Windows 11’s Only New Useful Feature Has Nothing to Do With AI

Microsoft has turned Windows 11 into a broiling soup of AI features. Since Windows 10 is effectively dead, forcing the reported hundreds of millions of lingering users to switch to the AI-filled version of Windows, all those features we miss most have gone with it. So finally, after more than four years, Microsoft is bringing back a useful addition cribbed from the older version of its operating system.

If you’re like me, and you had a long love affair with Windows 10, you routinely click down to the Windows 11 taskbar, imagining you’ll be able to check your calendar widget only to remind yourself Microsoft inexplicably removed that useful Windows 10 calendar flyout. At its Ignite 2025 conference on Tuesday, Microsoft said it was adding back in the Calendar flyout when you click on the date and time stamp in the bottom right corner of the default Windows screen.

The fact that this feature was missing since October 2021 is egregious considering how many third-party alternative apps came out to bring back the Windows 10 calendar and clock. Nearly every other major feature announced for Windows 11 has centered on AI. Essentially, the Copilot chatbot will infect every single text box inside the OS, including any outside app if you can’t bother typing up your own texts and emails. Microsoft promises this AI text generation will run on a Copilot+ PC’s NPU, or neural processing unit, rather than working in the cloud. If you don’t have a modern PC with the most recent Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm Snapdragon laptop chips, the feature will work on the cloud instead.

Even more AI, whether you want it or not

Otherwise, like every other part of Windows 11, the taskbar is being overloaded with new AI capabilities with dubious use cases. The taskbar search function will also play host to Copilot, specifically the “Ask Copilot†function, which tries to get users to talk to their PCs. Microsoft is also shoving its new Researcher app, which tries to create expansive research based on given prompts, right into the taskbar alongside your other common apps. Microsoft said users don’t need to enable these taskbar apps if they don’t want to. However, Copilot will also come to the File Explorer search bar with the promise it will summarize documents for you with one click.

The lone AI feature that could prove occasionally useful is a new “Fluid dictation,†which is a speech-to-text feature that promises to generate legible text from your ramblings—proper punctuation included. The feature should also excise any “uhhs†or other filler words. Otherwise, 365 apps like Outlook will start generating AI summaries for your emails, while Word will create automatic alt-text for any images you put in a document. The apps will also have a new “Agent Mode†for all current subscribers to generate spreadsheets and documents based on a prompt. These features may be occasionally useful if you’re stuck using Microsoft 365 every day. Otherwise, it’s just ammunition for Windows to serve you even more pop-up ads and banners trying to get you to subscribe to the tech giant’s workplace apps.

Why are we still begging for basic features?

Microsoft’s Ignite 2025 conference was supposed to reveal how Windows 11 would become an “agentic†OS. That means computers would be able to give Copilot a complex task, then let it work it out in the background while you’re doing your own thing. This would also mean granting Copilot access to all your personal files, emails, photos, and more. Sure, the AI is essentially running in its own separate Windows client on the cloud, but it also means it needs to process your data on foreign servers. The company promised to keep user data secure.

The changes are driving an inflection point among longtime Windows users and developers alike. Whether or not the new features prove useful may depend on exactly what you’re using your Windows machine for. An average user may find the glut of AI apps to be confusing and unhelpful at best. The siren song of Linux is calling more than ever before, and with new devices like the Steam Machine on the way, Linux PCs may have a more solid foothold in 2026 than ever before.