Microsoft has overnight rolled out a slew of new products ranging from Surface laptops to new Paint and snipping tools to new AI capabilities coming to Windows.

The star of the announcements was a brand-new Surface Laptop 2 that is set to retail in Australia from $3,519.

Similar to its predecessor, including the pull-forward 14.4-inch display the new model is being described as the most powerful yet from Microsoft.

Powered by Intel’s 13th Generation chips — specifically the i7 H class, it also has an Nvidia RTX 4050 or optional RTX 4060 GPU inside.

Able to be configured with up to 2TB of storage and 64 gigs of RAM the new Microsoft offering also has an Intel Neural Processing Unit built in which is the first Intel NPU in a Windows computer.

The Studio 2 has two USB-C ports, one USB-A port, a microSD card reader, and the Surface Slim Pen 2.

Management is via a new customisable haptic touchpad that Microsoft calls “the most inclusive touchpad on any laptop.”

At the event Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella claimed that the tech industry as a whole is changing due to AI developments which is also changing the look and capability of operating systems, search and how people will work in the future.

Nadella quoted Douglas Engelbart, talking about how AI is augmenting human ability and giving us more capabilities.

He revealed that Microsoft’s Copilot, the US Companies new AI-powered assistant that was announced earlier this year, is getting fully integrated into Windows.

Described as a side panel Copilot will users to bring up practically any part of Windows 11, even in the Edge browser.

Its purpose is to help with mundane everyday tasks.

For example, you can copy and paste text into a long email and Copilot will neatly organize all the information in a way that’s more easily digestible.

You can snip an image and Copilot will automatically recognize the action, and then ask if you want it to analyse the photo.

Once it has, it will give you options for what you can do with the image next.

You can use Copilot to find flight information on your phone for an upcoming trip, compose texts based on context, and many other search- and productivity-related tasks.

It’ll be accessible via the Windows desktop as a stand-alone app, but also within Microsoft 365 and in Microsoft Edge. The new feature will begin to roll out as part of the next Windows 11 update, which will be released on September 26.

Microsoft also confirmed that the next major update to Windows 11, 23H2, is coming on September 26 when you will get a lot of AI-driven updates.

Among the new capabilities will be background blur in Photos, the ability to use layers in Paint, and a co-creator for AI in Paint that introduces generative AI with text prompts that turn into images.

The Windows Photos app is receiving updates as well, including features like automatically finding the background in the photo and then letting you remove it with a single click, the upgrade is seen as a major threat to Adobe.

Microsoft has also improved search across OneDrive accounts, now you can search based on the content of a photo or the location where it was taken.

The Snipping Tool is also set to be upgraded.

Shortly you will be able to extract specific content from an image or redact certain text if you want to protect sensitive data.

You can now also capture audio due to new to microphone support, which should make it easier to create videos based on screen recordings.

Even the Notepad app is being upgraded with users able to close the app at any time without losing content.

It will auto-save from now on and automatically restore open tabs, as well as any unsaved content.

And just after we have got use to the last lot of Outlook there is more changes coming.

A new version of Outlook for Windows that helps you coordinate your email accounts across various providers, such as Gmail, iCloud, and more, into a single app.

The use of AI tools will make writing emails easier, and you’ll be able to attach documents and photos directly from OneDrive.

In all, there are over 150 new features with some asking why not a new Windows 12.