this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Microsoft is putting AI actions into the Windows File Explorer (www.theverge.com)
submitted 12 hours ago by pelespirit@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] illi@lemm.ee 13 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Article doesn't state this but I assume this is done via Copilot, so anything you use it on goes direct to Microsoft cloud, right?

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Some Copilot functions are done locally on some computers with the appropriate NPU chips. But it's Microsoft, so they'll be sending data home either way.

[–] illi@lemm.ee 2 points 8 hours ago

Yes, but them not calling it out in the article makes me thing this is not the case here. If it would be done locally, it would not be as bad. But I somehow doubt it would be.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

I don't think so. It says it's part of file explorer, so that would be part of the overall system, right?

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Just because the UI exists in file explorer doesn’t mean the data processing is happening locally. It’s likely happening on MS’s cloud. Maybe some actions happening locally on new machines with NPU chips

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I want to believe you, but I've been burned before.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I’m not sure what you mean. I’m saying that this work is almost for sure being sent to Microsoft’s servers, which is certainly a bad thing. That is burning anyone who uses it

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I thought you meant they wouldn't be processing your files locally. You're saying they're taking all of your local files and sending them to the cloud though?

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Likely in pretty much every case they are taking files that you perform an AI function on and uploading them to their cloud.

I said the few exceptions might be very low effort work that could run on the new NPU chips coming with some PCs. But I doubt they would even do that because it’s passing up the opportunity to use consumer data to train their models.

So yes, if you use an AI feature, MS is taking your file(s) and training it’s models on it

[–] INeedMana@lemmy.world 10 points 11 hours ago

I 100% expect so. It's much easier and cheaper to do it this way and also gives them data to train copilot further

I might be wrong, though

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

I wouldn't bet on it.