I just don't think people like having something shoved down their throats. The dedicated Copilot button on keyboards and adding Copilot shortcuts all over the OS (and automatic popups/ads) was far too far.

I think OS level integrations that are opt-in, not opt-out, may even be popular. But they have to be done carefully and tastefully.

Around new years my company had to replace my windows laptop because windows update has been broken for a few months on my machine. They had a replacement windows laptop ready but I asked them to provide a MacBook instead. This is first time in my two decades of career that I specifically asked for a MacBook.

Funnily enough, there's a bug that's affecting all MacBook users in my company (does not wake after lid down overnight). Apparently the culprit is windows defender installed in the MacBooks. Corporate, you know...

So Apple Intelligence doesn't bother you?

Microsoft directors want Copilot so they can make the case to executive leadership that they're aligned with that vision. It's why even in this announcement, the admission that they've maybe taken the whole AI OS thing a bit too far is phrased positively for AI with "Integrating AI where it’s most meaningful, with craft and focus", so the skim reading exec or financial journalist can read it as "good, Windows is still integrating AI"

Or onedrive integrations and constant ‘backup your computer now’ popups which are _advertisements_ for onedrive, or Netflix, Spotify, or LinkedIn pre-installed and difficult to remove, or all of the above reinstalling during windows updates.

In fact, basically any feature added since Windows 10 is probably unwanted.

The funny thing is there's plenty of things I think to myself, it would be nice if AI could do this, but instead it's all top-down "this is what we think you should need"

No, I don't need you to summarize a two sentence email. How about I move emails to folders and you start to learn the patterns? Or which alert emails I want to ignore? Or who asked me something last week and I forgot to respond? Or which emails I should look at first after a vacation? Etc.

Yea, I've replaced Windows with Ubuntu on my pc and have just ordered an M5 Macbook Air.

Sure both have their quirks, but it's just wild how much Windows goes out of its way to be annoying. From a billion startup notifications to basic UI stuff to copilot and the list goes on.

As a long time windows user I have no regrets making the switch. If it wouldn't be for the games I would not touch windows at all.

If integrated properly, something akin to copilot generating Mac shortcuts, with close supervision, copilot could be extremely powerful on the desktop. Now that Apple has licensed Gemini, I would expect that to come soon.

Gen AI has even more power at task generation than at content generation. Imagine running Photoshop or Final Cut Pro via prompts. People seem squeamish because so far the Copilot entrypoints have been encouraging tacky text & image content generation, like Clippy. But imo that’s the weakest and most sensitive application.

V1 is often not very good, for any new application.

Clawbots show there's big benefit to OS level AI. The current/old form of Copilot wasn't right, but someone will figure it out.

Integrating ~Spyglass~ Internet Explorer into the OS was a dumb stunt, very costly in terms of security. This will be worse.

I don't think macOS will liberate you from OS-level integration with AI. If you really cannot tolerate built-in AI, Linux and the BSDs are your only choice.