Windows 11’s new Copilot+ AI features like Recall can be enabled without needing an NPU

Microsoft unveiled its new Copilot+ PC family last week, with its new Recall feature remembering every single thing you type, and do into your PC… but it required an NPU. Well, a developer has worked it out… without needing an NPU.

A developer posted on X with “great progress” on enabling Copilot+ features like Recall on current Arm64 hardware, with no Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor (which is a hardware requirement of Copilot+ on Windows 11). The developer explained in his post that it “should theoretically work on Intel/AMD” processors, too, and that OEMs only received Arm64-specific ML model bundles, so “there’s not much I can do yet” added @thebookisclosed on X.

Without an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) to speed-up AI workloads, does that mean that AI workloads run slower without an NPU? We don’t know yet, but I’m sure we’re not very far from knowing how much slower — if it is at all — which would bring into question… do we really need NPUs for AI workloads that are being shoved down our throats by every processor maker on the market? Interesting.

The full post by @thebookisclosed on X explained: “Making great progress enabling Recall on current Arm64 hardware, no fancy X Elite in sight! Should theoretically work on Intel/AMD too, OEMs only received Arm64 specific ML model bundles so there’s not much I can do yet. Here’s a small demo video showing off screenray“.