MS Recall – Microsoft’s New AI Feature

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MS Recall

MS has introduced a new AI feature called “Recall” to Windows 11 which is designed to enhance your experience by acting as a virtual time machine. It will allow users to quickly find anything they have seen on a computer in the past. This blog article will show how it works and why we think it is useful.

What is Recall?

Recall is an AI-powered tool built into Microsoft’s latest Copilot+ on Windows 11 PCs. It allows you to search using natural language for past activities on your computer. For example, if you need to to find a sales analysis document you worked on last week, all you have to say is, “Take me back to the sales analysis I was working on last Thursday”. Recall will instantly locate and display that document for you.

How Can Recall Help You?

Effortless Retrieval Using Natural Language
Recall allows you to search for anything you have done or seen on your PC by describing it in your own words. This feature is convenient when you remember what you were looking at but not where it is saved. Simply describe the content, and Recall will find it for you. For instance, you might say, “Show me the article I was reading about marketing trends,” and Recall will find it and bring it up.

Browsing Your Past Activities
Recall includes a timeline interface that allows you to scroll through snapshots of your past activities. This visual timeline shows the documents, applications and websites you have used, thus making it easy to find and jump back to specific content. It is like having a time machine for your digital activities.

This is particularly useful when you remember the order of your past activities, such as remembering that you worked on the Excel spreadsheet sometime before you watched some YouTube videos.

How Recall Works

Recall takes regular snapshots of your screen and uses AI to understand what you were viewing at different times. This means it can accurately retrieve past activities based on visual content, whether it is a webpage, spreadsheet or a document.

Asking Recall to go back to the “shoe website with a pink background” may be enough to recall that specific website.

Addressing Privacy Concerns

Local Data Processing
Privacy is going to be an major concern with such such a powerful tool. To help address concerns Microsoft has designed Recall to process all data locally on your device. This means your information never leaves your computer, this keeps your data private and reduces the risk of cloud-based data breaches exploiting your activities.

Full Control Over Your Data

You have complete control over what Recall can access and record. You can:

    • completely disable the Recall service.
    • pause, stop or delete captured content at anytime.
    • filter out specific applications or websites to prevent Recall from logging those activities.

These controls allow you to manage your usage and data collection according to your preferences.

Practical Uses at Home and in Business

Business Environment
For businesses, Recall is a valuable tool for increasing productivity. It can help keep track of project details, client communications and important documents. Whether you need to recall a client emails, research material or write a financial report, Recall simplifies the process, saving you time and effort.

Home Environment
At home, Recall can help you keep track of personal projects, schoolwork or online research. If you are trying to find a recipe you viewed last week or a homework assignment from a few days ago, Recall makes it easy to retrieve these items without hassle.

System Requirements

Recall has the following minimum system requirements:

  • A Copilot+ PC
  • 16 GB RAM
  • 8 logical processors
  • 256 GB storage capacity
    • To enable Recall, you need at least 50 GB of space free
    • Snapshot capture automatically pauses once the device has less than 25 GB of disk space

Disabling the Feature

For users and organisations that are not ready to use Recall, it can be disabled. This can be done by disabling using the Turn off saving snapshots for Windows policy. If snapshots were previously saved on a device, they will be deleted when this policy is enabled. The following group  policy allows you to disable analysis of user content:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > WindowsAI > Turn off saving snapshots for Windows

Where To From Here?

In summary, Microsoft’s Recall feature integrates advanced AI capabilities into Windows 11, providing strong privacy protection while enhancing the user experience. Whether for home or business use, Recall offers a powerful way to manage and retrieve your digital activities.

If you need help enabling / disabling or using Recall please contact us.