Windows And Surface Event October 2026: Live Updates From Microsoft's Presentation

Greetings, everyone! Welcome to the liveblog for the upcoming Windows and Surface event! We haven't liveblogged a Microsoft event yet, but given all the buzz surrounding Surface's first event in two years, we wanted to give readers all the latest news pouring from this event. 

Things are expected to kick-off at 12:45 PM, and already YouTube commenters are excited. 

Excited to join Jacob Siegal as we get to see what's new from Microsoft. So far, plenty of commenters are hoping the company announces Windows 12, but we're not getting our hopes up. 

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing if the Surface Laptop Ultra will see a price announcement.

Yeah, all indications are that a true successor to Windows 11 isn't coming any time soon, though we should see plenty of updates for Windows 11 over the course of the event.

Hopefully we'll see some Windows 11 updates, for sure. It's also going to be interesting to see how Microsoft will attempt to sell the public on agentic AI, especially with the mixed reception concerning Copilot+ PCs.

Although we don't "officially" know much about what's in store for the event, Microsoft has made it clear that Nvidia will play a major role, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang set to take the stage today.

Yes, we'll be sure to here the RTX Spark get name dropped at some point. Interestingly, despite boasting 6,144 Blackwell GPU cores, the Spark still manages to draw "up to" 80W of power. 

I'll be curious to see how often we even hear the words "Copilot Plus" uttered today, given Microsoft has seemingly already axed the branding.

Microsoft getting users hyped with some atmospheric music as we wait. 

Well before the event, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Brett Ostrum stated about the new Surface: "A machine like this should not sit still. It should be pushed. Taken to the edge. Used to make real what others call impossible. It belongs in the hands of world makers." Hopefully today's announcement can live up to these words. 

I'm also looking forward to seeing what use cases Microsoft will present to the public concerning agentic AI and the latest Surface laptop. 

Just a note that we're still working out some kinks in our liveblogging system, so you might have to refresh this page occasionally for the latest updates.

Five more minutes until the event goes live!

For sure, Nick, that's what I'm most curious about as well. Yes, AI is improving and getting more popular by the day, but the number of people who pay for an AI subscription service is still extremely low. Marketing toward an audience that wants to run local AI models on their machines seems like an odd gambit when so many people just want a reliable laptop.

Indeed. A lot of coverage has been comparing the new Surface Laptop to the MacBook Pro. Sure, both have impressive specs, but to me, the use cases seem so vastly different. Microsoft also needs to address price. . .

But of course, there are still plenty of perks to switching to a Microsoft Surface Laptop.

Get ready!

Over 11,500 users are watching the YouTube live stream, and many comments are ready to see what's next for the company. 

Three minutes past 1:00 and folks are still chomping at the bit for the event to launch. 

It's starting!

Satya Nadella has taken the stage. 

Nadella reminiscing on past events. 

Three core pillars for building a frontier ecosystem:

• Trust
• Intelligence
• AI in the flow of human ambition

"There's no way to build any ecosystem without trust."

Diving directly into artificial intelligence. 

Agent 365, Microsoft IQ, and Copilot being built "into the core" of Windows. 

Executive Vice President of Windows + Devices Pavan Davuluri has now taken the stage. 

"We need a new set of principles in [Windows]."

Microsoft Execution Containers is now moving to Generally Available

Windows is bringing "enterprise manageability" to Microsoft 365

Divya Venkataramu now providing examples of agent security. 

"Seperating agent activity from user activity." 

Microsoft Defender will flag malicious prompts.

Agents can be restricted without blocking the user. 

With as concerned as many people (understandably) are about allowing AI agents to effectively take control of their devices, I think this is a smart demo to start with, showing how agent access can be controlled and regulated.

Organizations will be able to look at what agents are running while also monitoring "risky behavior."

Going back to Pavan now. 

Discussing Hybrid intelligence now. 

GitHub's HydraFusion will now support Windows AI models running locally. 

MAI-Code-1.1-Flash's footprint has been reduced by 80%.

Nvidia's first name-drop for the Nemotron AI model, which will be running on the RTX Spark. 

DeepSeek V4 Flash will be able to run locally within 60GB of memory. 

llama.cpp is arriving to Windows ML

Kayla Cinnamon now showing examples of cloud and local models. 

Performing "basic code cleanup" within GitHub

AI will decide if Cloud or Local can perform better. 

Canvas – Custom UI that let's Agents and Users work together. 

Issue triages being performed automatically and locally. 

Pavan has returned. HydraFusion coming October 15. 

"New Windows Search experience."

Coming this Fall, users can take "1,000 of quick actions" directly from the search bar. 

These quick actions from the search bar on Windows 11 have my ears perked up. There are so many silly inefficiencies throughout Windows, and this solves one of the biggest.

Take screenshots or arrange windows from the taskbar. Even send texts. 

Connect to the Copilot app from Search, naturally. 

Jacob Andreou now showing more examples. 

Copilot can now access local context (all of your files). 

Copilot will also be able to take direct action (with permission). 

It appears as though you can deactivate Hybrid Intelligence altogether, which is great to see for those who don't need Copilot to access their data and documents.

Copilot will determine to use local models or cloud models. 

Copilot now has a new homepage, will also bring collaboration with Office. 

You can now built native Windows apps from a Copilot prompt. 

MXC Local Sandbox support. "Write and run code on your local machine."

Autopilot is getting Hybrid Intelligence. 

Example showing Copilot searching for tax files across a user's PC. 

With permission, Copilot can move and rename files. Nothing is going to the cloud, as local agents handle this part of the process. 

Copilot can even write the email to your accountant, while sending the files collectively in a .Zip file. 

"Every single step, you're in full control." 

Features will be arriving "over the next couple months." 

Microsoft now showing how Perplexity's "portable computer on Windows" can help photographers build their own galleries locally on a PC. 

Meta's personal AI agent Muse is also arriving natively on Windows. 

Windows is now announcing a new "Get Started" feature that will help users setup popular agents. No terminal or "complicated" configurations. 

Hey, they did say "Copilot+ PCs" out loud!

Copilot+ PCs!

Surface Laptop Ultra trailer! 

Extreme music for extreme workloads! 

Quite a flashy intro for the Surface Laptop Ultra.

"An absolute game changer." 

Microsoft says you can preorder now at microsoft.com/ultra, but I'm not seeing availability just yet.

Mastering a film with DaVinci Resolve while running an AI developer workload while also playing "Gears of War." 

Editing a video while gaming on a laptop is indeed wild. "Call of Duty" coming to RTX Spark 2027.

Up to 1 petaflop of AI compute. 

2.5x thermal capacity compared to other Surface Laptops.

PixelSense touchscreen display — most ports on a surface laptop. 

Magnetic connect — world's first magnetic USB-C PC charging. Similar to MagSafe on MacBooks. 

Short video showing an example workflow on the Surface. 

Building renderings in Blender while also using a local AI agent. 

M5 MacBook Pro comparisons. 

We finally got a full breakdown of the specifications and features of Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra:

• Designed around Nvidia's new RTX Spark "superchip"
• Up to 128GB of unified memory
• Up to 1 petaflop FP4 AI performance
• 2.5x the thermal capacity of existing Surface Laptops
• Retains 99% of its power while running on battery
• The laptop itself is under 18mm thin and under 4.5lbs
• 15-inch PixelSense ultra touchscreen display, which has the brightest peak HDR of any laptop
• Most ports ever on a Surface Laptop, including the world's first ever built-in magnetic USB-C charger

Talking about Surface RTX Spark Dev Box — shipping with Project Zenith. 

Surface Laptop Ultra starting at $2,599! Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is also available for preorder starting today for $5,999.

Showing several laptop models now. 

DGX Station for Windows supercomputer! 

Run "trillions of parameter class models" from a desktop. 

Two new desktops arriving later this year. 

Short commercial break. 

Sriram Krishnan, Jensen Huang, and Satya Nadella now take the stage. 

Krishnan now asking Huang his favorite memory working at Microsoft — Huang recalls seeing a PC in 1992. 

Small sound issues with Huang. 

In addition to the Surface Laptop Ultra, Microsoft showed off a number of other laptops that will ship with RTX Spark very soon:

• Lenovo Yoga 9n 2-in-1
• Asus ProArt P14
• Dell XPS 16
• MSI Prestige N16
• HP OmniBook Ultra 16

All of these laptops are available for preorder today and will begin shipping on Friday, October 16.

Still discussing the early relationship between Nvidia and Microsoft. 

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sit down for a chat.

"How do we make the perfect PC?" — Huang

Satya now discussing coding agents running on desktop. 

"We needed to make the desktop the most secure place for agents to execute." 

"Containment needs to be done at every level." 

Now moving on to another discussion about Hybrid Intelligence. 

YouTube comments getting restless during the discussion. . . 

Users should expect Hybrid Intelligence to be "everywhere and pervasive." 

AI models are getting better at tool-use. 

One amusing YouTube comment: "I don't care about Skynet just Fix Windows!!!" 

"We reinvented the personal computer completely" — Huang. 

The Surface Laptop Ultra is the only computer that can run OpenGL, DirectX, and "every single Coda application correctly natively."

Huang claims all software developers will eventually be AI developers.

"Trust starts with 'Hey, are these agents contained?'" 

One YouTube user notes the Surface Laptop Ultra was presented with Windows 11 (sorry Windows 12 truthers).

Discussion between the three is now concluding. "We have reinvented the computer as we know it." – Huang

"Windows has been with me 34 years, looks like it'll be with me for 34 more." — Huang

"We're building the OS for Hybrid Intelligence." 

Relatively short and sweet, all things considered, as these events can sometimes get a bit long in the tooth.

Event has now concluded.

Very surprised to see the price tag on the Surface Laptop Ultra, may actually compete rather well with the MacBook Pro at that starting price. 

Microsoft 100% still going all-in for artificial intelligence. 

That starting price for the Surface Laptop Ultra was definitively the highlight for any casual viewers who aren't going to get into the weeds of AI.

While the event itself didn't seem to interested in appealing to a wide audience, it's nice to see that Microsoft is well aware that the general public has trust issues with Hybrid Intelligence (and AI in general). 

As an old-school tech nerd, it was also super impressive seeing a laptop run several memory-hogging apps at once. 

Agreed — Microsoft is never going to try to top Apple when it comes to fireworks at its live events, but for the relatively casual viewers that did tune in, it's nice to see the focus on security and privacy (especially with some of the recent incidents revolving around AI).

It definitely would have been nice if Microsoft spent a bit more time on the hardware rather than the interview. 

While that conversation was interesting, it felt like it could have been a pre-recorded YouTube video and the event could have been a nice, tight 45-minute affair. But Microsoft doesn't reach out to us when it plans these events, sadly.

Maybe after this event they'll take a couple of notes from us. Definitely interested in seeing more of the laptop options (I believe I briefly saw a 2-in-1 that looks promising). 

Waiting patiently for the preorder links to go live for the Surface Laptop Ultra and those third-party options, but both links are dead at the moment:

• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-laptop-ultra
• https://marketplace.nvidia.com/en-us/products/rtx-spark/

It was also super surprising hearing Microsoft talk about Copilot+.

Yeah, wasn't a major talking point, but it's clear the company isn't quite ready to bury the Copilot+ PC branding completely.

It's also interesting seeing them double-down on AI accessing user files, especially after the controversial rollout of Recall. 

That just feels like an inevitability no major technology company can (or wants to) avoid at this point. In order for AI to continue growing, it needs to become an inseparable part of your life.

Yes, the "Get Started" feature just announced certainly had some "please, please, PLEASE use AI" vibes. 

That's the direction they're all moving!

That will do it for BGR's live coverage of the Windows and Surface event. Thanks for tuning in! And just in time, it looks like the Surface Laptop Ultra is now available for preorder on Microsoft's website. It's available in Platinum and Nightfall colorways, starting at $2,599.99 for the 5120-core GPU/18-core CPU model and $3,699.99 for the 6144-core GPU/20-core CPU model.