Windows 11 стала тяжелее из-за ИИ: как Copilot раздувает установочный образ

Installation images of Windows are growing larger year after year — and, as ZDNet reports, the culprit is not accumulated system junk or useless pre-installed applications, but the built-in AI components that Microsoft is systematically packing directly into the operating system distribution.

Why is the Windows distribution gaining weight?

Microsoft has set a course toward on-device AI — features that work locally, without a constant cloud connection and without transmitting data to servers. It sounds convenient, but you have to pay for it with storage space: a whole layer of new components is being added to the installation image — ML inference models, neural processing unit (NPU) drivers, acceleration libraries, and Copilot infrastructure.

Key AI components included in Windows 11 in recent updates:

• Windows Recall — a feature that indexes everything the user sees on screen, requires local ML models and a separate snapshot storage.
• Cocreator in Paint — diffusion generative AI models running directly on the device without the cloud.
• NPU drivers and runtime — support for neural network accelerators from Intel Core Ultra, AMD Ryzen AI, and Qualcomm Snapdragon X adds an independent infrastructure layer.
• Copilot agent — additional libraries and models for managing the OS in natural language.

With the release of the Windows 11 24H2 update in late 2024, the set of Copilot+ features available out of the box on compatible devices expanded significantly — and with it, the installer image itself grew larger.

How does this affect users?

The growing image creates specific problems for three categories of users. Those who work via slow or mobile connections find that large updates now take noticeably more time and data. Owners of entry-level laptops with 128 GB or smaller storage see that after installing the system, less and less space remains for data and applications. Corporate IT administrators deploying Windows via PXE boot or USB drives need broader infrastructure and higher-capacity media.

"It's not your imagination.

Windows installation files are indeed getting bigger. They can even be called bloated," ZDNet states, having studied the growth dynamics of distributions.

The key challenge is that the built-in AI components cannot be disabled with a simple toggle: they are baked into the operating system image. Removing them without manual customization through the DISM tool is impossible. For the average user, this means AI features come bundled regardless of whether they want to use them.

The trend will only intensify. Microsoft competes with Apple Intelligence in macOS and iOS, and with Google Gemini in ChromeOS and Android — and has no plans to abandon its bet on on-device AI. This means that with each major annual update, the Windows image will only get heavier.

What this means

The AI race, which is usually discussed in the context of large models and cloud data centers, has reached the most familiar tool — the operating system. Users pay for a "smart" Windows with disk space, data traffic, and download time. As long as competition in the on-device AI segment does not subside, Windows distributions will continue to grow — the question is no longer whether this will happen, but how quickly.