With Windows 10 recently being consigned to the digital antique shelf, rumours of Windows 11's inevitable replacement are beginning to swirl. That operating system is itself already 5 years old, so are we likely to see its replacement soon, and what might it look like when it arrives?
The first thing to say here is that it's very likely that Windows 12 won't be coming this year. Microsoft already have the autumn's incremental feature update for Windows 11 planned. Additionally, it wouldn't be a great strategic move to release a new operating system with prices for various critical PC hardware components currently through the roof due to a lack of supply. Much as Microsoft used Windows 11's release as an opportunity to drop support for older machines, it's likely exactly the same will happen here, so it would be better if people didn't need to sell a kidney to buy one!
A 2027 arrival is therefore much more likely - either in the spring or autumn. October seems more likely than not based on the release date for previous versions. This assumes it will be called Windows 12 at all, of course. While Microsoft have stuck to a numbered version since Windows 7, they do have history for switching this up when they want to highlight a big change (XP, Vista), and there could be a big change coming...
Yes, what else but AI? Windows 11 does already have Copilot in it of course, but it very much sits one step removed from the fundamentals of a PC at the moment, with only light integration into nuts and bolts of the machine settings. It currently often just provides a guide on how to do something rather than just doing it. This is very likely to change in the next version of Windows. We will likely find that the version of Copilot that ships with this release have its tendrils buried much deeper into everything. It could well be the case that you will just be able to describe a problem with your PC or setting you need changing, and Copilot will go off and sort it for you.
Of course, AI assistance isn't free. You may get an amount of free requests with the big providers each day, but that's not having to keep up with everything you're doing on a machine, which an "all encompassing" machine-level AI assistant would need to do to remain useful. The smart money would therefore be on a basic level of integration being offered for free, and more advanced assistance being paid for either via subscription or ads (and I'm sure Microsoft would much prefer the former). Whether there will be an option to opt out of the AI side of things altogether remains to be seen.
We'll find out in the coming months if our predictions here are close to the mark.