Fact check: False. Windows 11 is not quietly running AI on your PC and hurting gaming or streaming performance. We've written about what's actually going on, and why some X influencers are suddenly making this an issue: windowslatest.com/2026/08/30… TL;DR for those who can't read anymore: Windows 11 has a privacy page called "Text and image generation" for transparency on Copilot+ PCs with an NPU (40+ TOPS). This page also appears on regular PCs, again for the sake of transparency. The "Text and image generation" AI toggle does nothing on a regular PC. Even on Copilot+ PCs, on-device AI workloads use the NPU rather than your CPU, RAM, or GPU. Microsoft literally makes that obvious in the Settings page: Text and image generation uses on-device generative Al technologies to quickly respond to requests. Turning these settings off will not affect apps and features using cloud Al technologies. Most viral posts on X claim Windows is secretly using your RAM for AI and that you should toggle everything off. You can turn it all off if you want, but it won't make any difference on a regular PC. If you look closely at these viral posts, "Recent activity" is at zero. That alone tells you these supposed AI requests never happened on the "affected" PCs, so the claims that this feature is quietly consuming resources don't hold up. The privacy page exists so you can see whether an app is using your hardware for on-device AI. It does not monitor or block cloud-based AI. For example, ChatGPT in Chrome or Copilot in Edge works through the cloud, so that activity would not show up here. On a Copilot+ PC, if you open Paint and create an AI image using an on-device model, that activity can be logged here. Paint also warns you and asks for permission before using an AI model. It's a harmless privacy feature/page, but sure, Microsoft should have communicated better.