Microsoft’s new slide shows where upcoming Ryzen AI 500 and Intel Nova Lake chips fit into Windows. Leaker HXL posted the image on Tuesday, sorting PCs into four AI tiers based on memory. These future chips land in the mainstream Copilot+ class, with a rough release window of 2027.

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Forward-looking: Neither AMD nor Intel has formally announced its next wave of laptop chips. Microsoft, however, already seems to have a spot picked out for them. A slide that appears to come from the company sorts Windows PCs into four AI tiers by memory. Ryzen AI 500 and Core Ultra Series 4 both land in its mainstream Copilot+ class.

Known leaker HXL posted the slide on X on Tuesday. Titled "Windows is the home for hybrid intelligence," it lines PCs up along a memory scale that runs from 8GB to beyond 128GB. Chip names only appear underneath, almost like footnotes.

Those footnotes still carry the biggest news, though. Microsoft splits its Copilot+ tier into three bands, from quick local questions at 16GB to delegated tasks at 32GB and long-running jobs at 64GB. Core Ultra Series 3 and 4 sit in the first two, right next to Ryzen AI 400 and 500.

As for timing, a small "CY26-27" label beside the chip list offers a rough window. That lines up with leaks pegging Core Ultra Series 4 as Intel's Nova Lake and Ryzen AI 500 as AMD's Zen 6-based Medusa Point, both reportedly due in 2027.

Spend more on memory, and the chip list changes completely. At 64GB, the mainstream parts disappear in favor of Ryzen AI Max+ 400, Nvidia's RTX Spark and an unnamed "Core Ultra Next" from Intel. The same trio carries over into the 128GB Builder PC tier, which is meant for building and serving models locally.

Past that sits a Supercomputer tier for desk-side machines running frontier models - a sign of how far Microsoft wants Windows to stretch.

An 8GB laptop, meanwhile, gets stuck in a plain "Windows PC" tier limited to local context and basic actions, whatever chip it runs. That includes Microsoft's own 8GB Surface models from June.

Microsoft and Qualcomm said in September that they'd stopped calling new devices Copilot+ PCs. On this slide, though, the label still anchors the biggest tier.

None of this is confirmed yet. The slide's wording does match the hybrid intelligence push Microsoft kicked off last month with the RTX Spark-powered Surface Laptop Ultra. On Copilot+ PCs, that push means Copilot will eventually read local files, take actions and tap on-device models.

If anything, the slide is a reminder to check the RAM before the chip. A fast NPU alone won't unlock Copilot+ features without at least 16GB of memory backing it up. And that extra memory has only gotten pricier this year as AI data centers soak up supply.