Could an AI-enhanced WordPad be coming with Windows 12?

As you might already know, Microsoft decided that WordPad had a long life, but now it’s time to move on. On September 1, the Redmond-based tech giant released a note announcing that WordPad will be removed in a future release of Windows.

WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows. We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt.

Microsoft

Microsoft advises you to use Microsoft Word and Windows Notepad when you work with documents from now on, efficiently taking away the free text editor in lieu of Word (which has to be paid in order to use) and Notepad (which doesn’t have the capabilities of WordPad, but hey, autosave will be coming to it soon).

In other words, if it’s free, it has no purpose, otherwise, there are no other reasons why is Microsoft killing one of its most useful apps. If this is a way Microsoft is forcing people to pay for a subscription to use Microsoft Word, then by all means, it will be working. Unless Google Docs somehow becomes more popular.

Or, but this is just a theory: Microsoft might actually retire WordPad, so it can release an improved version of it, under another name, which will have AI capabilities. Is this too much? We think not. Here’s why.

An AI-enhanced WordPad in Windows 12?

A future release of Windows basically means Microsoft intends to retire WordPad in Windows 12. So far, all we know about Windows 12 is that this operating system will heavily feature AI capabilities. What we also know is that we’ll get the first hints of it in 2024, so just a few more months until then.

However, think of all the AI coming to Windows 12: we’re going to have Windows Copilot, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft 365 apps with AI-enhanced features. AI will basically be everywhere.

But here’s the catch: While Windows Copilot and Microsoft Edge might be free to use, we’ll still need to use Word if we want to process texts. However, if you don’t use Word that much, and you don’t want to pay for it, you currently have WordPad, which can help you with a lot of text processing for free.

Windows 12 won’t have WordPad anymore, so you will basically have no other options to process your texts, other than using Google Docs or actually paying for a Microsoft 365 subscription. Wouldn’t it be nice if Microsoft released an AI-enhanced WordPad with Windows 12?

It would be free, of course, and its AI capabilities would be limited: suggestions, corrections, and some layout editing here and there. This WordPad on Windows 12 would be a total winner. Plus, if they want to, then Microsoft can add several other features in a Premium one-purchase edition. But at least, we would have a free text processor.

What if Microsoft is actually thinking about adding an AI-enhanced WordPad in Windows 12? I wouldn’t be surprised. What about you? What do you think?