What's new AI Explorer? Some more details found in recent Windows 11 beta build

AI Explorer has been the talk of the town for quite some time. It’s a one-stop feature that lets you search literally everything on your computer, almost akin to this recently published patent. 

But, while Microsoft doesn’t actually call it an “AI Explorer”, rumors say that the Redmond company will unveil it in an upcoming Surface & AI event in May.

Since then, details of this AI Explorer feature have been leaking. Now, folks in the Windows 11 insider community have found several strings of codes that hint at it, as found in the recently launched Windows 11 Build 26200 for the Canary channel.

As shared by @PhantomOfEarth on X, these strings include: “Screen understanding is off. Turn it on to continue enjoying AIX power;” “Screen understanding is on;” “AI Host is not running;” “Screen understanding is paused. Models are not available and need to be downloaded;” and “AI Host is not responding. Try terminating aihost.exe from Task Manager.” 

Microsoft watcher Albacore (@thebookisclosed) also spotted a “Screen Capture” feature in the AI Explorer, as well as its new, shiny blue icon that looks a bit like Copilot in Windows 11, but with little tweaks in the middle. 

Earlier, details of minimum requirements for PCs to run AI Explorer have also appeared, and it’s pretty heavy. You need 16GB of RAM, an ARM64 CPU, a minimum of 225GB of total storage, and a Snapdragon X Elite NPU (HWID QCOM0D0A). 

These details were previously found in the Windows 11 Build 26100. But, as benchmark scores of the upcoming, consumer version of Arm-powered Surface Pro 10 surfaced, it looks like it checks out.