Microsoft has started testing a feature that lets the Windows 11 Copilot app look at what is actually inside and running on your PC. Called PC insights, it began rolling out in testing on 13 July 2026, US only for now, and it turns Copilot into something you can ask about your own machine in plain language. It is a genuinely useful idea, and it is also a small, clear example of a bigger question: how much standing access do you want to give an AI assistant to your device?
What PC insights actually does
According to reporting from TechRadar, Windows Latest and others, PC insights lets you ask Copilot conversational questions about your Windows PC and get answers based on the device's current state, instead of digging through Settings yourself. You can ask things like how much RAM you have, how much storage space is left, what your GPU is, how busy your processor is, whether an antivirus is running, or how healthy your laptop battery is.
The neat part is the follow-up. In one example from the coverage, you ask how much free storage you have, Copilot answers 87 GB, and you then ask whether you can install GTA V. Copilot searches the web, finds the game needs more than 100 GB, works out that you are about 13 GB short, and suggests cleaning up files. It is troubleshooting and system-status lookup rolled into a chat.
How it works, and the permission model
Under the hood, the Copilot app connects to Windows APIs to read your system's state. Crucially, it is permission-based and opt-in. Copilot asks before it accesses your hardware details, and you get a choice: allow it once for that session only, or select "always allow" to grant ongoing access. It is an experimental feature you have to turn on, and at launch it is limited to the US.
The honest privacy read
It is worth being measured here rather than alarmist. This is opt-in, permission-gated, and the data in question - how much RAM or storage you have - is not the most sensitive information on your machine. The design, with a one-time option, is reasonable.
That said, two things are worth keeping in mind. First, the "always allow" choice hands an AI assistant standing access to your device's state, and it is the kind of permission people grant once and forget. If you only need it occasionally, the one-time option is the more conservative habit. Second, answering some questions means Copilot searches the web (as in the GTA V example), so a query about your machine can turn into an outbound request - useful, but a reminder that "ask Copilot about my PC" is not always a purely local operation. There is also a mild irony worth noting: Windows Latest reported that the Copilot app itself can use around 1 GB of RAM, so the tool that tells you what is slowing down your PC is not free of overhead.
The broader point is the direction of travel. AI assistants are steadily gaining deeper, more permanent hooks into the operating system. None of this single feature is alarming; the habit worth building is simply to notice what you are granting, prefer one-time access when it is enough, and know that convenience and access move together.
Bottom line
PC insights is a legitimately handy way to check and troubleshoot your PC by just asking, and its opt-in, permission-based design is the right shape. Treat the "always allow" option as a real decision rather than a reflex: grant standing device access only if you genuinely want it, and lean on one-time permission when you are just answering a quick question. It is a useful feature and a good moment to be deliberate about how much of your machine your AI assistant gets to see.
