Microsoft is adding two new features to Copilot in the latest Windows Insider Update. This makes it more useful for searching through your files and explaining what you see.

Copilot Can Now Read Your Files to Help You Search Through Them

The first big improvement coming in Copilot is in file search, where the latest update allows it to have access to everything in your PC’s storage. According to the Windows Insider blog, you will still have ultimate control over your files, as it lets you adjust permissions on what the AI can access, retrieve, or read.

Copilot should be able to see almost all file types when searching through your documents, and it can also read the contents of .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .txt, .pdf, and .json files. Because of this, you can ask file-related questions and give it commands — like “Open the article I was working on yesterday,” “Find the folder where I saved my latest bank statement,” or “Summarize the PDF file I downloaded earlier today.”

This will make it much easier for most users to find files without having to deal with the clunky Windows Search. This should go hand-in-hand with the native language search feature Windows recently received, meaning you don’t have to lose files if you misplace them.

Let the AI See Your Screen and Guide You

It’s also introducing a second feature called Copilot Vision on Windows. This allows the AI app to see your browser or app window. From there, it can do the following:

• Analyze your screen
• Offer insights, like describing what it sees
• Answer questions about what it sees, and then guide you through it

You can turn on Copilot Vision by hovering over the Copilot icon on the taskbar and clicking on the glasses icon when the hover menu appears. From there, you can select which app you want it to see. Once you want to end sharing your screen with Copilot, you can just click on Stop or X, and it will end the session.

This has the potential to help you with anything you aren’t yet adept at in the programs you use. For example, if you’re having trouble figuring out how to insert a table into a Word file, you can ask Copilot Vision to guide you through with step-by-step on-screen instructions.

This has the potential to become a controversial feature, though, similar to how Windows Recall was initially considered a privacy nightmare. But because it’s not on all the time, you have control over when it will run and what it will see.

It’s Coming to Windows Insiders First

At the moment, these two features are available to Windows Insiders running Copilot version 1.25034.133.0. Microsoft also added that while file search is available to all Insiders worldwide, Copilot Vision on Windows is limited to US users only. It will release the features gradually, so you might not get them immediately if you’re an Insider and update Copilot.

The company likely did this so it can test how these features will run when used by the public. That way, if it runs into issues, it can fix them before they go to general release. Once they’re available to everyone, then these will surely be part of the underrated Microsoft Copilot features you shouldn’t miss.

The only question we have left is whether this would require an NPU to run. The company hasn’t said anything about it, but if it needs newer hardware, then millions of users who rely on older CPUs will miss out on these capabilities.