Copilot is plugging into Windows 11’s File Explorer
File Explorer will soon be another Windows 11 feature getting the Copilot treatment.
It’s still in unofficial testing mode, but the change, first spotted by leaker PhantomOfEarth on X, and confirmed by Windows Latest shows a Copilot option in the context menu.
Screenshots from Windows Latest show Copilot as an option when you right-click on a file in Windows 11 Build 26080. From there, you can select actions like “Send to Copilot” or “Summarize.” Sending to Copilot enables the user to ask questions or send requests about the file within the Copilot interface and using the summarize feature also sends the file to Copilot, but with bullet-pointed overview of the document.
Microsoft has committed hard to adding Copilot, its AI-powered assistant to everything. The tech giant has added Copilot to the Windows 11 taskbar, Microsoft 365, and integration across various apps like Paint and Photos. Microsoft has even announced that it will be building Windows 11 PCs with a dedicated Copilot key on the keyboard.
Copilot’s underlying technology is large language models (LLMs) that when combined with Microsoft products perform tasks like summarizing information, generating text and images, writing and editing code, and generally automating various tedious actions.
Since it’s still in testing mode, Copilot in File Explorer doesn’t work yet, so we don’t know what file summaries look like. But we can see it being a helpful tool for getting a quick glimpse at the contents of a document. Windows Latest also says more actions might be coming to this feature such as “rewrite” and editing images when you send them to Copilot like removing a background or upscaling the image resolution.
Suffice to say, prepare to see a lot more Copilot in the future.
