Microsoft's Copilot can now tell you why your Windows 11 PC feels sluggish. The irony: the tool itself is a performance drag.
Microsoft is quietly testing a new Copilot feature called PC Insights, first spotted by Windows Latest, that uses live system data to answer questions like "Why is my computer so slow?" in plain English. The feature is rolling out gradually in the United States through the Copilot app, with no timeline for wider availability.
PC Insights taps into Windows APIs to read CPU, RAM, and GPU usage, storage capacity, USB device status, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi states, battery health, and BIOS information. When a user asks a question, Copilot requests permission to access the relevant data and composes a response. The feature is opt-in and operates on an ask-and-answer basis, not as a background monitor.
Microsoft positions the tool as a shortcut for users who would otherwise dig through Task Manager, Settings, or Device Manager. Example queries include "What's my current CPU usage?," "Do I have enough space for a 100GB game?," and "Is my webcam working?" The company says personal files and system information gathered through PC Insights are not stored or used to train AI models, though conversation activity may still be used for model improvement.
But there is a problem that Microsoft's support documentation does not address. Copilot for Windows ships with its own private copy of Microsoft Edge, functions as a full web app, and can consume up to 1GB of RAM while sitting idle. The very tool designed to identify what is slowing down a PC is itself consuming significant system resources.
Windows Latest testing found that Copilot regularly appears among the top memory-consuming processes in Task Manager, alongside apps like Excel. The app includes msedge.exe and all of Chromium's code, a consequence of Microsoft rebuilding Copilot as a web app after a brief period where it ran as a native WinUI application.
Windows chief Pavan Davuluri recently outlined plans to lower Windows' baseline memory footprint and improve performance consistency under load. Microsoft has also pulled back unnecessary Copilot entry points from apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, and Notepad after user complaints about bloat.
PC Insights sits at the center of that tension: a genuinely useful diagnostic feature delivered through a resource-heavy wrapper. For now, PC Insights is read-only. It identifies problems and suggests actions but cannot fix them.
Users who accept a query get three permission options: allow once, always allow, or decline. Permissions can be revoked in Copilot settings. The feature is experimental, and Microsoft warns that answers may be incomplete.
