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First announced last year, a new document has confirmed that Microsoft's upcoming "Ask Copilot" feature for Windows 11's Taskbar is arriving mid-2026.
A newly published document has revealed that Microsoft is planning to ship Windows 11's new Ask Copilot Taskbar feature this summer, after months of testing with Insiders. The feature, which was first announced last year, will see Copilot replace the Taskbar's search box with a dynamic chat box that users can interact with at all times when enabled.
In the document, Microsoft describes the Ask Copilot feature as bringing "Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI agents directly into the taskbar and Start menu through the new Composer experience. This means faster action, less context switching, and AI that feels like a natural part of Windows."
The new Ask Copilot search experience replaces the current Windows Taskbar search UI with a floating popup that you can use to search for local files or interact with Copilot itself. In our testing, we found that the new Ask Copilot search UI was actually more accurate at finding local files and apps compared to the current Windows Search.
This is the new Ask Copilot search experience.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
The document says that Ask Copilot is not yet generally available, but is expected to come mid-2026. This is subject to change however, so if the company decides that the feature needs more time in the oven, don't be surprised if it doesn't make an appearance until later in the year.
This new Ask Copilot search experience on the Taskbar will be entirely optional, and won't even be enabled by default, meaning Windows Search will still be the default and preferred search experience. Ask Copilot is something that's more targeted towards commercial and enterprise users, for employees that are signed up to Microsoft 365 and use Microsoft services for work.
For those who don't want to use Ask Copilot, Microsoft is also working on several Windows Search improvements designed to make search results more accurate and less reliable on web results. The company just recently began testing changes that prioritizes local file and app results over internet search results, for example.
Microsoft's Windows K2 initiative is even focused on reducing Copilot buttons and entry-points throughout the OS, with a focus on being more intentional about where Copilot and AI appear in the system. So if Ask Copilot is still shipping this year, that likely means the company believes that this feature is beneficial to end users.
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