It’s been a long road, but Microsoft has finally rolled out its much-anticipated Recall feature for Copilot Plus PCs, alongside a beefed-up AI-powered Windows search and a nifty new Click to Do tool that feels like it’s giving Google’s Circle to Search a run for its money. If you’re rocking one of those shiny new Copilot Plus PCs, now’s the day you get to play with these features—provided you’re not in the EU or a handful of other regions where they’re still ironing out some regulatory kinks. So, let’s dive into what this all means, why it’s taken so long, and whether these tools are worth the hype.

Recall

Imagine you’re trying to find that one document you were working on last month, but you can’t remember the file name or even where you saved it. All you recall is that it had a chart about quarterly sales. Normally, you’d be out of luck, sifting through folders or praying your keyword search doesn’t return 500 irrelevant results. Enter Recall, Microsoft’s bold attempt to solve this problem by giving your PC a near-photographic memory.

Recall takes snapshots of almost everything you do on your Copilot Plus PC—think webpages, documents, apps—and organizes them in a way that lets you search using vague descriptions or even visual cues. Want to find that sales chart? Just type “chart about quarterly sales,” and Recall should pull it up, no file name required. It’s like having a personal assistant who remembers every tab you’ve ever opened.

But here’s the catch: when Microsoft first teased Recall back in June 2024, it set off alarm bells among security experts. The original version was essentially a hacker’s dream, storing unencrypted screenshots of your activity in a way that could expose sensitive info like passwords or financial data. Security researcher Kevin Beaumont was among the first to call it out, warning that Recall could be a “disaster” without serious changes.

Microsoft listened. After delaying the launch twice—first from June to October, then to December—the company spent nearly a year overhauling Recall’s security. The final version, available as of April 2025, is a different beast. The database is now encrypted, sensitive data like passwords and credit card numbers is filtered out by default, and the whole thing is opt-in, meaning you have to actively choose to turn it on. “When we introduced Recall, we set out to address a common frustration: picking up where you left off,” says Navjot Virk, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows Experiences.

Beaumont, who has tested the final version, gives Microsoft credit for the effort. “They’ve made serious strides to secure Recall,” he said. But he’s not handing out gold stars just yet. The filtering for sensitive apps and websites can be spotty, sometimes missing things it should catch or acting buggy. And while Microsoft’s Recall website insists you need biometric sign-in (like facial recognition or a fingerprint) via Windows Hello to use the feature, Beaumont notes you can actually get by with a four-digit PIN, which isn’t exactly Fort Knox-level security.

Still, for those who’ve ever lost hours searching for a file or trying to retrace their digital steps, Recall could be a game-changer. Just don’t expect it to be perfect out of the gate.

AI-powered Windows search

Alongside Recall, Microsoft is giving Windows search a serious glow-up with AI smarts that make it feel less like a clunky file finder and more like a conversation with a helpful librarian. On Copilot Plus PCs, you can now use natural language queries in File Explorer, the Windows search box, or even the settings app. Forget memorizing exact file names or digging through menus for that one obscure setting. Want a photo of your dog from last summer? Just search “brown dog,” and the AI will do the heavy lifting, pulling up relevant images or documents based on your description.

This isn’t just about convenience—it’s about making your PC feel intuitive in a way Windows hasn’t always been. The AI can understand context, so if you’re looking for a presentation you gave at a conference, you might search “slides from Chicago conference” and get results even if the file is buried in a random folder. It’s the kind of thing that sounds small but could save you from daily frustrations.

The catch? You need a Copilot Plus PC to get the full experience, as these AI features lean heavily on the neural processing units (NPUs) built into Qualcomm, AMD, or Intel-powered devices. If you’re still on an older machine, you’re stuck with the same old search bar.

Click to Do

Then there’s Click to Do, a feature that feels like Microsoft peeked at Google’s homework and decided to one-up it. Activate it with a quick Windows key + left mouse click, and your screen becomes an interactive playground. Hover over text, and you can summarize it, translate it, or copy it. Hover over an image, and you can remove objects or edit it on the fly. It’s eerily similar to Google’s Circle to Search, which lets Android users circle anything on their screen to get instant info or actions.

Click to Do is slick, but it’s not fully baked yet. For now, the text-related actions (like summarizing or translating) are exclusive to Qualcomm-powered Copilot Plus PCs. If you’ve got an AMD or Intel model, you’ll have to wait a few months for those features to roll out. Still, the image-editing capabilities are available across the board, and they’re impressively seamless for quick tweaks.

Availability and limitations

All three features—Recall, AI-powered search, and Click to Do—are rolling out for Copilot Plus PCs, but there are some regional and hardware caveats. If you’re in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, or Norway, you’re out of luck for now due to privacy regulations. Microsoft says it’s working to bring Recall and Click to Do to those regions later in 2025, but no firm timeline has been shared.

Language support is broad but not universal. Recall and Click to Do work in most major languages, including English, Spanish, French, and Chinese, but check Microsoft’s documentation if you’re in a less common locale. And while the AI search improvements are available across all Copilot Plus PCs, the full Click to Do experience is still trickling out to non-Qualcomm devices.

Microsoft’s push with these features isn’t just about making your PC easier to use—it’s part of a bigger bet on AI as the future of computing. Copilot Plus PCs, with their NPUs and tight integration with Windows 11, are designed to be the proving ground for this vision. Recall, in particular, is a bold swing, trying to redefine how we interact with our digital histories. The fact that Microsoft delayed it for nearly a year to get the security right shows they’re serious about not screwing this up.

But boldness comes with risks. Recall’s privacy concerns aren’t fully resolved, and early adopters might run into bugs or inconsistencies. The AI search and Click to Do features, while impressive, are still limited to a premium tier of hardware, which could frustrate users who can’t justify upgrading. And let’s be real: Windows has a history of overpromising and underdelivering on flashy new features (cough Cortana cough).

Still, there’s something exciting about this moment. If Microsoft can iron out the kinks, Recall and its AI companions could make our PCs feel less like tools and more like partners. For now, Copilot Plus PC owners get to be the guinea pigs, testing whether this vision lives up to the hype. If you’re one of them, go opt into Recall, play with the new search, and give Click to Do a spin. Just maybe double-check that your sensitive data is staying out of those snapshots.