The new Windows 11 internet speed test was created in an instant by an AI agent, which is both impressive and worrying
follow us
Add us as a preferred source on Google
- Windows 11 just got a revamped Internet speed test in preview
- This feature was quickly developed by using agent AI in combination with human supervision.
- Microsoft boasts that it’s about: “Going from idea to customer value faster. No AI waste.” Others, however, are more cynical.
Windows 11 just got a useful change in preview, with its built-in internet speed test revamped and the new version produced using AI (along with human supervision, I might add).
Windows Latest found that Marcus Ash, Microsoft’s vice president of Windows design and research, posted on (Diego Baca is VP of Design for Windows).
Ash tells us: “From there, our connectivity team worked with partners to bring the experience to Windows. The design and build work was driven by an AI agent workflow, with one person guiding the process in their spare time.”
Latest videos ofTechnologyRadar
The Microsoft executive further explains that this is where he sees “a lot of potential in AI” and the use of agent workflows, in terms of “going faster from idea to customer value. No AI waste. That’s the way.”
Analysis: AI, monitoring, errors and jobs
Of course, this is a controversial topic. Mention that AI is involved in coding Windows 11 and some tempers will flare online, even though we know this is happening anyway. Microsoft has made no secret of that fact.
In fact, amidst the AI hate and flames on social media, many people point out that almost all software today is developed in conjunction with large language models (LLM agents), even Linux.
As one Redditor makes clear: “News flash: every piece of software you use, except open source projects that make a statement, you should expect to have code written by AI. It’s ubiquitous, it’s everywhere.”
The key aspect here is exactly how the AI agent in question is employed.
It’s one thing for such an agent to be tasked with writing a snippet of code for a certain feature and then simply inserting it into your software or operating system as is (or perhaps after a quick look at the work). It’s another thing to have a human programmer working on a feature and using an agent to do heavy (easy but perhaps slow) work on it, and then properly verify the AI output.
Theoretically, there is nothing wrong with the latter approach, at least in terms of the robustness of the coding work. And as Microsoft’s Ash points out, this is actually speeding up development times, meaning Windows 11 users will get new features (hopefully the capabilities they want, like this improved internet speed test) much more quickly. That is exactly why almost all developers now use this technology.
However, there are problems here and they are tied to public perception of Microsoft. Do Windows 11 users trust that the company will use AI in the right way, that is, properly verified and vetted? Not really, in many cases, as there remain many doubts about the overall quality of the Windows 11 code, and rightly so, given the regularity and severity of the bugs we’ve seen (most prevalent since 2024 and that 24H2 update).
As another Redditor observes: “People don’t call Windows garbage because it’s being built with AI these days. They call it garbage because it’s being made using AI with woefully insufficient human oversight and even more woefully insufficient quality control, leading to repeated disastrous bugs reaching production and end users being treated like beta testers. Do you want people to stop calling your product junk? Stop shipping updates that destroy people’s computers or break existing features.”
The other problem here is that AI steals coding jobs from people. Agents can make things happen much faster, but as Ash points out, this revamped speed test was primarily implemented by an agent (including its design) with the software engineer “guiding the process in his spare time,” which makes it seem like a pretty casual effort on the human side of the equation.
Is it a particularly sensible approach to tout the benefits of AI (however real they may be for the ongoing development and maintenance of an operating system) in this way at a time when Microsoft has been swinging the ax with several job cuts and largely pushing staff towards voluntary redundancy? I would suggest that it is not, and the timing of this particular boost to the value of agent AI is dubious in that regard.
At least in this case, Microsoft is being upfront and transparent about what it’s doing, and we can expect much more AI acceleration in Windows 11 development in the future.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds.
The best laptops for all budgets
Post Comment