Apparently testing was pretty good and MS has decided to launch Recall for Windows 11. They have made it opt-in, thus you must specifically enable it before it starts snapshotting your system. This is good.
But there's something better: it doesn't run on most machines out there!
Recall requires a system with an NPU, a Neural Processing Unit. These are additional chips installed on the motherboard that have only been in the sales channel for about a year. I'm also pretty sure that these computers came with a keyboard that had a Copilot key on the bottom row to the right of the space bar, though there may be keyboards with that key sold with computers without the NPU. So if your PC is from 2023 or older, it doesn't have an NPU and won't run Recall.
And yes, there are laptops with NPUs.
Recall is part of a feature package called CoPilot+. From the article: "The only consumer processors that currently support Copilot+ are Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips, Intel's Core Ultra 200V-series laptop chips (codenamed Lunar Lake), and AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series. Copilot+ features have generally been coming to the Arm-based Qualcomm PCs first and to x86-based Intel and AMD PCs later; Recall and the improved Search are available for both Arm and x86 PCs, while some Click to Do features are currently only available for Arm systems."
Of course there is the problem that when you go to replace your current system in a few years, it's likely that your new box will contain an NPU and you'll get nagged to activate Recall.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/microsoft-rolls-windows-recall-out-to-the-public-nearly-a-year-after-announcing-it/
In an interesting sidenote, Intel's AI chipsets are not selling well, people are really wanting the previous generation known as Raptor Lake. The AI chips are known as Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake, I think one name designates laptop chips.
Intel is having all sorts of corporate problems and it's being felt up and down the product line. They're looking at selling off divisions to hunker down and get their act together.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intels-ai-pc-chips-arent-selling-instead-last-gen-raptor-lake-booms-and-creates-a-shortage
But there's something better: it doesn't run on most machines out there!
Recall requires a system with an NPU, a Neural Processing Unit. These are additional chips installed on the motherboard that have only been in the sales channel for about a year. I'm also pretty sure that these computers came with a keyboard that had a Copilot key on the bottom row to the right of the space bar, though there may be keyboards with that key sold with computers without the NPU. So if your PC is from 2023 or older, it doesn't have an NPU and won't run Recall.
And yes, there are laptops with NPUs.
Recall is part of a feature package called CoPilot+. From the article: "The only consumer processors that currently support Copilot+ are Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips, Intel's Core Ultra 200V-series laptop chips (codenamed Lunar Lake), and AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series. Copilot+ features have generally been coming to the Arm-based Qualcomm PCs first and to x86-based Intel and AMD PCs later; Recall and the improved Search are available for both Arm and x86 PCs, while some Click to Do features are currently only available for Arm systems."
Of course there is the problem that when you go to replace your current system in a few years, it's likely that your new box will contain an NPU and you'll get nagged to activate Recall.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/microsoft-rolls-windows-recall-out-to-the-public-nearly-a-year-after-announcing-it/
In an interesting sidenote, Intel's AI chipsets are not selling well, people are really wanting the previous generation known as Raptor Lake. The AI chips are known as Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake, I think one name designates laptop chips.
Intel is having all sorts of corporate problems and it's being felt up and down the product line. They're looking at selling off divisions to hunker down and get their act together.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intels-ai-pc-chips-arent-selling-instead-last-gen-raptor-lake-booms-and-creates-a-shortage