Don’t know what’s good about Copilot Pro? Windows 11 users might soon find out, as Microsoft is testing Copilot ads for the OS

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Ads for the paid version of the Copilot AI have been spotted in testing

Copilot imagery from Microsoft
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Windows 11 might be getting ads for Copilot Pro, or at least this possibility is being explored in testing right now it seems.

Copilot Pro, for those who missed it, was recently revealed as Microsoft’s powered-up version of the AI assistant that you have to pay for (via a monthly subscription). And if you haven’t heard about it, well, you might do soon via the Settings panel in Windows 11.

PhantomOfEarth on X (formerly Twitter) spotted the new move from Microsoft, with the introduction of a card for Copilot Pro on the Home page of the Settings app. It provides a brief explanation of what the service is alongside links to find out more (or to get a subscription there and then).

Note that the leaker had to dig around to uncover the Copilot Pro advert, and it was only displayed after messing about with a configuration tool (in Dev and Beta builds). However, two other Windows 11 testers in the Beta channel have responded to say that they have this Copilot Pro card present without doing anything.

In other words, taking those reports at face value, it seems this Copilot Pro ad is on some kind of limited rollout to some testers. At any rate, it’s certainly present in the background of Windows 11 (Beta and Dev) and can be enabled.

Analysis: Adding more ads

The theory, then, is that this will be appearing more broadly to testers, before following with a rollout to everyone using Windows 11. Of course, ideas in testing can be abandoned, particularly if they get criticized a lot, so we’ll just have to watch this space (or rather, the space on the Home page of Settings).

Does it seem likely Microsoft will try to push ahead with a Copilot Pro advert? Yes, it does, frankly. Microsoft isn’t shy about promoting its own services within its products, that’s for sure. Furthermore, AI is set to become a huge part of the Windows 11 experience, and other Microsoft products for that matter, so monetizing it is going to be a priority in all likelihood.

So, a nudge to raise the profile of the paid version of Copilot seems to likely, if not inevitable. Better that it’s tucked away in Settings, we guess, than somewhere more in-your-face like the Start menu.

If you’re wondering what benefits Copilot Pro confers, they include faster performance and responses, along with more customization and options – but this shouldn’t take anything away from the free version of Copilot (or it doesn’t yet, anyway). What it does mean is that the very latest upgrades will likely be reserved for the Pro AI, as we’ve seen initially with GPT-4 Turbo coming to Copilot Pro and not the basic free Copilot.

Via Neowin

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Darren Allan

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).