Microsoft says AI feature that captures screenshots on new PCs will be off by default after backlash

Microsoft said an artificial intelligence feature on new PCs that captures screenshots and enables searching of user activity will be off by default after security researchers determined that attackers could access the underlying data.

The Recall feature was one of the main capabilities Microsoft showed during a press briefing last month for forthcoming Copilot+ PCs with AI computing power onboard.

"If you don't proactively choose to turn it on, it will be off by default," Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft's head of Windows and Surface devices, wrote in a blog post Friday.

Microsoft has been trying to balance competing interests of late as it moves to incorporate new generative AI tools into its products and to keep up with the competition. While the market is evolving rapidly, user privacy and security are under a microscope. A U.S. government review board recently criticized Microsoft's handling of China's breach of U.S. government officials' email accounts.

Microsoft has already added the Copilot conversational chatbot into Windows in a way that resembles OpenAI's popular ChatGPT. Both ChatGPT and Copilot rely on servers in the cloud to perform necessary computations and then send back responses to PCs. Recall is different in that it keeps data on users' computers and doesn't need to access supplemental computing power over the internet.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, directed employees to put security first and announced changes to its security practices following the U.S. government report.

After Microsoft announced Recall, which can search through a log of previous actions on PCs, industry experts began questioning the potential for hackers to retrieve users' information.

Security practitioners released software called Total