OneDrive is getting a new Windows app and an AI photo agent

Microsoft is getting ready to release a new OneDrive app on Windows next year that will include a photo gallery, people view, AI-powered slideshows, and editing features. It’s part of a number of new features coming to OneDrive in the coming months, including a new Photos Agent and AI-powered mobile editing.

The new OneDrive app on Windows is a big redesign compared to the existing desktop app. Instead of a tiny flyout on the taskbar, it’s a full app that’s a lot more like OneDrive’s mobile app. It includes a new gallery view of all your cloud photos and a dedicated people view that detects faces in photos and lets you name them.

The new OneDrive desktop app for Windows. | Image: Microsoft" data-portal-copyright="Image: Microsoft">

OneDrive on Windows will also work with local photos soon, letting you edit images and then keep them locally on a drive or upload them to Microsoft’s cloud storage service.

Microsoft is also adding even more Copilot integration into OneDrive, with a new Photos Agent that will be available for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft 365 Premium subscribers. It’s like a chatbot for your photos, letting you ask for a collection of holiday photos, or to recall particular points in time. Copilot will then find photos and allow you to build albums, too.

AI-powered images in the OneDrive mobile app. | Image: Microsoft" data-portal-copyright="Image: Microsoft">

OneDrive on iOS and Android is also getting AI mobile editing soon, with the ability to turn photos into animated styles. You’ll be able to easily clean up blurry or duplicated shots from the mobile app, and a new moments tab has already started rolling out that surfaces older photos and “on this day” memories.

Microsoft has also launched a big update to the way OneDrive users share documents. A new “hero link” feature means you can simply copy the URL of a OneDrive document instead of having to share special links to people. It’s identical to the way Google Docs has operated for years, and finally makes it easy for people to request access to files instead of getting an ugly access denied message.