Microsoft Integrates AI Actions into Windows 11 File Explorer, Sparking Debate

Microsoft is putting AI actions into the Windows File Explorer

Tom Warren is a senior editor and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft is starting to integrate AI shortcuts, or what it calls AI actions, into the File Explorer in Windows 11. These shortcuts let you right-click on a file and quickly get to Windows AI features like blurring the background of a photo, erasing objects, or even summarizing content from Office files. Four image actions are currently being tested in the latest Dev Channel builds of Windows 11, including Bing visual search to find similar images on the web, the blur background and erase objects features found in the Photos app, and the remove background option in Paint. Microsoft is also planning to test similar AI actions for Office files soon, enabling you to summarize documents stored in OneDrive or SharePoint, or quickly create AI-generated lists from files. These Office AI actions will be limited to Microsoft 365 commercial subscribers with a Copilot license, and consumer support is "coming later." It's not clear if these AI actions can be disabled in the context menu, but they also join an "Ask Copilot" option that Microsoft added to the right-click menu of the File Explorer recently. Alongside the AI-powered shortcuts in File Explorer, Microsoft is also testing some visual changes to the widgets feature in Windows 11, "with a more organized, personalized, and engaging feed," according to the Windows Insider team. "In addition, we are introducing Copilot-curated stories into the feed." This latest Dev Channel build also includes a new "User Interaction-Aware CPU Power Management" feature, which Microsoft describes as an OS-level change to reduce power consumption on laptops and tablets. "After a period of inactivity on your PC, Windows now conserves power by automatically applying efficient power management policies," says the Windows Insider team. "This happens seamlessly to save energy while you're inactive, with full performance instantly restored the moment you get back to it."

Microsoft incorporates new 'AI actions' into the Windows 11 context menu

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. Editor's take: Windows 11 brought a slew of UI changes and "improvements" few users welcome. File Explorer's state is particularly dire, yet Microsoft shows no sign of backing off its relentless quest to make the interface worse. What should be a simple file manager is now a confusing mess, frustrating longtime users and driving a flood of third-party fixes. Microsoft's revamp of the Windows 11 File Explorer context menu hid or removed many helpful features, sparking a boom in third-party tools to restore the old interface. Once again, Microsoft is reinventing the wheel with a redesigned Start Menu that brings more frustrating changes to the right-click menu. The Redmond corporation has added a new "AI action" sub-menu to File Explorer's context menu. This change is already available to unpaid beta testers in the Windows Insider program with the recent Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26200.5603 (KB5058488) released to the Dev Channel. Microsoft explains that AI actions in File Explorer offer a deeper interaction with users' files through AI technology. The first four AI actions focus on image editing. Bing Visual Search helps find similar pictures online. Blur Background and Erase Objects automatically detect and modify objects and backgrounds in Photos. Remove Background lets users extract an image's background in Paint. The four AI context menu options support JPG and PNG files but hardly represent an AI revolution. These new actions directly link Bing search or image-editing features from the File Explorer menu - nothing extraordinary about that. Microsoft plans to launch new Copilot-powered AI actions in the coming weeks. Microsoft 365 subscribers will soon get a new "Summarize" option to generate summaries of larger documents - Word, PDF, or TXT - stored on OneDrive and SharePoint. Microsoft also has a "Create an FAQ" feature that utilizes Copilot's chatbot to transform cloud documents into a neatly formatted, AI-generated Q&A list. The new Microsoft 365-exclusive AI actions sound far more promising than a handful of shortcuts to AI tools in a couple of Windows-native image editors. Still, I'd bet a kidney they won't ease the frustration for anyone who's disliked Windows 11 File Explorer since day one. Microsoft's new mission is to bring AI everywhere, so get ready to welcome your fully AI-powered Windows operating system sooner than you think.

Windows 11 is getting more AI shortcuts, but is Microsoft in danger of cluttering up the OS with AI creep?

Initially only a small number of features are available, all of them pertaining to image files - but more AI actions are in the pipeline for testing Windows 11 is receiving another infusion of AI and this time it's coming directly to File Explorer, the app that allows you to view and work with the files and folders on your PC. Microsoft introduced this move with Windows 11's new preview build (26120.4151) in the Beta channel. File Explorer is getting a new option for 'AI actions' in its context-sensitive right-click menu. That means when you right-click a file, you'll get extra context-based choices for working with AI abilities. To begin with - and remember, this is still in testing - there are four actions that relate to image files. Two of them are handy shortcuts to change the background of a picture. One allows you to blur the background in the Photos app, and the other removes the background entirely - cutting out the foreground subject - in the Paint app. The idea is that if you have an image file that needs this attention, you can simply right-click and order the job done right in the folder (with Windows 11 firing up the app and task from there). The other two AI actions for images facilitate erasing an object (removing something that's not wanted intruding on the pic) in Photos, and you can also order a Bing Visual Search (an image search on the web via Microsoft's Bing engine). To start off, these actions only work with JPG and PNG files, but that selection will be expanded in time (though most folks use JPGs in the main, anyway). Microsoft also promises that AI actions for the likes of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files will be rolled out (in testing) soon enough. That'll include an option to get Copilot to summarize any Microsoft 365 file, boiling down the contents of a document to a precis, which is something that you may well be familiar with, but there's a trick that might be new to you here: making a FAQ. This enlists Copilot to turn a OneDrive file into a "neatly formatted, AI-generated Q&A list" which could come in useful for some folks. This functionality has been around for a while, though, but it'll be new to the quickfire AI actions, of course. The catch with these abilities in Microsoft 365 is that you not only need to have a subscription for that online suite, but also a Copilot subscription (via your Microsoft account). That's because you need the latter to unlock Copilot in the Microsoft 365 apps in which the AI is available. In the case of creating a FAQ, that functionality will be for business users only initially, although Microsoft notes: "Consumer support with a Microsoft account is coming later." It isn't a surprise to see Microsoft pushing more AI functionality into Windows 11. This is a key driver not just for the OS, but for Copilot+ PCs which Microsoft is betting big on - those devices have exclusive AI powers, and the more ways the company can give users to reach them, the better. Or at least that's the way Microsoft will see it. The argument against this continued slow infiltration of AI into Windows 11 is that if you don't use any of this stuff, then it's just cluttering up the interface a bit more. In this case, the new AI actions option (which was previously unearthed in preview builds quite some time ago) is an extra line in the right-click context-sensitive menu with files, and some people may not want it and feel that it's a waste of that (admittedly small chunk of) space. Expect more of this in the future, and indeed there's another minor piece of AI creep elsewhere in this preview build. That's in the widgets panel, which has seen its feed reorganized, and Copilot AI is now piping some stories into that feed. This is a more behind-the-scenes change than the interface tweak with File Explorer, though, and on top of that, if you don't like the new system (called 'Copilot Discover') you can turn it off in the 'Personalize MSN' settings for the widgets board.

Windows File Explorer is getting a controversial AI upgrade - will users revolt or rejoice?

Will AI actions come to the Start menu next? (Image credit: Phillip Tracy/Laptop Mag) Imagine you're a Windows user and need to summarize a file or edit an image. You'd likely start by heading to File Explorer, navigating to the file you need, and then opening it. Let's say it's a task AI can handle quickly -- you'd then launch your AI app of choice and manually prompt it to perform the action. Microsoft believes that you shouldn't waste this much time on such tasks, which is exactly why it announced AI shortcuts in File Explorer, called AI Actions, in its most recent Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.4151 (KB5058486). Here's the context around this update: Windows users have historically been opinionated about changes to core parts of the operating system. Seemingly innocuous updates have caused an uproar -- and not without good reason. Whether or not Windows users revolt over this change to File Explorer remains to be seen. Will users revolt or rejoice? The answer may surface in the coming weeks as this new feature is used more and creates ripple effects across File Explorer and Windows as a whole. Microsoft notes that AI actions in File Explorer are designed to help you "interact more deeply with your files." The idea behind them is simple -- you locate a file, right-click it, and then choose the new AI actions entry in the context menu. Depending on the content of the file, you'll be suggested appropriate actions. For instance, the screenshot Microsoft shared shows the company demoing AI actions on an image file. Hovering over the AI actions entry in the context menu gave the following options: Visual Search with Bing, Blur background with Photos, Erase object with Photos, and Remove background with Paint. Visual Search with Bing is essentially Microsoft's branding of reverse search, and lets you search the web using an image. You can use the feature to find similar images and products, get website details, and identify famous people, landmarks, and plants. The other three are editing features you've likely used before. Blur background uses the native Photos app to automatically detect the background in an image, highlight the subject, and blur everything else behind it. Remove background works similarly, but instead of blurring, it removes the background entirely and leaves just a cutout of the subject. The erase object also uses the native Photos app, which automatically highlights any unwanted elements or distractions in your image. The AI action then uses the Generative Erase feature to remove them completely. At the time of writing, these four image actions are the only ones Microsoft has announced. They support JPG, JPEG, and PNG files. However, the company plans to roll out new AI actions for Microsoft 365 files in the coming weeks. This includes a Summarize action, which uses Copilot to generate summaries of documents without even opening them. You'll be able to use the Summarize AI action on .docx, .doc, .pptx, .ppt, .xlsx, .xls, .rtf, .txt, and .loop files. A "Create an F.A.Q." AI action will allow you to convert a file into a question-and-answer list. Summarize and Create an F.A.Q. AI actions will only be available to Microsoft 365 commercial subscribers with a Copilot license. Microsoft notes that consumer support with a Microsoft account is "coming later." Keep in mind that AI actions are part of a gradual rollout. So, you might not see them immediately, even if you're on the latest Insider Preview build. When you control-click a file on Macs, a "Quick Actions" option appears in the context menu with options like Rotate Left, Markup, Create PDF, Convert Image, and Remove Background. The only difference is it isn't publicly marketed as AI (though it might be using it under the hood, who really knows?). Editing software like Adobe Express also offers similar quick actions, like removing backgrounds from images with a single click. I believe AI actions in File Explorer would help save more time, especially for those who work with a huge list of files daily. It would've been a different story if Microsoft mandated the feature, but since you can simply ignore AI actions if you don't want to use them, it feels more like a helpful option than an intrusive change.