Microsoft opens Surface Laptop Ultra preorders and pushes AI agents deeper into Windows

Microsoft opened preorders for the Surface Laptop Ultra and laid out plans to run more AI directly on Windows PCs at its Windows and Surface event in San Francisco on Wednesday. CEO Satya Nadella was joined by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose company makes the RTX Spark chip inside Microsoft's new Surface hardware.

The Surface Laptop Ultra ships October 16. Preorders for the 15-inch laptop opened today, and it starts at $2,599 with an 18-core CPU, 24GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. The top configuration costs $5,899.99 with a 20-core CPU, 128GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. It runs on Nvidia's Arm-based RTX Spark chip, which supports up to 128GB of unified memory. The laptop also introduces Magnetic Connect, a magnetic charger that attaches to its right-side USB-C port while leaving the port usable for video and data.

A Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is on preorder too. The mini PC costs $5,999 and is scheduled to ship in November, according to The Verge. It pairs RTX Spark with 128GB of unified memory and is aimed at developers running large AI models locally. It comes with a developer-focused Windows 11 Pro setup that includes Visual Studio Code, Git, and WSL.

Other PC makers are building RTX Spark systems. Nvidia said RTX Spark laptops are available for preorder now and arrive October 16, with compact desktops going on sale in November. Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI, and Gigabyte are making RTX Spark machines. Nvidia says the platform pairs a Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores and a Grace CPU with up to 20 cores, and delivers up to one petaflop of FP4 AI performance. Nvidia also previewed DGX Station for Windows, a deskside AI system, without giving a release date.

Windows will lean more on local AI models. Microsoft calls its approach hybrid intelligence: apps and agents use AI models running on the PC and hand off to cloud models when needed. The company showed models including MAI Code and an Nvidia Nemotron model running locally on RTX Spark hardware.

Copilot will be able to use your files. Microsoft says Copilot on Copilot+ PCs will be able to draw on content on your PC, including files and recent activity, and take actions across Windows, with your permission. The features are expected to start rolling out in the coming months, and Microsoft did not give a firm date.

Microsoft Execution Containers are now generally available. MXC lets AI agents run in the background under operating system control, with organizations setting which files and networks they can reach. Windows connects agent activity to Microsoft Agent 365 so IT teams can set policy and monitor it. Microsoft also said Meta's Muse agent is coming to Windows as a native app, and it showed a Perplexity agent working with files on the device.

Taskbar search is getting quick actions. Microsoft demonstrated typed commands in taskbar search that change settings such as dark mode, open apps, and start a Copilot chat. A redesigned search with inline actions is already rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel.