Microsoft will add a dedicated Copilot button on future keyboards

Microsoft wants 2024 to be the "year of the AI PC," and to that end, the company today announced a new key for Copilot — that is, a physical key that will soon join the Windows key, along with its friends the Control key, Alt, and that Insert key you've never purposefully used. According to the graphic Microsoft provided, the new Copilot key will replace the right Control key on a regular PC keyboard, where it will sit between the Alt and left arrow keys.

“The introduction of the Copilot key marks the first significant change to the Windows PC keyboard in nearly three decades,” Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president & consumer chief marketing officer, writes in today’s announcement. “We believe it will empower people to participate in the AI transformation more easily. The Copilot key joins the Windows key as a core part of the PC keyboard and when pressed, the new key will invoke the Copilot in Windows experience to make it seamless to engage Copilot in your day to day.”

The Copilot key will open Windows Search in locations where Copilot is not accessible. The first keyboards featuring the new key will be available at this year's CES in Las Vegas, and will most likely begin arriving in late February.

If you needed any more proof that Microsoft is all in on the AI hype train, the fact that it is now introducing a new button for the first time since the Windows logo key debuted on a Microsoft Natural Keyboard in 1994 is all you need to know.

Microsoft and its chip partners, such as AMD and Intel, believe that much of the AI inference will soon be offloaded onto local hardware, which will "unlock new AI experiences on the Windows PC." Microsoft, never one for exaggeration, views "this as another transformative moment in our journey with Windows, where Copilot will be the entry point into the world of AI on the PC."

Fortunately, your old keyboards will continue to operate normally — and if your keyboard supports it, you may even be able to remap your right Control key to act as the Copilot key. You may, of course, disregard the entire thing.