SOLVED: What Is ‘Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host for the Microsoft Windows Operating System and Platform X64’

Earlier today one of our techs noticed “Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host for the Microsoft Windows Operating System and Platform X64” program running in the background of a few users. She was even more concerned when she noticed that her own Windows 11 Pro was not running that “Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host”. She thought it sounded so generic that it might be malware; it is not.

We quickly determined that it related, at least partially, to MS Office 365 applications, because when she launched Outlook “LOCAL Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host for the Microsoft Windows Operating System and Platform X64” appeared:

Where Does ‘Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host’ Come From?

It’s a safe and legitimate Microsoft component.

In 2025 the Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host (AI.EXE) comes from two sources:

1. Microsoft Office 365 apps – products like Outlook and Excel will install AI.EXE
   • as you can see in the screenshot above
2. Windows 11 ONLY ON Microsoft certified Copilot+ PC’s have AI.EXE

This will likely change in the near future. It is expected, but not announced, that AI.EXE will become part of the base Windows Operating System and that OS will be smart enough to figure out if the hardware can run AI.EXE or not.

NOTE: You will only see Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host (ai.exe) in Task Manager when it is running. It does not TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident). When it is not being used, it just terminates.

What Is ‘Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host’?

This is what Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host does for your computer:

1. Enhances Microsoft Office: A primary use case for ai.exe is to power AI-driven features within Microsoft Office 365 applications, such as automated corrections in Word, Excel, or Outlook, intelligent virtual assistants, predictive analytics, and natural language processing.
2. Core AI Functionality: It processes and analyzes data, makes predictions, and automates tasks using machine learning and deep learning techniques. You will see this in newer AI functions like:
   • basic image/camera processing
   • system monitoring and management
   • search optimization
   • speech recognition
   • security functions (i.e. reading logs and changing firewall settings)

What is ‘LOCAL Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host’?

LOCAL Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host is a variant of the original Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host which tells you most of the AI functions are being completed on your local computer and not being pushed out to a Microsoft cloud data center for processing.

The original “Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host” was first noticed near November 2022 and without any announcement the “LOCAL Artifical Intelligence (AI) Host” was first noticed in March of 2023.

Microsoft now states that for many features, the AI operates locally on your device, using models found within your Office installation (e.g., %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\AI and %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft).