The Notepad that knew too much: Humble text editor gets unnecessary AI infusion (www.theregister.com)

Microsoft is slipping LLM-powered features into the most mundane corners of Windows: Notepad on Windows Insiders now offers right‑click AI actions — Summarize, Write and Rewrite — that can run on-device if you have a Copilot+ PC, bypassing the usual cloud subscription. Non‑Copilot+ users can still access the functionality but will need a Copilot subscription. The rollout joins other recent UI/utility AI tweaks (Paint project files and opacity, Snipping Tool quick markup) and can be toggled off in Notepad’s settings. For the AI/ML community this signals two things: a push toward on‑device inference and a creeping hardware‑centric product strategy. Enabling local models on Copilot+ machines reduces latency and cloud dependency and offers potential privacy benefits, but it also creates a de facto market for AI‑capable hardware — despite slow enterprise uptake. Technical implications include decisions around model size, quantization and runtime stack to fit constrained PCs, plus maintenance and update paths for embedded models. Practically, many will view the move as feature bloat on a once‑minimal editor, raising UX and security questions even as it normalizes ubiquitous, local inference.