Microsoft is getting ready to fully unveil its vision for “AI PCs” next month at an event in Seattle. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that Microsoft is confident that a round of new Arm-powered Windows laptops will beat Apple’s M3-powered MacBook Air both in CPU performance and AI-accelerated tasks.

After years of failed promises from Qualcomm, Microsoft believes the upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processors will finally offer the performance it has been looking for to push Windows on Arm much more aggressively. Microsoft is now betting big on Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processors, which will ship in a variety of Windows laptops this year and Microsoft’s latest consumer-focused Surface hardware.

Microsoft is so confident in these new Qualcomm chips that it’s planning a number of demos that will show how these processors will be faster than an M3 MacBook Air for CPU tasks, AI acceleration, and even app emulation. Microsoft claims, in internal documents seen by The Verge, that these new Windows AI PCs will have “faster app emulation than Rosetta 2” — the application compatibility layer that Apple uses on its Apple Silicon Macs to translate apps compiled for 64-bit Intel processors to Apple’s own processors.

App emulation has been a big problem for Windows on Arm over the past decade, but Microsoft did deliver x64 app emulation for Windows 11 more than two years ago. This helps ensure apps can run on Windows on Arm devices when there isn’t a native ARM64 version. Native Arm apps are key for improved performance on upcoming Windows on Arm laptops, and Google has just recently released its own ARM64 version of Chrome ready for these upcoming devices.

I’m also told that Microsoft is planning to ship consumer models of its upcoming Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processors inside instead of Intel’s Core Ultra chips. Microsoft has already announced business-focused versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 that ship with Intel Core Ultra processors, but the Arm models will be marketed toward consumers instead.

Microsoft describes devices running Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processors as “next-gen AI Copilot PCs” internally, meant to differentiate them from existing PCs that run on AMD’s latest chips or even Intel’s Core Ultra processors. This new class of PCs will get access to new AI-powered Windows features first, including an AI Explorer app that lets you “retrieve anything you’ve ever seen or done on your device.”

AI Explorer is designed to work as a timeline you can summon on your PC. Windows Central first reported details on AI Explorer last month, and it sounds much like the Timeline feature in Windows 10 that Microsoft eventually removed. While Timeline relied on app developers to work, this time around, AI Explorer utilizes a Neural Processing Unit chip on devices to scan through a timeline of events. It will work with any Windows apps, allowing users to recall what they were previously working on.

I’m told Microsoft is also looking to improve video streaming on Arm-powered Windows devices with a new AI-powered feature that will ship on these “next-gen” AI PCs. These PCs will also include access to the Windows Studio Effects for background blur and more, alongside the ability to create images with AI models for free and options to allow Copilot to access the context of your PC to improve prompts and answers.

Qualcomm is also confident in its new processors, offering hands-on opportunities to the media recently with the Snapdragon X Elite chips. Qualcomm has shown benchmarks that beat Apple’s M2 processor in many areas and Intel’s latest Core Ultra 7 chips. Qualcomm also claims that most Windows games should “just work” on its upcoming Arm laptops, so we could eventually see some gaming laptops powered by Arm processors.

Microsoft’s big AI PC reveal will take place on May 20th, just a day before the company’s annual Build developers conference. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will talk about the company’s “AI vision across hardware and software,” that will set the stage for its latest Windows on Arm push and investment in AI features for Windows 11.

Sources tell me that Microsoft’s vision includes the idea of a “Copilot for every person” slogan, meant to hearken back to Microsoft’s decades-old “PC in every home” vision for Windows. This is a big push for AI in Windows inside Microsoft, and I’m told the company is expecting that 50 percent of new Windows devices will be running AI-capable chips by the end of 2026. Expect to see a round of new Windows on Arm devices in June, just a month after Microsoft details its AI PC plans.

The Verge will be covering Microsoft’s AI PCs event on May 20th, so stay tuned for full coverage of the new Surface devices and Microsoft’s Build developers conference.