Windows 11’s new built-in internet speed test is now rolling out to Insiders in the Dev Channel — and it was designed and coded almost entirely by an agentic AI, with human oversight described by Microsoft as ‘in spare time’. The feature appears in Settings > Network & Internet > Status, replacing the previous basic test with one that measures download, upload, and latency in a single pass, and displays results in a clean, real-time graph.
No version number, firmware tag, or exact build number is cited in the sources, only that it’s live in preview as of November 2, 2026. It is not yet in stable Windows 11 (24H2), nor confirmed for general availability in 25H1. No pricing applies: it’s free, built-in, and requires no Windows 11 Pro key or separate license.
It works on any Windows 11 device meeting minimum system requirements, no hardware upgrade needed. But its origin story is what’s drawing scrutiny. Marcus Ash, VP of Windows Design and Research, confirmed on X that Diego Baca, VP of Design for Windows, had a working prototype within 24 hours of user feedback requesting improvements.
From there, Microsoft’s connectivity team integrated it using an ‘agentic AI workflow’, meaning LLM agents handled design logic, UI scaffolding, and backend API calls, while a human guided the process intermittently. That phrasing, ‘in their spare time’, has landed awkwardly amid Microsoft’s ongoing workforce reductions, including voluntary redundancy offers across engineering teams this year.
Critics aren’t objecting to AI use per se. They’re pointing to the track record: repeated high-impact bugs in 24H2, driver conflicts in recent cumulative updates, and features like Copilot+ recall still missing from India and parts of Asia despite global rollout. As one Redditor put it: ‘People aren’t calling Windows slop because it’s made with AI.
They’re calling it slop because it’s made with AI and insufficient QA.’ There’s no claim here that the speed test itself is broken, just that its development method highlights a tension Microsoft hasn’t resolved: velocity versus verification. And unlike leaked specs or unannounced hardware, this isn’t speculation. It’s a shipped feature, publicly attributed, with named executives and a clear workflow.
What comes next? More agentic AI features in Windows 11, confirmed by Ash, but no timeline, no roadmap, and no commitment to disclosing which ones will follow this model. The speed test is live now. The debate about how it got there is just beginning.
CDFiled by The Computing Desk
Laptops, desktops, processors, graphics cards and the operating systems that run on them.
More from this desk →
Be the first to comment
Join the argument. No password, just your email or a passkey.