Microsoft has begun stripping out AI from Windows 11 but it's already being criticized for not going far enough

Date:
Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Description:
Notepad change shows a rebrand of AI tools, not a removal, and it has
skeptics worried.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Tech Radar Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Become a Member in Seconds Unlock instant access to exclusive member
features. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting
your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Join the club Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter Microsoft's drive to remove AI from Windows 11 has started The Snipping Tool and Notepad apps have seen some changes However, the Notepad tweak doesn't remove the AI features, it just rebrands them away from Copilot and that hasn't gone down well Microsoft has begun the process of removing AI from Windows 11 , which is good news on the face of it for many, but the catch is that one of the first moves made here is disappointingly minor in its nature.

Windows Latest noticed that Snipping Tool has had Copilot completely removed from it, and this is for all Windows 11 users. On top of that, there's been a change for Notepad, although this is still in testing, and it's where things get more complicated. That's because in the case of the preview version of Notepad, all that's been ditched is the Copilot icon itself. The AI tools remain in the text editor; it's just that they're now called 'writing tools' and are accompanied by a new icon, which is just a generic graphic of a pen (and isn't colored, like the Copilot button, so it is a lot more subtle). Article continues below You may like Microsoft drops controversial Windows 11 Copilot feature after backlash Microsoft rumored to be cutting back AI ambitions in bid to save Windows 11 Windows 11's Notepad gets new features just as it's clobbered by new bug

In other words, this is about ditching the Copilot branding, but not the actual AI functionality from Notepad (in testing).

As you might imagine, the reaction to this has not been favorable. As one Redditor puts it : "So it's still Copilot, just in disguise and called
writing tools."

Someone else observes : "Yeah, this feels less like removal and more like rebranding to reduce backlash."

And another Redditor laments that : "The world is no longer about reality. It's fully shifted to 'optics.'" Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Others have been, shall we say, far less diplomatic than that, aiming swear-word-laden posts at the company, scattered with the obligatory 'Microslop' digs (which are very much in fashion, of course, among the
Windows 11 cynics out there).

Here's a more restrained example of one of those comments: "They can rebrand their slop tools all they want, but I already switched to CachyOS a year
ago." (CachyOS is a nippy Linux distro, in case you were wondering).
Analysis: a half-hearted effort? (Image credit: rui vale sousa /
Shutterstock) If Microsoft's idea of stripping out AI from Windows 11
involves simply leaving the actual tools in place and just renaming them away from Copilot, that's clearly not going to be well-received. We don't know if this is the company's plan yet, but what's happened here suggests that AI removal will involve some features being ditched completely (as in Snipping Tool ) and some rebranding (as with Notepad). What to read next Microsoft promises to fix the biggest issues in Windows 11, including AI Microsoft is finally fixing Windows 11 under the hood but is it too late? AI haters be warned Windows 11's folders may get a big dose of Copilot AI

The suggestion that the anti-AI folks are already catching on to, then, is that the campaign to tone down Copilot in Windows 11 could be much more literal than we thought (dropping just the Copilot name and icon in some cases), and therefore that Microsoft isn't fully serious about this task. Hence, the comments about this being more of a marketing exercise for Microsoft than anything else.

While I concede that the decision with Notepad here looks somewhat ominous, I'm not about to fly to the conclusion that this is going to be just a PR campaign by Microsoft. After all, this Notepad tweak is still in testing, and there may yet be further changes to come.

While it seems unlikely that a wholesale removal of AI from Notepad is in the cards, given what's happened here, we can't rule it out just yet. Or, indeed, maybe Microsoft will switch things around and have the AI off by default. That'd mean the new writing tools icon wouldn't be in the top menu bar at
all, unless you went hunting for the AI features in settings and enabled
them.

For now, you can still disable the AI features in Notepad whether they're called Copilot or writing tools and that remains the option to exercise should you never use them (or outright hate AI).

However, let's face it: AI haters won't be happy until this feature is completely stripped out of Notepad (which is what many were expecting to happen). The same is true for the more diehard users of Notepad who want the text editor to be more like the streamlined effort that it was back in the day, before Microsoft started bulking (read bloating) it up with more
features . All these bits of functionality sit in the background and cumulatively add up to be potential drag factors on performance and overall responsiveness, or that's certainly the concern. The best laptops for all budgets Our top picks, based on real-world testing and comparisons

Read our full guide to the best laptops 1. Best overall: Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M4 2. Best budget: Asus Chromebook CM14 3. Best Windows 11 laptop Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch 4. Best gaming: Razer Blade 16 5. Best for pros MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro) Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/microsoft-has-begun-stripping-out- ai-from-windows-11-but-its-already-being-criticized-for-not-going-far-enough


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