Microsoft’s “Intelligent Terminal” Is More AI Slop Nobody Asked For
This title could be clearer and more informative.Try out Clickbait Shieldfor free (5 uses left this month).
Microsoft has released Intelligent Terminal v0.1, an open-source experimental fork of Windows Terminal with native AI agent integration. The author is sharply critical of this move, framing it as another unwanted AI feature being forced on Windows users. Drawing parallels to the disastrous rollout of Windows Recall — which stored unencrypted screenshots of user activity and was easily exploited — the author argues Microsoft has a pattern of shipping half-baked AI features without user demand. Key concerns raised include privacy risks from routing terminal prompts and shell context to third-party AI vendors (governed by those vendors' terms, not Microsoft's), the risk of users blindly executing dangerous commands they don't understand, and the broader trend of Windows becoming an AI-first platform with opt-out rather than opt-in features. The author advocates switching to Linux as an alternative and promotes a Linux-first laptop and a readiness quiz website.