Microsoft quietly retires the Copilot Plus PC brand

Microsoft has retired the "Copilot Plus PC" brand it spent two and a half years promoting. The new 12-inch Surface Pro and 13-inch Surface Laptop still meet the hardware requirements behind the label, but neither Microsoft nor Qualcomm presents them that way anymore.

A brand that quietly disappears

Windows Central's Zac Bowden reported that both new devices technically qualify as Copilot Plus PCs yet are sold under a different name. "These are not called Copilot Plus PCs," Brett Ostrom, a corporate vice president for Microsoft Surface, told the publication.

Qualcomm's Kedar Kondap, senior vice president of compute and gaming, agreed that the brand's time is up, saying computers that offer the same experiences will "probably" no longer carry the name. According to The Verge, both companies are effectively admitting the brand no longer exists.

Why the name stopped working

Critics pointed out as early as 2024 that nearly every new PC would soon ship with the basic level of AI hardware the branding described. Recall, the flagship Copilot Plus feature, was poorly received, and Microsoft drew criticism for aggressive AI upselling inside Windows and for a dedicated Copilot key that users could only remap much later.

What comes next

Microsoft's flagship hardware is moving to Nvidia chips, which the company frames as the start of a new era of personal AI on Windows. On October 7 Microsoft will hold an event in San Francisco about the role of local AI in the next chapter of the PC. The Verge expects a replacement brand to be announced there.