Microsoft really wants you to update to Windows 11 in 2025

• Microsoft calls 2025 ‘the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh’
• Windows 10 EOS will push 80% of businesses to buy new devices
• Microsoft reckons its Copilot+ PCs are faster than the current-generation MacBook Air

Microsoft has decided CES 2025 is the perfect opportunity to once again plug Windows 11, as adoption figures continue to underwhelm, even as the official Windows 10 end of life looms large.

In a company blog post, Microsoft Executive Vice President and Consumer Chief Marketing Officer Yusuf Mehdi declared 2025, “the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh”

In a bid to attract more users to Windows 11, Mehdi highlighted Microsoft’s latest artificial intelligence improvements, including Copilot+ PCs and the new Copilot button that features on many of the latest models.

Microsoft is still struggling with Windows 11 adoption

“Building on Windows 11, our most secure version of Windows, we introduced a new category of PCs – the Copilot+ PC,” Mehdi wrote.

Figures quoted in a separate post by Microsoft claim the top Copilot+ PCs are up to 58% faster than the MacBook Air M3, with up to 47% faster AI performance than the same Apple laptop. Comparing its latest hardware to previous iterations, the company also stated that Copilot+ PCs are up to 5x faster than the most popular five-year-old Windows PCs still in use today.

Following a decade of updates and support, Windows 10 end of service has been confirmed for October 14, 2025, but despite being more than three years old, Windows 11 is still struggling to gain the same level of traction.

As 2024 drew to a close, Windows 10 maintained a nearly two-thirds market share, at 63%. The remaining third was given to Windows 11 (34%), with Windows 7 barely accounting for 2.5%.

Microsoft is hopeful, though, with IDC research suggesting that 80% of businesses could be refreshing their PC portfolios by the end of 2025 and 70% of consumers doing so in the next two years.

Canalys research is also positive, with AI PCs accounting for 20% of the market in Q3 2024. More than half (53%) were Windows PCs, such as Copilot+ models. However, the research firm polled channel partners in November 2024 and found that one in three (31%) do not plan to sell Copilot+ PCs in 2025.

“We believe that Windows 11 is available at a time when the world needs it most – providing advanced AI capabilities and modern security benefits that customers expect in 2025 and beyond,” Mehdi concluded.

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