During its Ignite conference today, Microsoft announced a handful of new features and capabilities for Windows 365 (which is different from Windows 11), its cloud PC offering allowing you to use your Windows PC from anywhere, keeping access to your files and apps.

First off, Microsoft announced the new Windows app, which is the new way to access all your virtual and remote devices in one place. The Windows app supports Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Remote Desktop, Remote Desktop Services, Microsoft Dev Box, and other kinds of devices. Similar to the Windows 365 app, this app lets you see your existing devices in the main view, but it also gives you quick access to apps inside those machines, so you can simply open the Windows app and open the programs and tools you want on any of the machines where they may be available. This app is now available in public preview for Windows through the Microsoft Store, iOS through the TestFlight program, and the web.

One of the headlining new features for Windows 365 proper is GPU support. Currently, Windows 365 PCs only have basic display drivers to ensure things work properly, but they're not great for demanding workloads like video rendering or 3D modeling. GPU support will enable these kinds of workloads on your cloud PC, so you can use it for even more kinds of projects that are available on any device. This feature is in public preview.

Another notable addition is that of AI capabilities in Windows 365, Microsoft didn't go deep into details of what these capabilities are, but an early example is that Windows 365 will be able to determine the ideal specs for a cloud PC, so you can get the right solution and potentially cut costs. Microsoft also said AI features will help "increase efficiency and simplify security", but it didn't share much more on those fronts.

Speaking of security, Windows 365 is also getting some new capabilities there. First, both Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop now support single sign-on (SSO) and passwordless authentication, making the experience more secure and more seamless. Both services also now support watermarking, screen capture protection, and tamper protection to help protect sensitive data in your organization. Windows 365 Customer Lockbox is another new feature now in preview, which prevents Microsoft support engineers from accessing customer data during service operations, and finally, Windows 365 Customer Managed Keys will allow users to encrypt cloud PC drives using their own encryption keys. It's coming to public preview soon.

Azure Virtual Desktop also has some new improvements, including Personal Desktop Autoscale to automatically start or stop virtual machines based on a schedule or the user session state. It's also becoming easier to install MSIX apps on Azure Virtual Desktop without any downtime, and there are improvements for FSLogix for Azure Virtual Desktop.