Microsoft has announced that it will be making its controversial Recall AI feature available to Windows testers in October. The software giant had initially planned to release Recall on its Copilot Plus PC in June but was forced to delay the feature after security concerns emerged.
At the time of the June 13 delay, Microsoft had promised that the feature to take screenshots of almost anything on a PC would be available to Windows Insiders in the “coming weeks,” but it's now expected to take several months. “In keeping with our commitment to providing our customers with a reliable and secure Recall (preview) experience on Copilot Plus PC, we're sharing an update that Recall will be available to Windows Insiders starting in October,” Pavan Davuluri, head of Windows and Surface, said in an updated blog post.
This feature uses local AI models built into Windows 11 to take screenshots of almost everything you see or do on your computer, making it searchable and retrievalable for what you saw. It also lets you scroll through all these snapshots using an explorable timeline to revisit what you did on any given day.
Recall timeline feature. GIF: Microsoft
While Microsoft has always maintained that Recall is secure, local, and private on your device, security researchers discovered that the database was not encrypted, potentially allowing malware to access the Recall feature. Microsoft is currently working on major changes to Recall, including making the AI-powered feature an opt-in experience instead of the default, encrypting the database, and authenticating with Windows Hello.
Davulli didn't explain why the recall was delayed further, but said, “Security remains our top priority, and we plan to publish a detailed blog when the recall becomes available to Windows Insiders in October.” Perhaps Microsoft simply needs more time to fully test the security changes in the recall.
However, this could mean that the full release of Recall won't happen this year. Microsoft typically tests Windows features in its Insider program for weeks or months before releasing them more broadly. That timing could depend on when Microsoft is able to release a test version of Recall in October.
