Microsoft's Windows lead says the next version of Windows will be "more ambient, pervasive, and multi-modal" as AI redefines the desktop interface

None of these are things I want in an OS.

Yup, I want "unobtrusive, lightweight, compatible, and secure." Basically, the best case for an OS is that I don't notice it.
- Windows XP was the greatest OS of all time.
  All we're doing now is wandering away from perfection.
Good thing he didn't actually say it would be the next Windows doing any of those things. He didn't even say it would be the OS:
"I think we will see computing become more ambient, more pervasive, continue to span form factors, and certainly become more multi-modal in the arc of time ... I think experience diversity is the next space where we will continue to see voice becoming more important. Fundamentally, the concept that your computer can actually look at your screen and is context aware is going to become an important modality for us going forward."
The important and scarier part is actually the last sentence, not anything from the article title.
- Well put. I confess that my hot take was based on skimming the title of the article, and as you note, their vision is even more dystopian. Fire the pixels onto the screen and forget about them, I say!
- MORE pervasive? Everyone is already buried in their phones ffs.
Depending on what the hell "ambient" means in this context that one might be okay. The other two though, eww.

Microsoft really doing everything in their power to make sure I never buy another Windows PC.

I setup a Windows 11 laptop for a friend yesterday, I cannot believe the amount of ads built into the new user experience which are disguised as installation options.
I had to find the tiny, low contrast skip button to avoid signing up for more cloud storage, a Copilot subscription, and an Office365 subscription before I was even able to see the desktop.
The entire left side of the start bar seens to be a news feed which shows ads, opening an Office app requires closing a Copilot ad unless you disable it (individually for every application), it's impossible to create a local user account, it looks like the user folder defaults to their cloud storage so just saving things into your document folder will eventually result in scary "You're almost out of space, buy more here!" ads disguised as system promots, and your bitlocker recovery key is saved in your Microsoft account.
That's just what I noticed in the first 20 minutes.
I'm so glad I ejected from that dumpster fire of an OS.
- Its so much slower on my old win 10 machine at work. Meanwhile my Linux box got faster

Micro$oft doing this has been the best thing for Linux and MacOS

Honestly I think we missed the moment when Linux went the wrong path too.
- What do you mean by that?

Microsoft does the best viral marketing for Linux.

The next version of Debian won't be more ambient and pervasive. It would be just the same as it is today.

No way! I've updated to Debian 13 two days ago, and I've got two (!) new lockscreen wallpapers, and you can even configure lockscreen to download picture of the day from Flickr or Bing. Also taskbar has rounded corners, which I'm ambivalent about.
- 2! = 2
  So the exclamation mark is redundant. 😋
I installed arch recently, and the steam client was pretty easy to install. What really shocked me is that all the stuff that works fine on my steam deck also works fine in arch, so that's nice
- Well makes sense, steamos is arch based right?
What the fuck? I thought Debian should be stabile? Are they too stupid to get that maybe, people have mounted the wallpaper folder onto another Partition, and now they have to repartition everything?
- What are you talking about?
  Debian is stable.

"10 will be the last OS"

I mean... they did tell the truth, didn't they? When I think of Windows 11, terms like operating wouldn't be on my list...
The last one I pay for anyway. Not even sure I actually paid for that one....
They're no Spinal Tap, for sure.
That was said by some random Microsoft employee who had no official capacity to say something like that, and the whole thing sounded like they meant to say "latest" anyway. It is and was a worthless statement that got way more attention than it deserved.

voice as input? lol, can you imagine a busy office with workers all talking at the same time? this is stupid. MS is stupid. I'll stick to Linux thanks.

It's funny cause "ambient, pervasive, multi-modal" are all words used when envisioning the future applications of AI, so you know some marketing smuck glanced over the literature (or probably asked an AI to do so for him) and chose them with little care as to how the new Windows will embody these qualities. I am so tired of salesmen,marketing,word salads and entrepreneurship.

"We listened very carefully to everything our customers wanted, and then we cranked out this impossible to use fucking piece of shit" - The Onion (for Sony, but it applies here)

I don’t want to ‘sign in to confirm your age’ to watch this
- Luckily I'm in the US where we apparently only care about "the children" before they're born.

Fundamentally, the concept that your computer can actually look at your screen and is context aware is going to become an important modality for us going forward."

Ah, so now having my computer spy on me is a feature, gotcha

In the interview, Davuluri is asked how AI is going to change the way we interact with computers. Here's what he had to say on the matter:
"I think we will see computing become more ambient, more pervasive, continue to span form factors, and certainly become more multi-modal in the arc of time ... I think experience diversity is the next space where we will continue to see voice becoming more important. Fundamentally, the concept that your computer can actually look at your screen and is context aware is going to become an important modality for us going forward."

Watch out Satya Nadella, this guy's coming for your job as Head of Corporate Bullshit.

What the fuck does ambient even mean in the context of an operating system? Is it going to be floating around in the atmosphere of my flat? Is the next version of windows gaseous? Is it sarin gas?

I want a good VR OS but this is just silly XD

Because we all told Microsoft we desire software that fits these adjectives.

Enterprise customers I guess.
- They don't want it either. Generally they just want something stable and usable.

Just rename it to Copilot 12 or something, it’s way too confusing having a product not branded as copilot.

Copilot 365 12 for Home and Family, Copilot Edition.
- Series C
ActiveCoPilot XP 2025 Professional Edition

I think a lot of people are going to struggle getting their head around the idea of voice being a reliable, primary input method when using a PC, but with agentic AI and the ability for the OS to understand user intent and natural language, it's going to feel a lot more natural than you might think.

You're damn right we're going to struggle. I won't believe it is reliable enough to be anything but infuriating until I see it.

Ahh, keyboard. How quaint!
- I just bought a new mechanical keyboard, I'm such a fucking loser. I hate myself sometimes.
- Love that scene
Ugh, not this voice control BS again. It's like the people who pop up every once in a while asking why there isn't a "natural English" programming language. It's because human language is imprecise and full of nuance. To describe something to the precision needed for a computer to take action and actually do the thing you want it to do, you have to be so ridiculously verbose in your description that it would take 10-100x longer than just clicking a button with your mouse or typing a command on the keyboard.
Have none of these people ever sat behind someone operating a computer and tried to instruct them to do something even moderately complex? About 5 minutes in I'm usually tearing my hear out screaming "JUST LET ME SIT IN THE CHAIR AND DO IT MYSELF!"
I tried dictating a talk onto the computer in several ways recently. Not one piece of software was able to do it without me having to edit constantly. I haven't seen anyone get voice input to the point where it isn't a pain. I highly doubt Microsoft figured out reliable voice input but kept it back for Windows 12. It's going to be the same shit.

"I think we will see computing become more ambient, more pervasive, continue to span form factors, and certainly become more multi-modal in the arc of time ... I think experience diversity is the next space where we will continue to see voice becoming more important. Fundamentally, the concept that your computer can actually look at your screen and is context aware is going to become an important modality for us going forward."

You could fertilize 200 acres with that much bullshit. truly a crime against the English language.

I think they meant to say "invasive", instead of "pervasive"

I don't want to speak to my computer. I don't need AI to perform basic tasks. I don't need my computer usage redefined. Fuck off Pavan.

yay marketing words!

This means you can expect Windows to get, "verbose, invasive, and difficult-to-use"

Am I missing something here? The quotes from said lead don‘t mention „the next Windows“ anywhere. He‘s just thinking out loud about what he thinks working on a computer will be like 5 years from now. This is click bait and I wouldn‘t be surprised if they quietly change the title later on after they farmed enough clicks. Awful.

"Multi modal"

Will it finally be possible to be productive with more that 3 windows open?

No, but it can function as an OS, a spyware library and a targeted advertising vector.
What's your gripe with more than three windows?
Window management is usually not a complaint of Windows...
- I see three ways of switching windows on windows :
  Clicking on the taskbar, but its quite slow because it relies entirely on mouse control
  Using alt+tab, this is super efficient when you have at most 4 windows open, then you often have to scroll through the whole list and concentrate to not miss your window
  Using the task view : this should be the modern way, the trackpads shortcut is super intuitive, it works well with many windows and is well integrated with virtual desktops. But it seems completely unfinished : it's super laggy, very buggy (animations often freeze leaving some windows impossible to select) the taskbar blinks for no reason 🤷
  But again, I think I've been spoiled by Linux. Many desktop environments integrates virtual screen so well that you can easily switch between apps in less than 200ms, which is a big deal : if you look at two apps it's almost more convenient than moving your sight from one monitor to another (for example copying some data, or monitoring some progress)

I bet the computer won't function (or at least not properly) without an internet connection.

take the penguin-pill and get out now!

So instead of three simple mouse clicks I'm supposed to say "Open mixer channel 34, then open the second insert plugin, select the unlabeled potentiometer that is located in the second row and kind-of third column, then turn it to 30 %, wait, no, not the amp potentiometer, the unlabeled one in the second row and kind-of third column, no, the one to the left of the current one, no, not this one, not this one, not this one..."

A little bit like early graphic programs where you had to type in coordinates and color values but way slower, unprecise and totally unreliable. Sounds fun, I bet this new Windows will be loved by all musicians and audio engineers and graphic designers and video editors - if they even manage to log into their Microsoft account while suffering from a common cold ("Log me [cough] in with Boat[cough]y[cough]McBoat[cough]face[cough]42!"). Looks like the guys at Microsoft had their final dose of sodium bromide.

If I could just play new multiplayer games on it, for me the next version of windows would be Linux.

Yup. Off to Linux I go.

I’m sureAI will hit Linux one day . A lot of the toolset for building LLM’s works out of the box. I’ve used Linux for years.

I suspect if AI gets to distros your have 3 sorts of people :

Privacy aware and dislike the idea entirely
Those that embrace it but only with open weight open source models.
Those that use any AI models as long as it’s not too invasive .

I’m probably a solid 1.5

Hey, leave sureAI out of it! They made the best total conversion mods for Oblivion and Skyrim back in the day! :3
(Nehrim and Enderal, for anyone curious. Although Nehrim is quite janky (as is tradition for games/mods from Germany haha))
Red hat 10 has an ai assistant for configuring it.

The only word I understand in that sentence, in this context, is "pervasive." And given how Windows has really heen driving users away from Windows recently, I am doubtful that it will be more pervasive than previous Windows.

Thanks, I hate it!

Thanks for convincing me to get a Mac! I love it so far!!

Mac does things differently....you like a windows manager? like to make your apps fullscreen and switch desktops? use alt+tab a lot? don't get Mac.
install Linux instead.

Why do corporations think so much about the OS? I always pick one that works well with my applications because I spend 99% of my computer time in the apps.

Edit- by OS, I meant UI

Weird, my desktop interface isn't any of those things. Huh.

Microsoft: the biggest promoter for using Linux. "Our goal is to make Windows and it's apps so extremily repulsive even your grandma wants Linux instead. Because we care."

Maybe someone should inform mr. lead over there that ambient and pervasive do not go together all that great. But then again, windows 11 ‘s components do not seem to play along too well, so they might not be sure what congruence actually is about.