Microsoft Wants AI And Voice Control To Be An Even Bigger Part Of Windows

On: October 16, 2025

Windows 11 has been out in its current form since 2021, but Microsoft has grand visions of transforming its operating system into an even more AI-friendly system. Starting today, Microsoft is adding AI features to Windows 11 PCs that encourage users to utilize Copilot by speaking to their computers and allowing AI to perform some basic functions for them. These updates are being rolled out alongside an ad campaign that invites people to “meet the computer you can talk to.”

“We think we’re on the cusp of the next evolution, where AI happens not just in that chatbot and gets naturally integrated into the hundreds of millions of experiences that people use every day,” Microsoft consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi told The Verge. “The vision that we have is: Let’s rewrite the entire operating system around AI, and build essentially what becomes truly the AI PC.”

The new features sound similar to the Cortana voice options on Windows 10. For example, users will be able to bring their PC out of standby by saying “Hey, Copilot!” as a command. Mehdi also shared his belief that users will embrace voice controls on a greater level than they have in the past.

Windows 11 users will have to give AI permission to take actions on their behalf before it can do so. As part of its rollout strategy, Microsoft is using Copilot Vision to scan everything on-screen and provide users with help or prompts about documents, photos, and programs. However, Copilot Actions–the AI assistant that can perform actions for a local PC–is still in the testing phase, and not ready for a full release at this time. In the meantime, Copilot is being integrated into the Windows taskbar for easier access to the voice commands.

Earlier this week, prominent game developers Hideo Kojima and Glen Schofield argued that AI tools should be embraced. A recent survey suggests that over 50% of Japanese game publishers utilize AI in some way. Outside of the industry, OpenAI’s new Sora 2 appears to have liberally borrowed Nintendo’s IP without permission. The Japanese government has formally requested that OpenAI stop Sora 2’s copyright infringement.

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Diablo 4 Season 11 Might Be Its Biggest Rework Yet

In: Gaming, News

Diablo 4 Season 11 is poised to bring huge changes to Blizzard’s ARPG, and will overhaul item progression, see the return of leaderboards, rework the Renown system, and even dramatically change how the game’s potions work. And that’s not even everything.

While noticeable changes to the core of Diablo 4 come alongside nearly every season, most notably with Season 4’s Loot Reborn, Season 11 still stands out. None of these changes were detailed in the game’s 2025 content roadmap, and Blizzard has teased for months that many of players’ biggest gripes with the game would be addressed in a coming update. Now we finally know what Blizzard has been cooking.

Masterworking and Tempering are becoming less random in Season 11.

Tempering And Masterworking Overhaul

Perhaps the biggest complaint players have had since Season 4 regards the act of Tempering and Masterworking items. In the current live version of Diablo 4, Tempering allows players to add affixes to items but with a catch.

The act of Tempering has an element of randomness, as each Tempering recipe usually contains up to three possible affixes. Which affix gets applied is random, and players often end up “bricking” an item by being unable to get their desired affix. Masterworking, too, has an element of luck, with bonus affix upgrades every few levels applied at random. Players trying to optimize their gear to the fullest often have to reset the item when the bonus affix upgrade doesn’t land on a desired roll and start the entire Masterworking process over again from scratch.

That’s all changing with Season 11. As detailed in a new blog outlined what all is coming to Diablo 4’s public test realm, Tempering will finally no longer be random, with players able to apply the affix of their choice to gear. That affix can also be changed as many times as a player likes (as long as they have the necessary resources). The catch is that gear can now only have one Tempered affix. To compensate, non-Unique items are having their base number of affixes raised from three to four.

Going hand-in-hand with the Tempering changes is an update to Masterworking. Instead of improving the value of affixes, Masterworking instead improves an item’s overall quality, up to a quality level of 20. Higher-quality items have increased base damage, armor, or resistances, and Masterworking an item has a chance to increase its quality by two to five levels.

Once an item hits Masterwork level 20, players can roll for a Capstone bonus, which upgrades a random non-greater affix on the item and turns it into a greater one. These Capstone bonuses can be re-rolled an unlimited amount of times without resetting an item’s quality, allowing players to hone in on specific affixes necessary for their build (though it will cost some upgrade currencies).

More than just changing how Tempering and Masterworking works, Blizzard has additionally added a final step for an item’s upgrade journey–Sanctification. This new system lets players use a fraction of Heaven’s power to sanctify an item. Sanctifying an item has a random chance to apply one of the following benefits:

Bonus Legendary power
Turn an affix into a Greater Affix
Add a bonus Sanctification Affix
Replace an existing affix with a Sanctification Affix
Make an item indestructible

Sanctifying an item makes the item unmodifiable. Blizzard warns that Sanctification should always be the very last upgrade made to an item.

Diablo 4 Season 11 is introducing a final step in an item’s upgrade path called Sanctification.

Healing And Defense Changes

Diablo 4 Season 11’s major rework for item progression isn’t the only big change. It’s also completely changing how defenses work, and scrapping the game’s entire existing potion system in the process. Armor and Resistances are becoming a rating system, and one with diminishing returns at higher levels. Armor will reduce all damage taken, rather than just physical, and the armor and resistance penalties associated with each Torment difficulty will be removed. A new character-stat page that aggregates all of a character’s defensive stats into one number, Toughness, will help give players a better idea of how durable they overall are.

As for healing, Blizzard is ripping out the existing potion system. Instead of needing to upgrade potions every few levels, potions in Diablo 4 Season 11 will instead always immediately heal 35% of a player’s total health. Base potion capacity is being reduced to four as a result, but potions will recharge over 30 seconds. To aid with healing, values for all life-gaining affixes like life on kill, life on hit, and life regeneration have all had their values increased.

Fortify, a unique Diablo 4 mechanic that grants additional defenses when overhealing, is being changed into what is essentially an extra life bar that’s slowly drained to heal over time. When Fortified, players will heal a percentage of their max life every second, draining the Fortified health pool.

Renown Reborn

Potions aren’t the only idea from the launch version of Diablo 4 that is being scrapped. Renown, a zone-specific reputation system that has various rewards like additional potion slots, skill points, and gold tied to it, is going away, at least for the game’s Seasonal realm. It will still exist permanently in the Eternal realm, effectively making for noticeably different versions of Diablo 4 to choose from.

On the game’s seasonal server, Renown is being replaced and combined with the game’s current Season Journey system to form a new system called Season Rank. Players will earn rewards like additional skill and paragon points, Smoldering Ashes, and cosmetics by completing various objectives and advancing their Season Rank. Altars of Lilith will grant experience and minor rewards, but will no longer grant permanent stats as they have since the game launched.

Leaderboards are finally returning in Diablo 4 Season 11.

The Tower

Leaderboards are returning to Diablo 4 after having previously been deactivated alongside the game’s Vessel of Hatred expansion. This time, however, they are taking a new form–The Tower. A new multi-floor dungeon, The Tower works similarly to The Pit, where players will need to battle through monsters and fill a meter within a 10-minute time limit.

Once enough monsters (or progress orbs that drop from them) have been slain, a random Tower boss will spawn. Defeating them concludes the dungeon and stops the timer, registering the run on the new leaderboard. There will be solo leaderboards for each class, as well as leaderboards for parties of two, three, and four. There will additionally be separate leaderboards for Hardcore characters. Blizzard said the version of The Tower and leaderboard appearing in Season 11 will be considered a beta, and that it hopes to update The Tower in future seasons.

There’s more too, with Season 11 set to add a new world boss for the first time since launch, make enemy monsters tougher, and introduce a whole new set of seasonal powers and mechanics. Testing for Diablo 4 Season 11 will begin on the game’s PTR October 21, with the season proper set to debut on December 9. Meanwhile, Diablo 4’s second expansion is slated to arrive sometime next year.