Microsoft unveils Mu, its small language model for Windows 11 settings: Here's what it does for users

Microsoft Mu

Microsoft has introduced Mu, a new AI model that can run natively on a Windows PC inside the Settings app. The tool is built to understand natural language commands and help users navigate system preferences with ease through simple voice commands. This would enable faster and more private interactions, allowing Windows users to adjust system settings such as brightness and power modes simply by asking.

In a blog post, Microsoft has revealed that its new AI model, Mu, is currently deployed entirely on-device in compatible Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs. It allows users to ask natural language questions, and with necessary permissions, the agent can take actions on its own to solve the problem posed by the user, which would then be able to interpret and manipulate hundreds of system settings.

It runs on dedicated Neural Processing Units (NPUs) found in new Copilot+ PCs, especially those powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips, with blazing fast response times under 500 milliseconds. Moreover, Microsoft has assured that Mu can maintain a conversational feel, and its local processing also means that no user data would be scanned by the company’s servers, which is a significant privacy benefit at a time when AI is often associated with cloud surveillance and constant online background activity.

Mu was trained using A100 GPUs on Azure Machine Learning, and Microsoft further improved its efficiency by pairing the model with task-specific data and fine-tuning via low-rank adaptation (LoRA) methods. The company plans to expand Mu’s capabilities with support for additional languages and deployment across AMD and Intel Copilot+ PCs as well in the future, and is currently available to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel.