look at history. We know this because that’s what happened following the dotcom boom, the South Sea Bubble collapse, and the financial crisis, when unsustainable investments came before a fall. We know this because by the time the highly probable AI industry collapse happens, the tech will be so deeply intertwined in our daily lives we will be told these companies are strategically important, making them “too big to fail.”

So we will bail them out.

What follows Siri? 

I come to bury Siri, not to praise it, because competitors say it was ambitious and failed to keep up with them. But if you’d never experienced Siri, would you have trusted ChatGPT? Perhaps a little, but not as much.

For the future of Siri, ask whether privacy continue to be baked in, or will governments get their way when it comes to data encryption, in which case no one will be private unless they can afford to be.

If governments do get their way and Apple is made to take privacy out of its algorithms, just how much of a threat will Siri become to other AI services, which already seem to respect privacy less? Siri doesn’t seem to know the answer (yet).

Though it probably has quite a lot of data to help it work one out.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

OpenAI has released its first open-weight language models since GPT-2, marking a significant strategic shift as the company seeks to expand enterprise adoption through more flexible deployment options and reduced operational costs.

The two new models — gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b — deliver what OpenAI describes as competitive performance while running efficiently on consumer-grade hardware. The larger model reportedly achieves near-parity with OpenAI’s o4-mini on reasoning benchmarks while running on a single 80 GB GPU, while the smaller variant matches o3-mini performance and can operate on edge devices with just 16 GB of memory.

“This is a bold go-to-market move by OpenAI and is now really open,” said Neil Shah, VP for research and partner at Counterpoint Research. “This move nicely challenges rivals such as Meta, DeepSeek, and other proprietary vendors both for cloud and more specifically edge.”

Open-weight models provide access to the trained model parameters, allowing organizations to run and customize the AI locally, but differ from traditional open-source software by not necessarily including the original training code or datasets.

Architecture designed for enterprise efficiency

The models leverage a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture to optimize computational efficiency. The gpt-oss-120b activates 5.1 billion parameters per token from its 117 billion total parameters, while gpt-oss-20b activates 3.6 billion from its 21 billion parameter base. Both support 128,000-token context windows and are released under the Apache 2.0 license, enabling unrestricted commercial use and customization.

The models are available for download on Hugging Face and come natively quantized in MXFP4 format, according to the statement. The company has partnered with deployment platforms, including Azure, AWS, Hugging Face, vLLM, Ollama, Fireworks, Together AI, Databricks, and Vercel to ensure broad accessibility.

For enterprise IT teams, this architecture could translate to more predictable resource requirements and potentially significant cost savings compared to proprietary model deployments. According to the statement, the models include instruction following, web search integration, Python code execution, and reasoning capabilities that can be adjusted based on task complexity.

“This will accelerate adoption of OpenAI models for research as well as commercial use under Apache 2.0 license,” Shah noted, highlighting the strategic value of the licensing approach.

Total cost calculations favor high-volume users

The economics of open-weight deployment versus AI-as-a-service present complex calculations for enterprise decision-makers. Organizations face initial infrastructure investments and ongoing operational costs for self-hosting, but can eliminate per-token API fees that accumulate with high-volume usage.

“The TCO calculation will break even for enterprises with high-volume usage or mission-critical needs where the per-token savings of self-hosting and open weights will eventually outweigh the high initial and operational costs,” Shah explained. “For low usage, AI-as-a-Service will benefit better.”

Early enterprise partners, including AI Sweden, Orange, and Snowflake, have begun testing real-world applications, from on-premises hosting for data security to fine-tuning on specialized datasets, the statement added. The timing aligns with enterprise technology spending expected to reach $4.9 trillion in 2025, with AI investments driving much of that growth.

OpenAI said that it subjected the models to comprehensive safety training and evaluations, including testing an adversarially fine-tuned version of gpt-oss-120b under the company’s Preparedness Framework. Also, its methodology was reviewed by external experts, addressing enterprise concerns about open-source AI deployments.

According to OpenAI’s benchmarks, the models showed competitive performance: gpt-oss-120b achieved 79.8% Pass@1 on AIME 2024 and 97.3% on MATH-500, while demonstrating coding capabilities with a 2,029 Elo rating on Codeforces. The company reported that both models performed well on tool use and few-shot function calling — capabilities relevant for business automation.

Strategic decoupling from Microsoft

The release has significant implications for OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft, its primary investor and cloud partner. Despite the open-weight approach, Microsoft is bringing GPU-optimized versions of the gpt-oss-20b model to Windows devices through ONNX Runtime, supporting local inference via Foundry Local and the AI Toolkit for VS Code, the statement added.

Shah noted that “OpenAI with this move smartly decouples itself from Microsoft Azure and developers can now attach the open-weights models they have been working on and host it if they want to in the future on other rival clouds such as AWS or Google or even OpenAI-Oracle cloud.”

This strategic flexibility could pressure Microsoft to diversify beyond OpenAI partnerships while providing enterprises with greater vendor negotiating power. “This also now offers higher bargaining power for the enterprise against other AI vendors and even AI-as-a-Service models,” Shah observed.

Enterprise deployment considerations

The shift represents OpenAI’s recognition that enterprise AI adoption increasingly requires deployment flexibility. Organizations in regulated industries particularly value data sovereignty options, while others seek to escape vendor lock-in concerns associated with cloud-dependent AI services.

However, enterprises must weigh operational complexity against cost savings. While hardware requirements may be more accessible than previous generations, organizations need expertise in model deployment, fine-tuning, and ongoing maintenance—capabilities that vary significantly across enterprises.

The company is working with hardware providers, including Nvidia, AMD, Cerebras, and Groq, to ensure optimized performance across different systems, potentially easing deployment concerns for enterprise IT teams.

For IT decision-makers, the release expands strategic options in AI deployment models and vendor relationships. The Apache 2.0 licensing removes traditional barriers to customization while enabling organizations to develop proprietary AI applications without ongoing licensing fees.

“In the end it’s a win for enterprises,” Shah concluded, summarizing the broader market impact of OpenAI’s strategic pivot toward openness in the increasingly competitive enterprise AI landscape.

More OpenAI news:

• Google snatches Windsurf execs in a $2.4B deal, derailing OpenAI’s biggest acquisition yet
• OpenAI and Perplexity enter browser wars to take on Chrome
• Microsoft brings OpenAI-powered Deep Research to Azure AI Foundry agents
• Oracle to power OpenAI’s AGI ambitions with 4.5GW expansion
• OpenAI tests Google TPUs amid rising inference cost concerns
  

Intel’s 18A process for its upcoming Panther Lake chips faces uncertainty over yields, fueling concerns about production readiness and possible ripple effects across the supply chain.

The process introduces new transistor designs and a more efficient power delivery method, but has so far delivered only a small percentage of chips that meet Intel’s quality standards, Reuters reported.

Intel’s 18A combines gate-all-around transistors with backside power delivery to significantly improve chip speed and efficiency. The technology is pivotal for Intel’s bid to reclaim process leadership, power its next-generation Panther Lake processors, and maintain dominance in the high-end PC market.

However, the yield issue presents a significant hurdle for the chipmaker’s plans to regain an edge in advanced semiconductor manufacturing and challenge Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) in the foundry market.

Intel has invested billions in developing 18A, upgrading and expanding its factories to close the technology gap with TSMC. These chips are intended not only to power high-end laptops but also to serve as a showcase for Intel’s contract manufacturing capabilities.

Early tests last year disappointed customers, and recent yields remain below the levels typically needed to launch profitably, according to the report. Without a substantial increase before the planned fourth-quarter 2025 rollout, Intel could face difficult choices, including selling chips at lower margins or at a loss.

Responding to the report, an Intel spokesperson said, “Panther Lake is going to be a great product for Intel and our partners. We are confident in our launch plans and looking forward to delivering our first Panther Lake SKU later this year. We feel very good about our trajectory on Intel 18A, and it will be the foundation of multiple generations of client and server products in the coming years.”

Supply chain concerns

Intel’s potential low yield poses a major threat to the availability of high-end business laptops powered by Panther Lake. This shortfall risks supply bottlenecks for OEMs, especially those counting on Intel chips for AI-enhanced and power-efficient enterprise devices.

As production volumes lag, prices for premium configurations may rise, reflecting higher per-unit chip costs.

“Intel’s 18A node represents its most ambitious process leap in over a decade, but yield estimates fall short of profitability thresholds,” said Manish Rawat, semiconductor analyst at TechInsights. “Achieving mature yields of over 70% could realistically take another 12–18 months. This timeline introduces significant risk across the semiconductor value chain.”

Suppliers of substrates, packaging, and EDA tools may experience erratic demand if Intel is forced to rework or scale down chip production. OEM and ODM partners could also face disruptions in Panther Lake launch schedules, leading to redesigns or deferred shipments.

For enterprise IT teams, the implications are deeper: delayed validation cycles, inconsistent hardware platforms, and potential security certification issues if legacy chips are used as fallback options.

“These challenges could push corporate hardware refreshes out by 6–12 months and increase consideration of alternative platforms like AMD or ARM, which offer greater roadmap stability,” Rawat added.

Laptop market share shift

Intel’s trouble is shaping up to be a pivotal moment for the PC market. Analysts warn it could be a “make or break” test for the company’s market share against rivals.

“With Intel’s chips powering two-thirds of laptop shipments and supported by deep-seated enterprise reliance, the ripple effects of low yields on its 18A process will be felt across the entire industry,” said Neil Shah, vice president for research and partner at Counterpoint Research. “The company is facing a difficult choice: push for a timely launch despite low yields, risking significant damage to profitability, or delay the release to improve yields, ceding crucial ground to competitors.”

Analysts estimate that 8–10% of the total laptop PC market that Panther Lake was expected to capture is now effectively up for grabs.

“This presents a prime opportunity for AMD’s Ryzen Pro series, built on advanced TSMC nodes, to double down on the premium enterprise segment,” Shah said. “Concurrently, Apple is also poised to capture share from the high-end market, putting Intel in a tough position from all sides.”

Up to the mid-range segment, including business laptops, alternatives are emerging quickly, with most OEMs now using processors from AMD or Snapdragon. However, for high-end business laptops, Intel remains the preferred choice. “If this does not get addressed soon, it could give Apple an advantage with its MacBook Pro series, which is targeted at high-end business users,” said Faisal Kawoosa, founder and lead analyst at Techarc. “In its recent Q3 results, Apple posted 15% year-over-year growth in MacBook sales revenue, making it the fastest-growing category among the products Apple sells, including iPhones, iPads, and wearables.”

More Intel news:

• Intel networking unit spinoff, earnings uproar, AI snub
• Intel to lay off 22% of workforce as CEO Tan signals ‘no more blank checks’
• Intel CEO: We are not in the top 10 semiconductor companies
• Intel sells off majority stake in its FPGA business
• An Intel-TSMC deal could reshape x86 future and enterprise chip supply chains

Historically, Microsoft seems cursed: It’s often early to big technological shifts, and it’s great at prototyping them. But then, after a hype-filled launch where Microsoft celebrates its lead, the company seems to lose interest — while competitors pull ahead and release more polished products.

That’s what appears to have happened with Microsoft’s generative AI (genAI) plans. After a huge push with Bing Chat where Microsoft was the leading consumer AI company at an important moment, the company started moving much more slowly. Copilot use now appears far behind ChatGPT and other competitors.

The good news for investors is that Microsoft is diversified, and it’s set to reap profits selling compute on Azure to companies around the world. But the question is whether Microsoft will be more than an enterprise-focused company selling business solutions going forward.

HoloLens: Early hype, rapid abandonment

Examples of this pattern aren’t hard to find. For instance: Apple, Meta, Google, and Samsung are all investing heavily in augmented reality or mixed reality headsets and glasses. Valve, the company behind the Steam gaming marketplace, may launch a gaming-focused virtual reality headset that runs Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS.

Microsoft, on the flip side, isn’t involved in this space at all. That’s wild because it championed this very type of technology with HoloLens, unveiled in 2015, and showed off glossy consumer-friendly demos using the headset to play Minecraft. Microsoft even built “Windows Mixed Reality” software into Windows 10, letting companies like Samsung (which is now partnering with Google on an Android XR headset) deliver their own headsets that work with Windows PCs. Windows 10’s “universal apps” would have run on HoloLens, too.

Microsoft built hype for HoloLens among consumers, but then never released it as a consumer product, instead retreating to the enterprise. Ultimately, Microsoft signed a multi-billion-dollar agreement to develop a HoloLens-based headset for the US military. Microsoft reportedly lost billions of dollars on the project and this year handed off the US Army headset program to Anduril.

Now, you can use Windows Mixed Reality with a Meta headset — but Microsoft spent billions of dollars and had a huge early lead only to cede the potential market to competitors and even see its enterprise and military ambitions fail. It’s a cautionary tale for what happens if a company starts retreating, slowly backing away from market after market until the entire business has vanished, even as competitors eagerly release their own products.

Smartphones: Early insight, and then…

Back in the early 2000s, years before Apple launched the first iPhone and kicked off the modern smartphone era, I had a friend with a pocket PC running Windows CE. These little palm-sized PCs were the predecessor to the modern smartphone, and Microsoft understood that people would want a computer in their pocket — one that ran apps and could access the web. But the interface was fiddly — based on Windows, complete with a tiny little Start menu.

While Microsoft saw the handheld phone market, then-CEO Steve Ballmer famously laughed at the iPhone when it launched. “That is the most expensive phone in the world — and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine.”

“Let’s see how the competition goes,” Ballmer said confidently in 2007. In the years after the iPhone’s launch, Microsoft would scramble to create a new operating system — Windows Phone — with a new interface. Windows Phone ultimately failed. By the time Microsoft had a better interface, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android had commanding leads.

The web: An early vision that stalled with IE 6

Many years before Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft saw that the web was going to be huge. With the release in 1997 of Internet Explorer 4 (IE4), Microsoft deeply integrated the web into Windows. “Active Desktop” technology let you put HTML content on your desktop. Microsoft blurred the line between the operating system and browser, with the company making web apps more powerful with ActiveX technology.

Microsoft’s vision of the web was all about Windows: ActiveX only worked in IE on Windows. It was Microsoft’s homegrown solution, and it had serious security problems. People outside Microsoft had to build new open standards into competing browsers.

The landmark Microsoft antitrust case was a problem, of course: Microsoft’s practice of bundling IE with Windows was a big factor. Then Microsoft seemed to give up on its browser. IE6 was released in 2001. Version 7 wasn’t released until 2006, five years later — after Mozilla Firefox was already grabbing lots of market share.

As with other technologies, Microsoft had an early vision that was correct — the idea that the web would be big and people would want it to do more — and then gave up on it. Microsoft acted as if IE6 and ActiveX would be good enough forever. That left the company perpetually behind rival browsers until it transformed Edge into a Chromium-based browser built on top of the same open-source project as Google Chrome. Microsoft aimed to control the web; it wound up playing catch-up.

Can Copilot become a breakout success?

Now, you can see that with Bing Chat, Microsoft was merely repeating an old pattern. The company invested in OpenAI early, then moved to quickly launch a consumer AI product with Bing Chat. It was the first AI search engine and the first big consumer AI experience aside from ChatGPT — which was positioned more as a research project and not a consumer tool at the time.

Needless to say, things didn’t pan out. Despite using the tarnished Bing name and logo that would probably make any product seem less cool, Bing Chat and its “Sydney” persona had breakout viral success. But the company scrambled after Bing Chat behaved in unpredictable ways.

Microsoft’s explanation doesn’t exactly make it better: “Microsoft did not expect people to have hours-long conversations with it that would veer into personal territory,” Yusuf Mehdi, a corporate vice president at the company, told NPR.

In other words, Microsoft didn’t expect people would chat with its chatbot so much. Faced with that, Microsoft started instituting limits and generally making Bing Chat both less interesting and less useful.

Under current CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft is a different company than it was under Ballmer. The past doesn’t always predict the future. But it does look like Microsoft had an early, rough prototype — yet again — and then saw competitors surpass it.

Microsoft is now trying to turn Copilot into a life companion. Let’s say that’s the future: Will Copilot succeed, or will it be another early prototype that shows the rest of the tech industry what to build? The company’s track record isn’t exactly encouraging.

Setting your phone on silent sure ain’t what it used to be.

If you’re among the smart and enlightened animals embracing Android and you’re rockin’ a device that’s been updated to the current Android 16 software, you’ve no doubt noticed a new series of options surrounding your phone’s primary silencing function.

Or, heck, maybe you haven’t. The system is actually kinda convoluted and confusing, and most folks I’ve heard from since the time of Android 16’s arrival either find it to be completely befuddling or, on the flip side, haven’t even found it at all.

The system of which we speak is a snazzy little somethin’ called Modes, and it’s actually an impressively powerful new way to think about controlling exactly how your phone does — and doesn’t — disturb you in different scenarios.

It’s basically like a souped-up, completely customizable version of the traditional Android Do Not Disturb setup. But it takes some serious sleuthing and careful consideration to wrap your head around it and figure out how to best put it to use.

Not to fear, though: I’m here to help. Below, I’ve got seven specific ways to embrace Android’s new maze of Modes magic and get your brain a-buzzin’ about how it can work for you.

[Hey — want even more advanced Android knowledge? Check out my free Android Shortcut Supercourse to learn tons of time-saving tricks.]

Android Modes 101

Before we dive in, let’s back up for one quick sec and explore how, exactly, the Android Modes system even operates and how it differs from Do Not Disturb, in its more traditional sense.

The Modes feature, in the simplest possible explanation, is a series of states you can create to tell your phone how you want it to act at different times.

The traditional Android Do Not Disturb mode, then, is basically just one such mode that tells your phone not to interrupt you with any non-pressing notifications (and, if you weren’t already aware, you can quite easily create Do Not Disturb exceptions on Android that allow certain types of alerts or alerts from certain high-priority people to come through even when that mode is active).

But now, you can create other similar modes that exist alongside that and have their own separate rules for how your phone behaves. So instead of just a single all-purpose Do Not Disturb, in other words, you could have one version of Do Not Disturb for your workday, another for your weekend, and another for when you’re sleeping and/or eating salami — each with its own set of sensible rules to match the occasion and your needs for that specific scenario. (I don’t know about you, but I never want to be interrupted whilst eating fermented meats.)

As for how to actually activate both Do Not Disturb and the other custom modes we’re about to create:

In Google’s standard Android implementation (what’s present on Pixel devices and other phones whose manufacturers don’t overly meddle with the interface)…

• You can activate the standard Do Not Disturb mode by tapping the circle-with-a-line icon in your Quick Settings (which you can see by swiping down from the top of your screen).
• And you can see the Modes menu and select any of your custom modes by pressing and holding that same icon for about a second.

In Samsung’s Android 16 setup, meanwhile…

• You can activate the standard Do Not Disturb mode by tapping the circle-with-a-line icon in your Quick Settings (which, notably, is now accessible only if you swipe down from the upper-right area of your screen — and also, by default, you may have to swipe down on the box showing all quick-action icons to expand it and see the Do Not Disturb icon).
• And you can see the Modes menu and select any of your custom modes by tapping the separate Modes button within that same Quick Settings section.

Got it? Good. Now, let’s get to the good stuff.

1. Android Modes: For work

First and foremost, how ’bout a specific version of Do Not Disturb for your workday — whenever and wherever that may transpire?

By creating a mode for this particular purpose, you can leave the standard Do Not Disturb setup — the one that’s easiest to activate, with just a single tap (as we went over a moment ago) — in its purest, most pristine state, with no exceptions and a complete and total silencing of any and all interruptions.

Then, when you’re working, you could allow notifications to come in from work-related apps like your email, Slack, and anything else that might be pertinent for that part of your life but pause interruptions from more personal apps and messaging services. You could even get super-nuanced and specify exactly which contacts are allowed to interrupt you with titillating texts in Google Messages, if you want to limit the missives that distract you during the day.

To create this mode:

In Google’s standard Android implementation…

• Head into the Modes section of your system settings, tap “Create your own mode” at the bottom of the screen, then select “Custom.”
• Name the mode “Work” and give it any icon you like, then scroll down at tap “Done” at the very bottom of that screen.

• Now, think about if you want the mode to activate automatically during certain days and times or if you’d rather just activate it manually on your own, as needed. If you want a set schedule, tap “Set a schedule” to create it.
• Then, tap “Apps” to tell your phone exactly which apps should be allowed to alert you whenever that mode is active.
  • You’ll want to be sure “Selected apps” is active, then tap the gear-shaped icon alongside that to pick the apps you want — and, if you’re feelin’ especially ambitious, get even more nuanced to pick exactly which types of notifications each app is allowed to push through.

• Next, tap “People” to set up which contacts can text or call you and interrupt when your work mode is active. If you want all messages or calls to come through, be sure to select “Anyone” for each of those categories.
• And finally, tap “Alarms & other interruptions” to confirm you’re allowing alarms, media sounds, reminders, and calendar events to arrive while this mode is on.

And that’s it: You’ll now see your spiffy new work mode within the Android Modes Quick Settings list, and whenever it’s active, you’ll see the icon you selected for it in the status bar area at the top of your screen.

In Samsung’s Android setup…

• March into the Modes and Routines area of your system settings and tap “Add mode” at the bottom of the screen.
• Name the mode “Work” and give it any icon you like, then tap “Done” at the bottom of that screen.
• If you want the mode to activate itself automatically, tap the “Turn on automatically” box.
  • Samsung has actually expanded the options here in some interesting ways: In addition to selecting a consistent day and time for your mode to come on, you can specify a physical location as well as a Bluetooth connection and all sorts of other useful conditions to act as triggers for making the mode enabled.

• Tap “Stay focused” and then “Do not disturb” to set up restrictions around what kinds of calls and messages as well as app-generated notifications can get through whenever this mode is active.

And with that, the basics are all in place — and just like with the standard Android interface, you can now activate your new mode anytime and see its icon in your status bar whenever it’s active.

2. Android Modes: For focus

For our next custom Android Modes option, why don’t we create a separate setup for times of intense focus?

While your standard workday mode might allow lots of work-related (and maybe some personal) interruptions, your focus mode could be much more restrictive and meant for moments when you’re deeply zoned in on something important. It could also add in options to limit distractions beyond just the basic calls, messages, and notifications we set up in our work version.

The steps for starting and setting up the mode are exactly the same as above, so I won’t repeat myself and go over all of that again. Instead, here are the types of Modes settings you might think about within those same areas for this purpose:

• Fewer safe-listed people for messages and calls
• Fewer apps and specific types of alerts for notifications
• No reminders or media sounds
• And, within the “Display settings” area of the Modes configuration (or the “Other actions” area, in Samsung’s interface), options such as:
  • Hiding notification dots on app icons
  • Hiding status bar icons at the top of the screen
  • Not popping up notifications
  • Keeping your screen in grayscale
  • Keeping your always-on displayed powered off

Samsung’s interface tucks some of those same options away within a separate “Add action” menu and doesn’t offer all of the same choices. But no matter what kind of phone you’re using, you’ll find plenty of helpful possibilities for making this mode worthwhile.

3. Android Modes: For meetings

Perhaps one of the most useful Android Modes paths to ponder is a mode made specifically for moments when you’re in a meeting — be it in person, on a voice call, or via one of the zillions of Zoom-like video chatting services we all see on our calendars each and every day.

The beauty of how Android’s Modes system handles this is that you can just tell your phone to automatically activate your meeting mode anytime an event is occurring on your connected calendar(s).

To make that happen, in the standard Google Android setup, you’ll select “Set a schedule” and then “Calendar events.” You can then tap that same line once more to limit the events to a specific category within your calendar as well as a specific status for the event.

Puzzlingly, Samsung’s Android interface doesn’t seem to offer any similar option — in spite of the many varied possibilities it does possess. (Sorry, Galaxy pals.)

On any other Android device, though, you can then review the various variables to decide precisely what sorts of interruptions you do and don’t want to allow whenever you’ve got an event going and rest easy knowing nothing else will bother you during those meeting-oriented moments.

4. Android Modes: For driving

Distracted driving is one of the worst ways phones have affected our lives — but Android’s Modes setup offers an enticing way to help avoid the harmful (and quite possibly also illegal) temptation to take your eyes off the road and to make your device more actively useful whenever you’re behind the wheel.

Google’s standard Android setup and Samsung’s Android interface both offer a premade driving mode that uses a combination of motion and Bluetooth connections to automatically detect when you’re driving and then adjust your phone’s behavior as a result. Just look for the pre-existing “Driving” option within your Modes settings screen to activate and configure it.

Samsung’s setup is actually the more advantageous one here, as in addition to limiting alerts, it’ll also offer to automatically read any incoming notifications aloud for you as they arrive anytime your driving mode is active.

You can achieve a similar effect with any device via Android Auto and its connection to your car — provided the vehicle supports it — but having that built directly into the operating system as a part of the mode itself is a pretty nifty touch.

5. Android Modes: For the weekend

So far, we’ve focused mostly on making your device as optimal as possible for when you’re working or otherwise actively invested in some sort of specific activity. So how ’bout a custom Do Not Disturb mode for the weekend, when you’re trying to avoid doing anything productive but might still want to see personal messages, reminders, and perhaps (perhaps) some particularly pressing work-related alerts?

Create a weekend mode and set it up with those specific parameters, and you can easily tune out as much as possible and avoid thinking about work whenever you’re unwinding.

And remember: You can opt to have this mode automatically activate itself from Friday night through Monday morning — or whenever your weekend occurs — if you want to save yourself the trouble of even having to think about it at all.

6. Android Modes: For vacation

Vacation mode is — or at least should be — even more unfocused than an average weekend. So while we’re mulling over all the modes worth making, take a moment to make yourself a vacation-specific setup that you can activate whenever the time comes to fully shut down the ol’ noggin for an extended hiatus.

Your vacation mode might be extra-restrictive on the types of work-related alerts it allows and the apps it blocks from being present. Only you know how far you can take it, of course, but if you think about it proactively and get the mode ready to roll now, you’ll be ready to hibernate and avoid all unnecessary distractions as soon as that time arrives.

7. Android Modes: For sleeping

Last but not least, now that we’re reframed the standard Android Do Not Disturb mode as a state where nothing gets through and interrupts you, it might be practical to create a separate custom mode for sleeping — with whatever settings suit you for those hopefully zoned-out hours.

Once more, you’ll find a ready-made starting point to work from — “Bedtime,” in Google’s standard Android implementation, and “Sleep” in Samsung’s. Tap that within the Modes area of your system settings, then think carefully about exactly which interruptions you want to allow and what settings would work best for that purpose.

Aside from the obvious people and notification exceptions, be sure to look through the other options that could be relevant and useful here — such as:

• Ensuring alarms will always still sound even when this mode is active
• Implementing a grayscale, dimmed-wallpaper, and/or dark-theme state and telling the screen never to illuminate when you aren’t actively using it
• And deactivating alerts for anything that wouldn’t be urgent enough to warrant waking, including media sounds, calendar events, and reminders

All that’s left is to get your brain to follow suit and stop interrupting your slumber — and that part, I’m afraid, is squarely on your sleepy shoulders.

Get six full days of advanced Android knowledge with my free Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll learn tons of time-saving tricks!

Microsoft 365 (and Office 365) subscribers get more frequent software updates than those who have purchased Office without a subscription, which means subscribers have access to the latest features, security patches, and bug fixes. But it can be hard to keep track of the changes in each update and know when they’re available. We’re doing this for you, so you don’t have to.

Following are summaries of the updates to Microsoft 365/Office 365 for Windows over the past year, with the latest releases shown first. We’ll add info about new updates as they’re rolled out.

Note: This story covers updates released to the Current Channel for Microsoft 365/Office 365 subscriptions. If you’re a member of Microsoft’s Office Insider preview program or want to get a sneak peek at upcoming features, see the Microsoft 365 Insider blog.

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20156)

Release date: August 5, 2025

This build fixes a single bug, in which users had to restart Outlook to open a .msg file after initially accessing it once.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20156).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20136)

Release date: July 30, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including in which Outlook closed unexpectedly shortly after launch, and another in Word in which the word count sometimes displayed incorrectly.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20136).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184)

Release date: July 22, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one that caused the Copilot Command Center to continue to be visible after disabling the Copilot user interface, and another in which when creating handouts in PowerPoint, certain characters (full-width numbers) couldn’t be properly transferred to the handout.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20168)

Release date: July 15, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one that caused Visio 32-bit to close unexpectedly when using the Drawing control, particularly in setups involving COM components or .NET integrations, and another in Word in which copying and pasting content between documents sometimes changed the applied style unexpectedly.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20168).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20158)

Release date: July 8, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes several bugs in Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, and the whole Office suite, including one that caused the Copilot icon to unexpectedly display in Outlook when Copilot had been disabled by the admin in government cloud.

The release also includes a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20158).

Version 2506 (Build 18827.20176)

Release date: July 1, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Word in which print preview sometimes stopped working when printing long emails.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18827.20176).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20176)

Release date: June 26, 2025

This build introduces several new features, including one in Excel in which the PivotTables dialog box interface has been replaced by a redesigned panel, making it easier to view all of your options and simpler to change your data selection before inserting a recommended PivotTable.

Get more info about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20176).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20164)

Release date: June 17, 2025

This build fixes a bug that caused the “Try the new Outlook” toggle to be enabled when working in Classic Outlook side by side with the new Outlook.

Get more info about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20164).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20150)

Release date: June 10, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one for the entire Office suite in which a Save As attempt on an existing file didn’t complete successfully, and subsequent attempts continued to encounter issues when trying to save to a file that no longer existed.

This Patch Tuesday release also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about  Version 2505 (Build 18827.20150).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20140)

Release date: June 3, 2025

This build offers a variety of bug and performance fixes.

Read about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20140).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20186)

Release date: May 20, 2025

This build introduces a new PowerPoint feature: Notification emails for mentions, tasks, comments, and replies will now contain context previews even when the source document is encrypted, and the email will inherit the document’s security policies.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20186).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20168)

Release date: May 13, 2025

This build fixes a bug in which users were seeing high CPU usage when typing in Outlook. It also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20168).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20142)

Release date: May 6, 2025

This build includes various bug and performance fixes.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20142).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20122)

Release date: April 29, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which PowerPoint was unable to open a file from a network mapped drive from File Explore, another in which Word closed unexpectedly when opening .doc files, and another for the entire Office suite in which large 3D files couldn’t be inserted.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20122).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20208)

Release date: April 17, 2025

This build fixes a bug that could cause Excel to stop responding.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20208).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20178)

Release date: April 8, 2025

This build fixes a single bug in Word in which users may have encountered an issue with saving, seeing the message “saving…” in the title bar. It  also includes a variety of security updates. Go here for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20178).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20156)

Release date: April 2, 2025

This build lets you use Dark Mode in Excel, which darkens your entire sheet, including cells, and may reduce eye strain. It also fixes several bugs, including one in Word in which opening specific files that contain many tracked changes and comments resulted in poor performance, and one in PowerPoint in which the app was not displaying the icon for an inserted PDF object.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20156).

Version 2502 (Build 18526.20168)

Release date: March 11, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which some Word files with numerous tracked changes and comments were slow. It also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2502 (Build 18526.20168).

Version 2502 (Build 18526.20144)

Release date: March 5, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Word in which the default font size may not be 12pt as expected, and another in which PowerPoint automatically closed when the system went into hibernate or sleep mode.

Get more info about Version 2502 (Build 18526.20144).

Version 2501 (Build 18429.20158)

Release date: February 11, 2025

This build removes the option to display Track Changes balloons in left margin in Word. It also includes a variety of security updates. See “Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates” for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2501 (Build 18429.20158).

Version 2501 (Build 18429.20132)

Release date: January 30, 2025

In this build, the advanced Track Changes option to set the margin for balloons in Word has been removed.

A wide variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which ActiveX controls used an excessive amount of GDI handles in PowerPoint, and another for the entire Office suite in which images couldn’t be pasted from SharePoint.

 Get more info about Version 2501 (Build 18429.20132).

Version 2412 (Build 18324.20194)

Release date: January 16, 2025

This build fixes one bug, in which apps would exit unexpectedly when running on Windows Server 2016.

Get more info about Version 2412 (Build 18324.20194).

Version 2412 (Build 18324.20190)

Release date: January 14, 2025

This build fixes a bug in Word in which the layout of tables were changed unexpectedly. It also includes a variety of security updates. See Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2412 (Build 18324.20190).

Version 2412 (Build 18324.20168)

Release date: January 7, 2025

This build makes tables in Outlook more accessible for screen readers. It also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Word in which a document saved to a network shared folder and set to “Always Open Read-Only” would open in “Editing” mode, and another for the entire Office suite in which application didn’t render the grid properly after switching from page break preview to normal view.

Get more info about Version 2412 (Build 18324.20168).

Version 2411 (Build 18227.20162)

Release date: December 10, 2024

This build fixes a bug in Word and Outlook where characters didn’t render correctly when using Save Selection to Text Box Gallery. It also includes a variety of security updates. See Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2411 (Build 18227.20162).

Version 2411 (Build 18227.20152)

Release date: December 5, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which some cells might not be rendered properly upon scrolling in a worksheet using freeze panes, one in Word which prevented emails with linked SVG content from saving or sending, and one in which some PowerPoint presentations created by third-party tools didn’t open correctly and some content was removed.

Get more info about Version 2411 (Build 18227.20152).

Version 2410 (Build 18129.20158)

Release date: November 12, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Word in which all characters didn’t appear correctly when creating an Outlook task from OneNote, and one in PowerPoint in which embedded BMP images in the PowerPoint slide were not opening.

This build also includes a variety of security updates. See Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2410 (Build 18129.20158).

Version 2410 (Build 18129.20116)

Release date: October 28, 2024

This build enables filtering capabilities for the comment pane in Excel and fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Word in which the title bar no longer showed a “Saved” status for locally saved files, and one in PowerPoint in which a graphics-related issue caused the app to close unexpectedly at times.

Get more info about Version 2410 (Build 18129.20116).

Version 2409 (Build 18025.20160)

Release date: October 15, 2024

This build fixes a single bug in Word, in which emails with linked SVG content couldn’t be saved or sent.

Get more info about Version 2409 (Build 18025.20160).

Version 2409 (Build 18025.20140)

Release date: October 8, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Word in which text wasn’t clearly visible in High Contrast Mode when using “Draft with Copilot” and referencing a meeting under “Reference your content.”

This build also includes multiple security updates. See Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2409 (Build 18025.20140).

Version 2409 (Build 18025.20104)

Release date: September 25, 2024

This build fixes a single bug, in which when you saved a file in Word, the save status was missing from the Title bar.

Get more info about Version 2409 (Build 18025.20104).

Version 2409 (Build 18025.20096)

Release date: September 23, 2024

This build improves the user experience for selecting which users should have which permissions when a sensitivity label configured for user-defined permissions is applied to a file or when configuring standalone Information Rights Management through the Restrict Access feature. This change affects Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Word in which Document Mode would switch from “editing” to “viewing” if user enabled “Track Changes” and set “For Everyone.”

Get more info about Version 2409 (Build 18025.20096).

Version 2408 (Build 17928.20156)

Release date: September 10, 2024

This update will remove Flip video support when the service goes offline on October 1, 2024. The build also includes a variety of security updates. Go here for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2408 (Build 17928.20156).

Version 2408 (Build 17928.20114)

Release date: August 26, 2024

This build allows you to disable connected experiences for privacy concerns without impacting data security policies, such as sensitivity labels. Services associated with Microsoft Purview (e.g., sensitivity labels and rights management) are no longer controlled by policy settings to manage privacy controls for Microsoft 365 Apps. Instead, these services will rely on their existing security admin controls in Purview portals.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Outlook that caused default SMIME labels to fail to apply when a user replied to or forwarded an unlabeled message, and one for the entire suite in which people couldn’t install Microsoft 365 apps on an enrolled device.

Get more info about Version 2408 (Build 17928.20114).

Version 2407 (Build 17830.20166)

Release date: August 13, 2024

This build includes a variety of security updates for Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Visio, and the entire Office suite. See Microsoft’s Release notes for Office security updates for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2407 (Build 17830.20166).

Version 2407 (Build 17830.20138)

Release date: August 1, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which coauthoring on text boxes in Excel sometimes gave unexpected results, another in PowerPoint in which line widths were not preserved when exporting arrow shapes to PDF, and another in Word in which revisions were sometimes skipped when reviewing using VBA.

Get more info about Version 2407 (Build 17830.20138).

Version 2406 (Build 17726.20160)

Release date: July 9, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one in Word and Excel in which characters don’t appear correctly in Text Box Gallery. It also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2406 (Build 17726.20160).

Version 2406 (Build 17726.20126)

Release date: June 26, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which Excel documents might be unexpectedly edited when a mandatory sensitivity label has not been applied, one that caused Outlook to exit unexpectedly shortly after launch for some users, and one in which pasting data from Word or Excel to an Outlook template as a link would cause an error message to appear.

Get more info about Version 2406 (Build 17726.20126).

Version 2405 (Build 17628.20164)

Release date: June 19, 2024

This build includes a variety of unspecified bug and performance fixes.

Get more info about Version 2405 (Build 17628.20164).

Version 2405 (Build 17628.20144)

Release date: June 11, 2024

This build fixes one bug, which prevented users from sending mail for a few hours after updating add-ins with on-send events. It also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2405 (Build 17628.20144).

Version 2405 (Build 17628.20110)

Release date: May 30, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which an embedded workbook in .xls format might not have closed properly, one that that caused Outlook to close when using Copilot Summarize, one in Word in which content controls may have been removed when coauthoring, and one for the entire Office suite in which the Organization Chart Add-In for Microsoft programs was not loading properly.

Get more info about Version 2405 (Build 17628.20110).

Version 2404 (Build 17531.20152)

Release date: May 14, 2024

This build fixes a number of bugs, including one in Word where content controls might be removed when coauthoring, and one that caused Sovereign users to be unable to create ToDo tasks from Outlook.

It also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2404 (Build 17531.20152).

Version 2404 (Build 17531.20140)

Release date: May 7, 2024

This build fixes two bugs in Outlook, one in which it closed unexpectedly using the Scheduling Assistant when creating a new meeting or viewing an existing meeting, and another that caused add-in developers to hit timeouts when retrieving notifications from an Outlook client context.

Get more info about Version 2404 (Build 17531.20140) .

Version 2404 (Build 17531.20120)

Release date: April 29, 2024

This build reduces workbook size bloat from unnecessary cell formatting with a new “Check Performance” task pane. In addition, it fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which the default font could not be set; one in Outlook in which custom forms from MAPI form servers stopped responding; one in PowerPoint in which online videos did not play in some cases; one in which when opening certain Word documents would cause the error, “Word experienced an error trying to open the file”; and one in which the Office update installer appeared to be unresponsive.

Get more info about Version 2404 (Build 17531.20120) .

Version 2403 (Build 17425.20176)

Release date: April 9, 2024

This build fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2403 (Build 17425.20176).

Version 2402 (Build 17328.20184)

Release date: March 12, 2024

This build fixes three bugs: one in which Access closed unexpectedly, one in which Excel closed unexpectedly when opening files with pivot tables and table design in macro-enabled files, and one in which Word closed unexpectedly when the undo function was used.

This build also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2402 (Build 17328.20184).

Version 2402 (Build 17328.20162)

Release date: March 4, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one that crashed Outlook when a link was clicked on, and another for the entire Office suite in which opened Office apps didn’t automatically start when a laptop was reopened, and an error message appeared after manual relaunch.

Get more info about Version 2402 (Build 17328.20162).

Version 2402 (Build 17328.20142)

Release date: February 28, 2024

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one that caused Outlook to exit unexpectedly when expanding a conversation in the search results from a search of “All Mailboxes,” and another in which users were not able to create a bullet list with hyphens in PowerPoint.

Get more info about Version 2402 (Build 17328.20142).

Version 2401 (Build 17231.20236)

Release date: February 13, 2024

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which macros were being corrupted when saving Excel files and another that affected the entire Office suite in which add-ins would not load after Click trust for content add-in was selected.

This build also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2401 (Build 17231.20236).

Version 2401 (Build 17231.20194)

Release date: February 1, 2024

This build fixes a single bug in which expanded groups in the message list collapsed when users changed which column they were arranged by.

Get more info about Version 2401 (Build 17231.20194).

Version 2401 (Build 17231.20182)

Release date: January 30, 2024

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which Excel would stop responding when saving changes, one in PowerPoint in which Notes and Slide layout would open with incorrect proportions when a file was opened from a protected view, and one in Word in which comment cards appeared too wide and cut off text when changing or switching the screen in use.

Get more info about Version 2401 (Build 17231.20182).

Version 2312 (Build 17126.20132)

Release date: January 9, 2024

This build fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2312 (Build 17126.20132).

Version 2312 (Build 17126.20126)

Release date: January 4, 2023

This build introduces a new sensitivity toolbar in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that helps users understand the security policies that apply to their documents. It’s available when users are creating copies of their documents in File / Save As. In addition, Office now had a new default theme, which Microsoft says is “more modern and accessible.”

It also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which Custom Menu text was truncated when right-clicking in a cell, one in PowerPoint in which restoring a previous version of a presentation was not working as expected when using Version History, and one in Word in which the content control end tag was marked at the end of the document automatically if the document was edited in Word Online and then opened in Word desktop.

Get more info about  Version 2312 (Build 17126.20126).

Version 2311 (Build 17029.20108)

Release date: December 12, 2023

This build fixes one bug in Outlook, in which the message list was blank when switching between the “Focused” and “Other” views.

It also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2311 (Build 17029.20108).

Version 2311 (Build 17029.20068)

Release date: November 29, 2023

This build automatically inserts image captioning for Excel’s images. When you insert an image into a spreadsheet, accessibility image captioning is automatically generated for you.

It also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Excel in which list box controls would not respond to mouse clicks after scrolling using the mouse wheel, and one in Word in which the language of a presentation was not retained when saving or exporting the presentation to a PDF file.

Get more info about Version 2311 (Build 17029.20068).

Version 2310 (Build 16924.20150)

Release date: November 14, 2023

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which Outlook failed to comply with the default browser settings for some users, and another in which new lines were added to an Outlook signature when pressing Enter in the body of the email.

It also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2310 (Build 16924.20150).

Version 2310 (Build 16924.20124)

Release date: Oct. 31, 2023

This build fixes a bug that caused Outlook to exit unexpectedly when clicking the More link in the Search results list.

Get more info about Version 2310 (Build 16924.20124).

Version 2310 (Build 16924.20106)

Release date: Oct. 25, 2023

In this build, the Teams Meeting App works in Outlook, too. With it, you’ll be able to configure a meeting app while scheduling an invite in Outlook. The meeting app will be ready to use when you chat or join the meeting on Teams.

A wide variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one in Excel where certain Pivot Tables would load slowly; one in which OneNote would close unexpectedly when rapidly navigating from one .PDF file to another .PDF file between different sections, or when performing an undo operation on a .PDF printout insertion; and one in the entire Office suite that caused unexpected black borders to appear around screen captures added with the Insert Screenshot functionality.

Get more info about Version 2310 (Build 16924.20106).

Version 2309 (Build 16827.20166)

Release date: October 10, 2023

This build fixes two bugs, one in which users were missing their Outlook add-ins, and another in Word in which subheading numbering with a custom Style would disappear if the file was saved and reopened. It also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2309 (Build 16827.20166).

Version 2309 (Build 16827.20130)

Release date: September 28, 2023

This build introduces two new features, including the ability to disable specific types of automatic data conversions in Excel and support for the “Present in Teams” button to present local files in PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams.

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which the setting to control how Outlook opens previous items at start-up was missing from the Options window, and another in Word in which the Add-ins tab was not visible when using custom toolbar information.

Get more info about Version 2309 (Build 16827.20130).

Version 2308 (Build 16731.20234)

Release date: September 12, 2023

This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused Outlook to close unexpectedly when viewing an email, and another in PowerPoint in which the presenter view slide section zoomed in and out when zooming in the notes section.

It also fixes a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2308 (Build 16731.20234).

Windows 11 24H2 has been released, but behind the scenes, Microsoft is constantly working to improve the newest version of Windows. The company frequently rolls out public preview builds to members of its Windows Insider Program, allowing them to test out — and even help shape — upcoming features.

Skip to the latest builds

The Windows Insider program is divided into four channels:

• The Canary Channel is where platform changes (such as major updates to the Windows kernel and new APIs) are previewed. These changes are not tied to a particular Windows release and may never ship at all. Little documentation is provided, and builds are likely to be very unstable. This channel is best for highly technical users.
• The Dev Channel is where new features are introduced for initial testing, regardless of which Windows release they’ll eventually end up in. This channel is best for technical users and developers and builds in it may be unstable and buggy.
• In the Beta Channel, you’ll get more polished features that will be deployed in the next major Windows release. This channel is best for early adopters, and Microsoft says your feedback in this channel will have the most impact.
• The Release Preview Channel typically doesn’t see action until shortly before a new feature update is rolled out. It’s meant for final testing of an upcoming release and is best for those who want the most stable builds.

The Beta and Release Preview Channels also receive bug-fix builds for the currently shipping version of Windows 11. See “How to preview and deploy Windows 10 and 11 updates” for more details about the four channels and how to switch to a different channel.

Not everyone can participate in the Windows 11 Insider program, because the new operating system has more stringent system requirements than Windows 10. If your PC fails to meet the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11, you cannot join the Windows 11 Insider Program. (See “How to check if your PC can run Windows 11.”)

Below you’ll find information about the Windows 11 preview builds that have been announced by Microsoft in the past six months. (For the Release Preview Channel, we cover builds released for the current version of Windows 11, not for earlier versions.) For each build, we’ve included the date of its release, which Insider channel it was released to, a summary of what’s in the build, and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it.

Note: If you’re looking for information about updates being rolled out to all Windows 11 users, not previews for Windows Insiders, see “Windows 11: A guide to the updates.”

The latest Windows 11 Insider preview builds

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.5733 

Release date: August 1, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

For Insiders in the Beta Channel who are signed in with a work or school account (Entra ID) and have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, File Explorer will begin showing people icons under the “Activity” column on File Explorer Home and on “Recommended” at the top of File Explorer Home. When you hover or click over a people icon, it will display the Live Persona Card for that person from Microsoft 365.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates also get a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one that addresses an issue that caused the Start menu to crash for some Insiders.

There are seven known issues in this build, including one in which live captions sometimes crash when you attempt to use live translation on a Copilot+ PC.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.5733.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5733

Release date: August 1, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

For Insiders in the Dev Channel who are signed in with a work or school account (Entra ID) and have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, File Explorer will begin showing people icons under the “Activity” column on File Explorer Home and on “Recommended” at the top of File Explorer Home. When you hover or click over a people icon, it will display the Live Persona Card for that person from Microsoft 365.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have opted to receive the latest updates get a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one that addresses an issue that caused the Start menu to crash for some Insiders.

There are nine known issues in this build, including one in which in dark mode, the colors for certain items may be incorrect — for example, the red color used for a low-space drive in This PC may be unexpectedly light colored.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5733.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27913

Release date: July 30, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build, according to Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running this build on their PCs.”

It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Settings in which the Windows Vista boot sound was unexpectedly being used instead of the Windows 11 boot sound.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27913.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.5722 

Release date: July 28, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, AMD- and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs get a new AI-based agent that will change your settings when you ask it to customize your PC in some way. You can describe what you need help with, such as “how to control my PC by voice” or “my mouse pointer is too small,” and the agent will recommend the right steps you can take to address the issue. The agent uses AI to understand your intent, and with your permission, it automates and executes tasks on your behalf. It works only if your primary display language is set to English.

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features rolled out gradually, including one in which Windows can apply enterprise pins more quickly to the taskbar when initiated by the IT admins. It reduces the gap between an IT admin applying the pinning policy and when their users see a pin on their taskbar. Today, the policy only applies when Explorer restarts. With this change, the gap is only up to ~8 hours (policy refresh interval) and sidesteps the Explorer restart requirement.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one that addresses problems (such as not supporting the swipe-up gesture) with using touch to navigate the new Start menu.

Everyone in the Beta Channel gets a single fix for a bug in which external graphics cards connected over Thunderbolt were unexpectedly not discoverable in some cases.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which live captions sometimes crash when you attempt to use live translation on a Copilot+ PC.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.5722.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5722 

Release date: July 28, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build is identical to Build 26120.5722 for the Beta Channel. See the listing above for details.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5722.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27909

Release date: July 25, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build, according to Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running this build on their PCs.”

It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in Settings in which the the battery percentage was missing from the top of System > Power & Battery.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27909.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4741

Release date: July 18, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, AMD- and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs get a new “describe image” action in Click to Do that shows detailed descriptions of images, charts, and graphs, offering a quick overview of the visual content. Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs received the feature previously.

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features rolled out gradually, including one in which you can more easily find and use lock screen widgets. The feature can be enabled or disabled with the Discover widgets toggle under Settings > Personalization > Lock screen.

The same group also gets two bug fixes rolled out gradually, including for a bug in which Notification Center content sometimes got clipped if you’d enabled the clock in Notification Center.

There are eight known issues in this build, including one in which using touch to navigate the new Start menu may not work reliably. For example, it currently does not support the swipe-up gesture.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4741.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5710

Release date: July 18, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, AMD- and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs get a new “describe image” action in Click to Do that shows detailed descriptions of images, charts, and graphs, offering a quick overview of the visual content. Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs have already received the feature.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features rolled out gradually, including one that offers suggestions to help you discover new widgets. The feature can be enabled or disabled using the Discover widgets toggle under Settings > Personalization > Lock screen.

In addition, a variety of bug fixes are being rolled out gradually to the same group, including one that fixes an underlying issue with dbgcore.dll, which led to explorer.exe and some other apps crashing.

There are eight known issues in this build, including one in which multiple error pop-ups about unexpected elements may appear when opening Group Policy Editor.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5710.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27902

Release date: July 17, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build, according to Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience for Insiders running this build on their PCs.”

It also fixes two bugs, including one in which the Camera app got stuck on some PCs after switching between front and back camera.

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27902.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5702

Release date: July 14, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs get a new “describe image” action in Click to Do, which shows detailed descriptions of images, charts and graphs, offering a quick overview of the visual content. Support for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs will be coming soon.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including Administrator protection, a security feature that aims to protect free floating admin rights for administrator users allowing them to still perform all admin functions with just-in-time admin privileges. This feature is off by default and needs to be enabled via Windows Security under Account protection or via group policy.

The same group gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug that caused random File Explorer preview windows to appear when hovering over unrelated app icons in the taskbar.

There are eight known issues in this build, including one in which multiple error pop-ups about unexpected elements may appear when opening Group Policy Editor.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5702.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4733

Release date: July 14, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs get a new “describe image” action in Click to Do, which shows detailed descriptions of images, charts, and graphs, offering a quick overview of the visual content. Support for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs will be coming soon.

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including Administrator protection, a security feature that aims to protect free floating admin rights for administrator users, allowing them to still perform all admin functions with just-in-time admin privileges. This feature is off by default and needs to be enabled via Windows Security under Account protection or via group policy.

A variety of bug fixes are being rolled out gradually to the same group, including one that addresses an issue in which app updates sometimes caused the icons for app shortcuts pinned to the desktop to become white pages rather than proper thumbnail images.

There are eight known issues in this build, including one in which using touch to navigate the new Start menu may not work reliably. For example, it currently does not support the swipe-up gesture.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4733.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27898

Release date: July 11, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build introduces Quick machine recovery, a feature introduced as part of the Windows Resiliency Initiative at Ignite 2024. When enabled, it automatically detects and fixes widespread issues on Windows 11 devices using the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). This reduces downtime and avoids the need for manual fixes. If a device experiences a widespread boot issue, it enters WinRE, connects to the internet, and Microsoft can deliver a targeted fix through Windows Update. IT admins can enable or customize this experience for their organization through the Intune Settings Catalog UI using the RemoteRemediation CSP.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27898.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4762 (KB5062660)

Release date: July 10, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including one for admins in which the Configure Start Pins policy now includes an option to apply Start menu pins only once. This means users will receive the admin Start menu pins on their first sign-in (day 0), but afterward can personalize their pinned layout, and those changes will be retained. This policy can also be applied through group policy, in addition to the existing Configuration Service Provider (CSP).

In addition, several bug fixes are being immediately rolled out, including one that addresses an issue in which File Explorer Home unexpectedly displayed only a single folder (for example, Desktop), rather than the expected content with recent files.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4762.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27891 

Release date: July 3, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this build, Windows PowerShell 2.0 has been removed. A number of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which the “Reset this PC” option under Settings > System > Recovery did not work.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27891.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4520

Release date: June 27, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including 1Password passkey integration in beta.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which File Explorer Home crashed, potentially also making File Explorer crash on launch, since Home is the default section for File Explorer.

There are seven known issues in this build, including one in which using touch to navigate the new Start menu may not work reliably. For example, it currently does not support the swipe-up gesture.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4520.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5670

Release date: June 27, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including 1Password passkey integration in beta.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which File Explorer Home crashed, potentially also making File Explorer crash on launch, since Home is the default section for File Explorer.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets two bug fixes, including one that addresses the Windows Vista boot sound playing instead of the Windows 11 boot sound.

There are seven known issues in this build, including one in which using touch to navigate the new Start menu may not work reliably. For example, it currently does not support the swipe-up gesture.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5670.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4452

Release date: June 23, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, Copilot+ PCs get a new Windows Recall homepage, which shows you your most recent snapshots so you can quickly return to what you were previously doing, and also displays the top three apps and websites you have spent the most time on in the past 24 hours.

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including the option to move the hardware indicators for brightness, volume, airplane mode, and virtual desktops to different positions on your screen.

Some additional improvements are being gradually rolled out to the same group, including the addition of a Boolean to the Configure Start Pins policy to allow admins to apply Start menu pins once. This means that a user will receive admin pins on day 0 but can then make any changes to their Start pinned layout and have those safeguarded. These changes can be optionally applied through the existing configuration service provider (CSP).

A handful of bug fixes are rolling out to the same group, including one that addresses an issue in which File Explorer Home only showed a single folder (like Desktop) and nothing else for some people.

Several bugs have been fixed for everyone in the Beta Channel, including one in which the Windows Vista boot sound played instead of the Windows 11 boot sound.

There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4452.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5661

Release date: June 23, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, Copilot+ PCs get a new Windows Recall homepage, which shows you your most recent snapshots so you can quickly return to what you were previously doing, and also displays the top three apps and websites you have spent the most time on in the past 24 hours.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including the option to move the hardware indicators for brightness, volume, airplane mode, and virtual desktops to different positions on your screen.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which the File Explorer Home only showed a single folder (like Desktop) and nothing else for some people.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets several bug fixes, including for one in which the Windows Vista boot sound played instead of the Windows 11 boot sound.

There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5661.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27881 

Release date: June 19, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build introduces speech recapto Narrator. It lets you keep track of what Narrator has said and offers access to it for quick reference. With it, you can quickly access spoken content, follow along with live transcription, and copy what Narrator last said, using keyboard shortcuts.

A number of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which File Explorer crashed when the user tapped the View button using touch.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27881.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4482 (KB5060829)

Release date: June 19, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including automatic icon resizing in the taskbar to fit more apps, and a new Screen Curtain feature that blacks out the screen while Narrator reads content aloud. Also new is the ability add custom words to the dictionary in voice access.

In addition, several bug fixes are being immediately rolled out, including one that improves the Copilot key’s reliability and resolves an issue that prevented users from restarting Copilot after using the key.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4482.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4441

Release date: June 13, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs in the European Economic area get the option to export their Recall snapshots to be shared with third-party apps and websites. When they open Recall for the first time and opt into saving snapshots, they will be shown their unique Recall export code. The Recall export code will be needed if they ever choose to export their Recall snapshots to share with a trusted app or website in the future.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including a bigger clock with seconds in the notification center.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for an issue in which folders opened outside of File Explorer would open it in a new File Explorer tab, but the tab wasn’t put in focus.

There are nine known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4441.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5651

Release date: June 13, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, Copilot+ PCs get agents that can help make it easier to find and change settings on PCs. Rather than dig through settings, you’ll be able to simply describe what you need help with like, “how to control my PC by voice” or “my mouse pointer is too small” and an agent will recommend the right steps you can take to address the issue.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including a bigger clock with seconds in the notification center.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for an issue in which folders opened outside of File Explorer would open it in a new File Explorer tab, but the tab wasn’t put in focus.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5651.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4250 

Release date: June 9, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including a larger scrollable Start menu. The menu automatically resizes itself according to the size of your screen, and offers two views, category and grid. In addition, the “Search permissions” and “Searching Windows” settings pages have been combined so you can access all the Windows Search settings under a single page via Settings > Privacy & security > Search.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which input did not work for some Insiders, including when typing into Search, and with the Chinese pinyin IME candidate window, clipboard history, and the emoji panel.

For everyone in the Beta Channel, the build fixes a bug in which some people might have seen severe discoloration when connecting their PC to some older Dolby Vision displays.

There are nine known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4250.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5641

Release date: June 9, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a variety of new features being gradually rolled out, including a larger scrollable Start menu. The menu automatically resizes itself according to the size of your screen, and offers two views, category and grid. In addition, the “Search permissions” and “Searching Windows” settings pages have been combined so you can access all the Windows Search settings under a single page via Settings > Privacy & security > Search.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which input did not work for some Insiders, including when typing into Search, and with the Chinese pinyin IME candidate window, clipboard history, and the emoji panel.

For everyone in the Dev Channel, the build fixes a bug in which some people might have seen severe discoloration when connecting their PC to some older Dolby Vision displays.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5641.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27871 

Release date: June 4, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this build, IT administrators can use Microsoft Intune to control the energy saver settings on Windows 11 PCs through group policies and MDM configurations.

A number of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which when Virtualization Based Security was enabled, applications dependent on virtualization, such as VMware Workstation, lost the ability to run unless the “Windows Hypervisor Platform” Windows optional component was installed on the system.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27871.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4230 

Release date: June 2, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a new dedicated settings page for quick machine recovery, which can be found under System > Recovery > Quick machine recovery. This makes it easier to manage recovery options directly from Settings. This is being gradually rolled out.

A variety of bug fixes are being rolled out gradually to the same group, including one addressing a bug that caused File Explorer to crash performing various actions, such as when deleting files. 

For everyone in the Beta Channel, a bug is fixed in which when Virtualization Based Security was enabled, applications dependent on virtualization, such as VMware Workstation, would lose the ability to run unless the “Windows Hypervisor Platform” Windows optional component is installed on the system.

There are nine known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4230.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5622 

Release date: June 2, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs get a new action in Click to Do, Draft with Copilot in Word. Select text, press the Windows key and click simultaneously, and choose Draft with Copilot in Word. Copilot will create an initial draft based on the text.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including quick machine recovery, designed to help Windows 11 devices recover from widespread boot issues by applying remediations through the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).

The same group also gets several bug fixes, including for an issue in which File Explorer crashed when performing various actions, such as deleting files.

There are eight known issues in this build, including one in which taskbar icons may appear small even though the setting to show smaller taskbar buttons is configured as “never.”

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5622.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27868 

Release date: May 29, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this build, voice access has been redesigned to help you more easily discover and learn about new features. You can launch or dismiss this new experience from the settings menu.

Several bugs have been fixed, including one that was causing pen input to be non-responsive on some PCs.

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27868.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4161 

Release date: May 23, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

This build begins the rollout of a new Click-to-Do action that uses Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant to rewrite or elaborate on selected text. To get started, select text, then press the Windows key and click, then choose the Draft with Copilot in Word action. (This feature requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.)

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including the ability to add, remove, and rearrange lock screen widgets such as Weather, Watchlist, Sports, Traffic, and more. Any widget that supports the small sizing option can be added here. To customize your lock screen widgets, navigate to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen. Note that these features are being rolled out gradually.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates also get a variety of bug fixes rolled out gradually, including one for a bug in which the Describe image feature of narrator wasn’t working.

There are nine known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4161.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27863 

Release date: May 23, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build adds support for post-quantum signature algorithm ML-DSA in NCrypt and BCrypt cryptography API surfaces, as well as Crypt32 certificate APIs. Three variants are supported, ML-DSA 44, 65, and 87. 

Several bugs have been fixed, including one in which Windows Sandbox was not working and showed error 0xc0370106 on launch.

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27863.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4151

Release date: May 19, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including AI actions in File Explorer, which offers a set of AI-related tools when you right-click a file. For now, the only AI tools available are for image files, including Bing Visual Search for searching the web using an image instead of text, as well as several AI-related image-editing capabilities. Eventually, other features will be added, such as summarizing documents using Copilot. These features, including the ones related to images, are being rolled out gradually.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes being rolled out gradually, including one that addresses a bug in which if File Explorer was maximized and you clicked the new tab button, it would unmaximize the window.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4151.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5603

Release date: May 19, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including AI actions in File Explorer, which offers a set of AI-related tools when you right-click a file. For now, the only AI tools available are for image files, including Bing Visual Search for searching the web using an image instead of text, as well as several AI-related image-editing capabilities. Eventually, other features will be added, such as summarizing documents using Copilot. These features, including the ones related to images, are being rolled out gradually.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes being rolled out gradually, including one that addresses a bug in which if File Explorer was maximized and you clicked the new tab button, it would unmaximize the window.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5603.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4188 (KB5058499)

Release date: May 19, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a wide variety of new features, including a new Copilot action in Click to Do. When you highlight text or an image, Click to Do offers an Ask Copilot option. Selecting it opens Microsoft Copilot with your content in the prompt box. You can send the selected text or image directly to the Copilot app to complete your prompt.

In addition, IT admins can manage energy saver settings on Windows 11 PCs through group policies and MDM configurations using Microsoft Intune. This feature helps extend battery life by limiting background activity, dimming the screen, and contributing to environmental sustainability. To configure the policy, go to the Local Group Policy under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Power Management > Energy Saver Settingsand select Enable Energy Saver to Always Be On.

A number of bug fixes are also being gradually rolled out, including one for a bug in which Settings crashed at times when loading information about Bluetooth devices.

Several bugs are being fixed immediately, including one in which some devices with BitLocker on removable drives encountered a blue screen error after resuming from sleep or hybrid-booting.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.4188.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27858

Release date: May 16, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build includes a new system tray icon on the taskbar that makes it easier to find and use emojis, GIFs, Kaomoji, etc. It also fixes a variety of bugs, including an explorer.exe crash related to snap layouts, which happened when dragging a window or hovering over the maximize button in a window.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27858.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3964

Release date: May 12, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

This build introduces a new agent in Settings on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCS. Using it, you can describe what you need help with, such as “how to control my PC by voice” or “my mouse pointer is too small,” and the agent will recommend steps you can take to address the issue. Support for AMD- and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs is coming soon.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including a new FAQs section on the Settings > System > Aboutpage to provide help with using your PC.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes being rolled out gradually, including for an issue that caused live captions to crash and another that could make some apps like Word hang when trying to print.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3964.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5600

Release date: May 12, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build introduces a new set of intelligent text actions using Click to Do on AMD- and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs. You can Use Win key + mouse-click or Win key + Q to select a text block and drag to select the text that you want. You’ll see options to summarize, create a bulleted list, or to help you rewrite your text so it sounds more causal, more formal, or more polished.

A wide variety of bug fixes are being rolled out gradually to those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates, including for an issue that caused File Explorer Home to hang when loading and another that caused live captions to crash.

There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26200. This will not prevent you from getting future Dev Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5600.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3950

Release date: May 5, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including one that gives IT administrators the ability to use Microsoft Intune to control energy savings on Windows 11 PCs through group policies and MDM configurations.

The same group also gets a variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which Windows’ startup sound would not play, even though it was enabled.

There are nine known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3950.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5581

Release date: May 5, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including one that gives IT administrators the ability to use Microsoft Intune to control energy savings on Windows 11 PCs through group policies and MDM configurations.

The same group gets several new bug fixes, including for a bug in which Windows’ startup sound would not play, even though it was enabled.

There are seven known issues in this build, including one in which live captions have been crashing.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5570.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3941

Release date: April 25, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features and minor improvements, including a new profanity filter setting for voice typing. This group will also have several bugs fixed, including one that caused apps to appear blank, and another in which Windows Hello facial recognition would not work for login for some Insiders. The new feature and bug fixes are gradually rolling out.

Everyone in the Beta Channel gets a fix for a bug that caused Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to not work and the option “Fix problems using Windows Update” option under Settings > Recovery to also not work.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3941.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5570

Release date: April 25, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features and minor improvements, including a new profanity filter setting for voice typing. This group will also have several bugs fixed, including one that caused apps to appear blank, and another in which Windows Hello facial recognition would not work for login for some Insiders.

Everyone in the Dev Channel  gets a fix for a bug that caused Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to not work and the option “Fix problems using Windows Update” option under Settings > Recovery to also not work.

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Sandbox may fail to launch with a 0x800705b4 error. If this occurs, try reinstalling Sandbox by unchecking Sandbox under “Turn Windows features on or off” to uninstall it, then reboot, go back to “Turn Windows features on or off” and check Sandbox to reinstall it and reboot again.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5570.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27842

Release date: April 23, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This build previews a new UI that is used when a PC unexpectedly restarts. It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which the Smart App Control icon wasn’t displaying correctly in the Windows Security app.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27842.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5562

Release date: April 21, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs get two new text actions in Click to Do, including the “Practice in Reading Coach” Click to Do action that can increase fluency and pronunciation.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including several improvements in voice access and to the notification widgets settings page, so that they can control the number of notifications per feed or dashboard. 

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bugs fixed, including one that was causing Start menu to crash when creating folders. Everyone in the Dev Channel gets additional bug fixes, including for a bug that didn’t allow some apps like Spotify to install from the Microsoft Store.

There are 14 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5562.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3872

Release date: April 21, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs get two new text actions in Click to Do, including the “Practice in Reading Coach” Click to Do action that can increase fluency and pronunciation.

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including several improvements in voice access.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including one that was causing Start menu to crash when creating folders. Everyone in the Beta Channel gets one bug fix, for a bug that didn’t allow some apps like Spotify to install from the Microsoft Store

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3872.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5551

Release date: April 11, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build begins the rollout of natural language search for settings in the Windows search box on the taskbar for users with Copilot+ PCs. For example, you can use your own words to find settings like “change my theme” or “about my PC.” You no longer need to remember the exact setting name you are looking for.

In addition, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including one in which you can read content such as full articles, slideshows, and videos directly within your MSN feed in the widgets board.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug that caused File Explorer Home to crash for some Insiders. Everyone in the Dev Channel gets a fix for Windows Sandbox, which was not working.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5551.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3863

Release date: April 11, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

This build begins the rollout of natural language search for settings in the Windows search box on the taskbar for users with Copilot+ PCs. For example, you can use your own words to find settings like “change my theme” or “about my PC.” You no longer need to remember the exact setting name you are looking for.

In addition, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new features being rolled out gradually, including one in which you can read content such as full articles, slideshows, and videos directly within your MSN feed in the widgets board.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug that caused File Explorer Home to crash for some Insiders. Everyone in the Beta Channel gets a fix for Windows Sandbox, which was not working.

There are 14 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3863.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3902 (KB5055627)

Release date: April 10, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out several new features for Copilot+ PCs, including Windows Recall (preview) in which you can quickly find and get back to any app, website, image, or document by describing its content. To use Recall, you need to opt in to saving snapshots, which are images of your activity, and enroll in Windows Hello to confirm your presence so only you can access them. Those with Copilot+ PCs can also search by describing what they’re looking for, without having to remember file names, exact words in file content, or settings names. 

A number of new features are being rolled out immediately for all PCs, not just Copilot+ PCs, including one in which you get an estimated time for how long your PC will be offline to install updates from Windows Update. Several bugs are also being fixed, including one in which some content pages with JPEG images were not displaying.

There is one known issue in this build, in which Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) may not work, and you may not be able to use the “Fix problems using Windows Update” option under Settings > Recovery.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3902.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5518

Release date: April 3, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

Those in the Dev Channel who have opted to receive the latest updates get several new features that are being rolled out gradually, including taskbar icon scaling — when your taskbar starts to get crowded with pinned or open apps, the icons automatically scale down to a smaller size. This lets you keep more apps visible and accessible without having to use a secondary menu.

Dev Channel users who have opted to receive the latest updates get three bug fixes, one in which external graphics cards connected over Thunderbolt were unexpectedly not discoverable in some cases; another in which Hyper-V Manager erroneously reported 0% CPU usage for VMs in some scenarios; and another for those with Copilot+ PCs who saw semantic search stop working until their PCs were rebooted.

There are 11 known issues in this build, including one in which Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5518.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3671

Release date: April 3, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who agreed to receive the latest updates get several new features being rolled out gradually, including taskbar icon scaling — when your taskbar starts to get crowded with pinned or open apps, the icons automatically scale down to a smaller size. This lets you keep more apps visible and accessible without having to use a secondary menu.

Those in the Beta Channel who get the latest updates get two bug fixes, one in which external graphics cards connected over Thunderbolt were unexpectedly not discoverable in some cases, and another in which Hyper-V Manager erroneously reported 0% CPU usage for VMs in some scenarios.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates, which will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3671.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516

Release date: March 28, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

This build includes improved search tools for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs. When searching in File Explorer, the Windows search box on the taskbar, or in Settings, you can type plain-English searches without having to remember file names, exact words in file content, or settings names. In addition, those with AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs can find photos in the cloud by using plain-English searches.

Those who have turned on the toggle to receive changes as soon as they come out get a speech recap in Narrator which keeps track of what Narrator has spoken and access it for quick reference. They also get a variety of changes and improvements, including one in which on Copilot+ PCs, they can now access Click to Do from the Start menu and can pin it to Start and the taskbar.

They also receive a variety of bug fixes, including one in which File Explorer was very slow to close for some Insiders when closing it using the X button.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets a bug fixed in which the toggle to get the latest updates as soon they are available via Settings > Windows Update didn’t render correctly and turned itself off.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5516.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3653

Release date: March 28, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features being rolled out gradually, including a speech recap feature in Narrator that keeps track of what Narrator has spoken and lets you access it for quick reference. There are also a variety of changes and improvements, including one in which on Copilot+ PCs, users can now access Click to Do from the Start menu and can pin it to Start and the taskbar.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned a toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which the taskbar icons weren’t increasing in size as they should when using your PC in a tablet posture.

Two bugs are fixed for everyone in the Beta Channel, including one in which the toggle to get the latest updates as soon they are available via Settings > Windows Update did not render correctly and automatically turned itself off.

There are 13 known issues in this build, including one in which after you do a PC reset under Settings > System > Recovery, your build version may incorrectly show as Build 26100 instead of Build 26120. This will not prevent you from getting future Beta Channel updates that will resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3653.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27823

Release date: March 26, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update, in the words of Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience” of using Windows. It also includes new “top cards” under Settings > System > About. Top cards provide an easy way to view your PC’s key specifications—processor, RAM, storage, and GPU.

The build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Settings could crash when interacting with Bluetooth & Devices > Cameras.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27823.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3585

Release date: March 24, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

This build includes improved search tools for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs. When searching in File Explorer, the Windows search box on the taskbar, or in Settings, you can type plain-English searches without having to remember file names, exact words in file content, or settings names. In addition, those with AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs can find photos in the cloud by using plain-English searches.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which File Explorer was very slow to close via the X button.

Two bugs are fixed for everyone in the Beta Channel, including one in which the toggle to get the latest updates as they are available via Settings > Windows Update did not render correctly and automatically turned itself off.

There are 16 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3585.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5510

Release date: March 24, 2025

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build the Dev Channel is jumping ahead to receive 26200 series builds. This means that once you install it, you cannot switch to the Beta Channel. If you are in the Dev Channel and want to switch to the Beta Channel, don’t install this build. Instead, pause updates in Windows Update, switch your channel to the Beta Channel and then un-pause updates.

There are 11 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5510.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3624 (KB5053656)

Release date: March 24, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out several new features for Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs, including natural-language search in Windows Search. Just describe what you’re looking for without having to remember specific file names, exact words in file content, or settings names.

In addition, the build includes the same set of improvements and bug fixes as a previous build, Build 26100.3613, such as Natural Language Commanding in voice access, available initially on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3624.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27818

Release date: March 19, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update, in the words of Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience” of using Windows.

The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Remote Desktop sometimes froze when connecting.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27818.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3613 (KB5053656)

Release date: March 18, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including Natural Language Commanding in voice access, which lets users speak commands naturally, using filler words and synonyms, rather than rigid, predefined commands. It is available initially on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs.

Several bug fixes are also being rolled out gradually, including one in which the “see more” (…) menu in the File Explorer command bar opened in the wrong direction in some cases.

A variety of new bug fixes are being rolled out immediately, including one for a bug in which critical PowerShell modules required for device configuration were not executed under Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) policies.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3613.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3576 

Release date: March 17, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including one in which on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs, you can use natural language commands during voice access, rather than having to remember specific voice commands.

The same group gets several bug fixes, including one addressing a bug for users in managed environments, in which your Windows Recall snapshots would get deleted after installing Build 26120.3380 and after each reboot on that build.

There are 16 known issues in this build, including one in which Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings, and another in which Recall is no longer able to save new snapshots or modify settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3576.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27813

Release date: March 12, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update, in the words of Microsoft, “includes a small set of general improvements and fixes that improve the overall experience” of using Windows.

The build also fixes two bugs, one which the WDMAud system driver was causing some app crashes, and the other in which Settings > System > Display > Color Management did not always display the expected color profile list for the selected monitor.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27813.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3380 

Release date: March 10, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several new features, including one in which File Explorer displays a new Recommended section that is displayed as a carousel with thumbnail previews. This includes content such as files you frequently use, have recently downloaded, or added to your File Explorer Gallery. Users with a work/school account (Entra ID) will have additional types of recommendations available with this update.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which windows.storage.dll led caused some apps to crash when files were opened in them.

There are 10 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3380.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27808

Release date: March 7, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this update, a change is being rolled out in the way Task Manager calculates CPU utilization for the Processes, Performance, and Users pages. Task Manager will now use the standard metrics to display CPU workload consistently across all pages and aligning with industry standards and third-party tools. For backward compatibility, a new optional column called CPU Utility is available (hidden by default) on the Details tab showing the previous CPU value used on the Processes page.

The build also fixes a number of bugs, including one that caused the search window to go blank for some Insiders when searching from the taskbar, due to a background crash.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN. In the other, a d3d9.dll crash is causing multiple apps to fail to launch starting with Build 27802 for some Insiders.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27808.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.5015

Release date: February 28, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates will see a new system tray icon on the taskbar, which lets you use emojis, GIFs, Kaomoji, etc. across all apps and surfaces in Windows in addition to using the Win + . keyboard shortcut. This new system tray icon can be changed by right-clicking on the icon to go to taskbar settings page.

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get a number of new bug fixes, including for a bug in which File Explorer Home crashed for some Insiders.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which File Explorer is very slow to close for some Insiders when closing using the X button. This may also affect the other title bar buttons.

Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.5015.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3360 

Release date: February 28, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get two new features being gradually rolled out, including one in which Task Manager changes the way it calculates CPU utilization for the Processes, Performance, and Users pages. Task Manager will now use the standard metrics to display CPU workload consistently across all pages and aligning with industry standards and third-party tools. Also being added is the ability to share directly to apps that support sharing in Windows when right-clicking on local files in File Explorer or the desktop.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug which some people experienced Remote Desktop freezes on login, or frequent disconnect.

There are 11 known issues in this build, including one in which Windows Recall is unable to automatically save snapshots, and the setting can’t be turned on in Settings.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3360.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27802

Release date: February 28, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this update, new battery icons in Windows 11 communicate the battery status of your PC with a quick glance. Key changes include colored icons to indicate charging states, simplified overlays that don’t block the progress bar, and an option to turn on battery percentage.

The build also fixes several bugs, including one that was causing the login screen to crash when clicking the “sign-in options” link for some Insiders.

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27802.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3291

Release date: February 21, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those with Copilot+ PCs can search photos saved in the cloud by using your own words to describe what you’re looking for in the Windows search box on the taskbar.

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bugs fixed, including one in which switching languages crashed live captions if audio was playing or the microphone was enabled.

There are 11 known issues in this build, including one in the Recall feature in which some users may see a message to “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots,” while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3291.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3321 (KB5052093)

Release date: February 18, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including one in which you can share files directly from a jump list on the taskbar, and another in which you can find out more information about a background image by hovering over the image or clicking the “Learn about this picture” icon.

A variety of bug fixes are also being gradually rolled out, including one in which when you enter a URL in the File Explorer address bar, it might not go to the location.

The build also immediately fixes a number of bugs, including one in which Remote Desktop stopped working.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3321.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3281

Release date: February 14, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates have the ability to resume working on OneDrive files from your phone (iOS and Android) on your Windows 11 PC with a single click. In addition, when “Restore previous folder windows at logon” is enabled in File Explorer, you can now restore all the extra tabs that you previously had open in each File Explorer window. 

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which if you tried to reset your password from the login screen, it wouldn’t work due to an underlying crash. Another fix addresses a bug for users who have a Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PC, in which File Explorer search was unresponsive and required a reboot to start working.

There are 12 known issues in this build, including one in the Recall feature in which some users may see a message to “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots,” while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3281.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27788

Release date: February 5, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

This update includes the first in-box public preview of Windows MIDI Services, a complete rewrite of MIDI on Windows for musicians. Windows MIDI Services handles MIDI 2.0 and improves MIDI 1.0 implementation, with automatic translation between the two. It works on 64-bit operating systems on all supported processors, including Arm64.

The build also gradually rolls out the ability to resume working on OneDrive files from your phone (iOS or Android) on your Windows 11 PC with a single click.

The build also fixes several bugs, including one that prevented scanning apps from detecting a connected scanner.

There are six known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27788.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4870

Release date: February 3, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, IT administrators in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates as soon as they are available get a new group policy called “Disable Widgets On Lock Screen,” which allows them to disable lock screen widgets without disabling widgets elsewhere on PCs they manage. 

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which the Start menu crashed for some Insiders when they interacted with the letters in the apps list.

Several bugs have been fixed for everyone in the Beta Channel, including one in which PCs did not recognize that USB cameras were on after installing the January 2025 security update.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which the home page of Settings may crash. If you are impacted by this, you should still be able to open specific Settings pages directly by searching for them from the taskbar.

Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4870.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3073

Release date: January 31, 2025

Released to: Dev and Beta Channels

In this build, those who have Copilot+ PCs get a new feature in Windows Search, in which you can use your own words to find photos stored and saved in the cloud by describing what they are, such as “European castles” or “summer picnics.” In addition to photos stored locally on your Copilot+ PC, photos from the cloud will now show up in the search results as well. Exact matches for your keywords within the text of your cloud files will show in the search results.

The build also includes changes being gradually rolled out for all Windows 11 PCs. Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates will see a Settings home page for commercial customers on PCs managed by an IT administrator. The feature will show some existing cards relevant to enterprise-managed PCs like “Recommended settings” and “Bluetooth devices,” as well as two new enterprise-specific device info and accessibility preferences cards. For commercial customers who also use their Microsoft account on their managed PC, there will also be a new accounts card indicating the presence of both work/school and Microsoft account types. 

Those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates also get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which minimized File Explorer windows might not have rendered correctly when restored.

Everyone in the Dev Channel gets several bug fixes, including for one in which the display of some games appeared oversaturated when you used Auto HDR.

There are 18 known issues in this build, including one in the Recall feature in which some users may see a “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots” message while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3073.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27783

Release date: January 29, 2025

Released to: Canary Channel

In this update, users signed into Windows with a Microsoft account will be able to view files that have been shared with the account, such as email, Teams chat, etc., in File Explorer. Commercial customers signed in with a Microsoft Entra ID account will also be able to view files that they have shared with others. You can access this feature by launching File Explorer Home and clicking on the ‘Shared’ tab item.

The build also fixes several bugs, including one in which taskbar preview windows sometimes didn’t display when hovering over open apps in the taskbar.

There are four known issues in this build, including one in which if you are joining the Canary Channel on a new Copilot+ PC from the Dev Channel, Release Preview Channel, or retail, you will lose Windows Hello PIN and biometrics to sign into your PC. You should be able to re-create your PIN by clicking Set up my PIN.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27783.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4805

Release date: January 24, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates as soon as they are available get a change to Snap in Windows 11 in which inline messaging will now appear when you accidentally invoke the Snap Bar when dragging an app to the top middle of your desktop or Snap Flyout when hovering over the Minimize or Maximize button of an app. This is designed to provide guidance on snapping app windows and educating users on the keyboard shortcuts for quickly snapping app windows in the future.

This group also gets new keyboard shortcuts in Narrator scan mode for quickly jumping to list items and to the beginning or end of large elements such as tables or lists. These changes are gradually rolling out.

There are five known issues in this build, including one in which the Home page of Settings may crash. If you are impacted by this, you should still be able to open specific Settings pages directly by searching for them from the taskbar.

Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4805.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3000

Release date: January 24, 2024

Released to: Dev Channel

In this build, those in the Dev Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get new battery icons, including colored icons to indicate charging states, simplified overlays that don’t block the progress bar, and an option to turn on battery percentage. The same group also gets several bug fixes, including for a bug in File Explorer in which you sometimes would be unable to navigate by entering a path in the address bar. These changes are gradually rolling out.

There are 18 known issues in this build, including one in the Recall feature in which some users may see a message to “Make sure Recall is saving snapshots” while the Settings page for Recall shows saving snapshots is enabled. Reboot your device to resolve this issue.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.3000.)

Windows 11 Build 26100.3025 (KB5050094)

Release date: January 21, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build gradually rolls out a number of new features, including one in which an icon will appear in the system tray when you use an app that supports Windows Studio Effects. This only occurs on a device that has a neural processing unit (NPU). Select the icon to open the Studio Effects page in Quick Settings.

The update also improves the previews that show when your cursor hovers over apps on the taskbar. In addition, the Windows Mobile Hotspot now supports 6 GHz connections. This new band requires chips that support the feature and updated drivers. 

A variety of bug fixes are also being rolled out, including for a bug in which the Snipping Tool screenshots were distorted when you used two or more monitors that have different display scaling.

The build also immediately rolls out a change in which you will now have a standard Windows 11 taskbar after restoring from a backup via the Windows Setup experience (OOBE) on a new Windows PC.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26100.3025.)

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4800

Release date: January 17, 2025

Released to: Beta Channel

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates as soon as they are available get a standard Windows 11 taskbar after restoring from a backup via the Windows Setup experience (OOBE) on a new Windows PC. You can still find your apps in the Start menu and Search, and you can pin apps to your taskbar. In addition, the build starts the rollout of the Settings home page for commercial customers on PCs managed by an IT administrator. 

Those in the Beta Channel who have turned the toggle on to receive the latest updates get one bug fix, which includes increased support for text scaling in File Explorer, File Open/Save dialogs, and copy dialogs.

There are three known issues in this build, including one in which the Home page of Settings may crash. If you are impacted by this, you should still be able to open specific Settings pages directly by searching for them from the taskbar.

(Get more info about Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4800.)

Apple continues to grow in the enterprise, supporting this push with regular enterprise-focused enhancements for its platforms. We can see the results as Mac adoption sets new records. But the company can still do more for enterprise IT. To get a sense of some improvements it could make, I caught up with Apu Pavithran, the CEO of device management vendor Hexnode.

“Apple has already shown that it’s listening closely to IT needs, and the path ahead is promising,” he said, arguing that as more Apple devices embed themselves across the enterprise, it’s “a win for everyone: users, IT, and the company itself.”

Pavithran does have three suggestions that should help IT manage Apple’s platforms better, including granular permissions within apps, more advanced support for shared devices, and new APIs to help manage apps acquired outside of Apple’s App Store.

Granular permissions for Apple Intelligence in apps

“Take, for example, Apple intelligence,” he said. “Apple’s on-device AI and its focus on privacy is aligned with the expectations of security-conscious organizations. But as these tools make their way into enterprise and education, IT needs ways to fine-tune how and where they show up.  He argued that one improvement Apple could make would be to give IT admins the power to allocate Apple Intelligence support on a per-app basis. 

“Not all apps should have access to summarization or generative suggestions, particularly when working with sensitive or regulated data,” he said. “Adding an easier process to toggle Apple Intelligence features on a per-app basis would help organizations maintain control without compromising the user experience.”

Pavithran also looked at personalization and AI. He argued that by tying personalization and context to the authenticated user, not just the device, Apple would be able to better ensure that AI-generated insights are truly relevant. 

That’s particularly important on shared devices, as by making the connection between user and context, Apple would drastically reduce the chance AI responses might carry over between users in environments like hospitals, classrooms, or retail floors. 

Making shared devices even more secure

Apple has built a foundation to support shared devices with tools such as Shared iPad, Return to Service (RTS), and Authenticated Guest Mode, but the Hexnode CEO thinks Apple could go further. “RTS has the potential to offer more granular control over wipe behavior or session persistence,” Pavithran told me.

“Apple could take this even further by unifying shared device behavior across iOS, macOS, and visionOS. The ability to pre-stage apps and configurations based on the next user’s role, define what gets retained post-session, or automate the return-to-service flow based on schedules or events would simplify management and reduce friction.”

Better yet, of course, “for privacy-conscious deployments, session isolation and user sandboxing would round out the experience. This allows IT teams to streamline management for devices that change hands multiple times, such as in healthcare, logistics, or field operations.”

What about securing the apps?

Apple’s App Store might be under attack from regulators eager to open these platforms for all the wrong reasons, but it remains the most stable, secure, and trusted app ecosystem on any platform. That means many enterprises rely on the Apple App Store for the distribution of their employee apps.

Announced at WWDC 2025, one of the big changes coming up in the ’26 series of operating systems will be something called version-pinning for App Store apps. This is a great feature that gives IT precise control over when and how updates roll out across their managed fleets.

The problem — and this is one that will likely worsen as third-party App Stores appear — is that many enterprise apps are still not made available via Apple’s store. “These apps often power essential workflows in healthcare, logistics, field service, and finance, places where reliability and predictability aren’t optional,” Pavithran said.

The snag is that as these apps come from beyond the App Store, it means they can’t be managed by the new version-pinning feature introduced at WWDC. 

There is one way Apple might be able to enable App Pinning on non-App Store Apps, suggests Pavithran. “Apple would likely need to introduce a dedicated framework for enterprises to roll out their apps through the App Store. With the right tooling in place, Apple could give IT teams the same level of granular control for every app,” he said.

What’s interesting about these three pain points is the extent to which they represent how Apple use in the enterprise has become so commonplace that the improvements the company can make represent quite unique use cases – shared devices, proprietary app support, and so on. 

At the risk of being a bit of a broken record, if these are the problems IT now needs Apple to solve, you can read that to mean its platforms are already fit for deployment in your business.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

A public war of words has erupted between cloud infrastructure leader Cloudflare and AI search company Perplexity, with both sides making serious allegations about each other’s technical competence in a dispute that industry analysts say exposes fundamental flaws in how enterprises protect content from AI data collection.

The controversy began when Cloudflare published a scathing technical report accusing Perplexity of “stealth crawling” — using disguised web browsers to sneak past website blocks and scrape content that site owners explicitly wanted to keep away from AI training. Perplexity quickly fired back, accusing Cloudflare of creating a “publicity stunt” by misattributing millions of web requests from unrelated services to boost its own marketing efforts.

[ Related: Cloudflare offers to make AI pay to crawl websites ]

>>

The unemployment rate for technology workers changed little last month, according to an analysis of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) latest lackluster jobs report.

Overall, US employers added just 73,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday; that was well short of the 115,000 jobs expected.

IT unemployment rose slightly from 2.8% in June to 2.9% in July, according to an analysis of jobs data by the nonprofit trade association CompTIA. The overall national unemployment rate inched up 0.1% to 4.2%. It has remained between 4% and 4.2% since May 2024, according to BLS data.

US tech hiring had jumped in June, when 90,000 jobs were added. But that changed last month, as employers throughout the economy added just 54,000 tech workers to their payrolls — and tech industry companies shed more than 10,000 jobs, according to CompTIA’s “Tech Jobs Report.”

Staffing reductions were concentrated in three primary areas: IT and custom software services, cloud infrastructure, and telecommunications, according to CompTIA.

Compared to June, active tech job listings in July dropped 3% and new listings fell 8%. Highest-demand roles included software developers, systems engineers, tech support workers, cybersecurity, and network engineers. AI job listings remained flat, but CompTIA’s AI Hiring Index shows growing demand for roles needing AI skills.

Kye Mitchell, head of IT staffing firm Experis North America, said tech jobs are rapidly shifting as AI and data innovation grow. Roles such as database architects and data scientists have surged by 1,069% and 215% year-over-year, respectively.

Automation is also reshaping IT, creating demand for experts in machine learning, big data, and AI — and requiring new leadership roles in the finance and legal industries, with a focus on ethical AI. “AI is redefining both the entry point into tech and the evolution of existing roles,” Mitchell said. “For tech professionals willing to upskill and adapt, this is a moment of unprecedented opportunity to lead in helping to shape the AI-powered workforce of tomorrow.”

While job postings for open tech positions dropped from June to July, they still totaled more than 440,000 postings. “In an environment where uncertainty is the norm, the latest tech employment data is a welcome mix of some reasonably positive measures, and then of course, some lagging measures,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s chief research officer.

IT consultancy Janco Associates, which has been less bullish on tech sector job growth, pegged the IT unemployment rate at 5.5%, but predicted that will drop by more than a percentage point in upcoming months due to an impending economic upturn.

Janco CEO Victor Janulaitis expects openings for IT jobs to grow in late 2025, especially at smaller businesses preparing for new federal budgets and tariffs. He praised President Donald J. Trump’s budget bill, which was signed into law last month, as a potential shot in the arm for job creation and business profits.

“CFOs and CIOs are more optimistic,” Janulaitis said. “The number of unemployed IT pros is at 143,000, and the number of open IT positions is just under 244,000. Gas prices are lower, and the rate of inflation is around 2% versus the 9% peak several quarters back.”

Most of the unfilled IT jobs the BLS reported are tied to AI, large language models (LLMs), blockchain, and what’s called “OmniCommerce” — integrated shopping across multiple channels, including brick-and-mortar stores, online sites and mobile apps.

Despite his view that the broader economy could benefit from Trump’s spending plans, Janulaitis was critical of the BLS’s reporting methods. The agency last week released revised data for earlier months showing dramatically different job numbers, which Janulaitis said lack “integrity” and are “unacceptable.”

“Adjustments at those levels of magnitude are not acceptable from any organization. It can only be due to poor data capture, poor infrastructure, incompetence, or political gerrymandering,” Janulaitis said. While Janco plans to continue to report BLS data, he said his firm is in the process of redoin” its IT Job Market forecasting models to include “other public and private data.”

Trump himself was so outraged by the revised figures, which indicated a slowing economy, that he summarily fired the head of the BLS on Friday.