Microsoft has rolled out its most significant Intelligent Terminal update yet, the AI-powered command-line tool aimed at developers. The release adds new capabilities for organizing active workspaces and tracking running tasks, positioning the update as a focused push to smooth out multitasking on the command line.
What’s new in the Intelligent Terminal update
According to Neowin’s reporting on the announcement, the headline improvements center on two developer pain points: keeping multiple work sessions organized and getting a clear picture of what’s actually running.
The update introduces tools that let developers organize their active workspaces more easily. In practice, this points to a way to group, label, or manage several concurrent sessions or projects rather than juggling them across scattered windows. It also adds better tracking for running tasks, which should make it simpler to see which commands or processes are live and where each one has progressed.
Microsoft is describing this as its biggest update to the tool so far, which signals that the team is treating workspace management and task visibility as first-class concerns rather than afterthoughts.
Why this matters for command-line work
Developers frequently run several things at once: a local server, a build pipeline, a database, plus a handful of monitoring or diagnostic commands. On the command line, that setup can quickly turn into a tangle of open windows and tabs with no easy way to see the whole picture at a glance.
By giving developers a cleaner way to organize workspaces and track what’s running, Microsoft is trying to cut down on that context-switching tax. The goal is to let you move between tasks without losing track of what each one is doing, which is especially valuable when debugging across multiple services or managing a live deployment.
These kinds of features tend to matter most to power users who live in the terminal for hours at a time, so the update reads as a clear signal that Microsoft is investing in the developer experience for its heaviest command-line users.
What Intelligent Terminal actually is
Intelligent Terminal is Microsoft’s attempt to blend three things you may already know into a single tool: PowerShell, the modern Windows Terminal, and Copilot’s AI capabilities. It was first previewed at Build 2025 as an AI-assisted command-line experience, and it has been evolving as a preview build aimed at developers.
Rather than replacing PowerShell, the terminal layers AI assistance on top of it. That means you can ask natural-language questions, get help composing commands, and receive explanations for what a command does — all without leaving the command-line workflow you’re already using.
Because it sits on top of PowerShell and Windows Terminal, it inherits a lot of the familiarity developers already have, while adding a conversational layer that can speed up routine command-line tasks.
What this means for you
If you’re a developer who spends significant time in the command line, this update is worth a look. The workspace-organization and task-tracking improvements are exactly the kind of quality-of-life changes that add up over a long day of work.
For casual users who rarely touch the command line, this update won’t change much day to day — Intelligent Terminal is aimed squarely at developers, not everyday PC users. But if you do run PowerShell or Windows Terminal regularly, keeping the tool updated means you’ll pick up these multitasking improvements.
How to get it
Intelligent Terminal has shipped as a preview, so the update reaches users through the preview channel that Microsoft uses for the tool. If you’ve already installed the preview, you should receive the new build through your normal update path.
For those who haven’t tried it yet, you can look for Intelligent Terminal through the official Microsoft preview channels and its Microsoft Store listing. Since it’s a preview aimed at developers, you’ll want to be comfortable with PowerShell and the command line before installing.
As with any preview software, expect the occasional rough edge — Microsoft typically refines these features based on developer feedback before they’re considered polished for mainstream use.
Source: Neowin
Over to you: Will you be trying out the new workspace and task-tracking tools in Intelligent Terminal, or do you stick with your current terminal setup?
