If you’ve ever clicked on the Start button and watched the menu appear after a second or two, you already understand the problem Microsoft is trying to solve with its June 2026 Windows 11 update. 

The update (KB5094126) rolled out on June 9, 2026, for WIndows 11 24H2 and 25H2, and targets the shell responsiveness issues that have quietly frustrated users since its launch in 2021. The headline change is the broad rollout of the Low Latency Profile.

What is Low Latency Profile and why does it matter?

It’s something that Microsoft first tested in the May 26 preview build (with limited availability) before promoting it to the stable channel (with broader availability) this month. 

The way it works is that the Low Latency Profile briefly spikes the CPU frequency to its maximum for one to three seconds, providing an additional burst of performance whenever you interact with the core system features, including the Start menu, Search, Action Center, and taskbar flyouts. 

The burst is short enough that it doesn’t meaningfully impact battery life or thermals, but substantial enough that the shell responds immediately rather than after half a second, making those core system features feel more responsive.

With the Low Latency Profile, system flyouts can open up to 70% faster, and core apps can launch up to 40% quicker compared to the same hardware running the previous build. The performance gains are most visible on older or lower-spec machines that barely cleared Windows 11’s hardware requirements and have felt sluggish ever since.

What else is new in the June update?

Shared Audio now lets two people listen to audio from a single Windows 11 PC simultaneously via Bluetooth LE Audio. The Windows Task Manager gets new NPU usage columns, making it easier to see how your neural processing unit is being used during on-device AI tasks.

Multiple apps can now access the same camera stream simultaneously. In addition, Windows Search now finds local files with as few as two characters, which, as far as I understand, is a quality-of-life improvement for daily users. 

Windows Setup now lets you choose a custom user folder name during initial installation. Windows Hello has also been refined to consistently fall back to face or fingerprint-based sign-in after alternative methods have been used. 

You shouldn’t hold off on installing the update, as it includes the June 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes for more than 200 security vulnerabilities.

If you have ever typed a file name into Windows Search but stopped midway because you only remembered part of it, Microsoft has something for you. 

In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview build, Microsoft has added a focused but genuinely useful improvement to the way Windows Search finds your files. It is one of those fixes that makes me wonder why it took so long. 

What is Search by Substring and why does it matter?

Released on May 29 to both the Experimental and Beta channels, the new feature is called Search by Substring, and what it does is quite simple. 

Previously, looking for a file in Windows required you to enter the beginning of its name. So, typing “april” would not surface a file called MeetingNotesApril, simply because Windows was not looking inside more complex file names. 

Search by Substring changes that for good. Type “april” and Windows will now return files whose names contain that string anywhere, whether at the start, end, or middle. 

The same applies to content within files. Type “status” and a document called ProjectStatusReport becomes discoverable immediately.

Is this actually a big deal?

For anyone who stores files with descriptive compound names, people working in documents, project folders, or any kind of organized file system, yes, the new Search by Substring feature surely is a big deal. 

The old behavior forced you to remember exactly how a file started, which is not how human memory works, added comma before. This is a small fix with a a disproportionately large quality-of-life impact.

The Search by Substring improvement is available in the Experimental channel with Build 26300.8553 and in the Beta channel with Build 26220.8544. In the same build, Microsoft has added Start menu improvements including section-level toggles, a renamed Recommended section now called Recent, and size options for the Start menu itself.

As its traffic continues to climb, alternative search engine DuckDuckGo is leaning into anti-AI sentiment with the launch of new browser extensions that allow users to set its no-AI search experience, noai.duckduckgo.com, as their default search engine.

Once enabled, users will be directed to DuckDuckGo’s AI-free search page, where there are no AI-assisted answers, no chat prompts, and fewer AI images in the search results, the company claims. The extensions are currently available for Chrome and Firefox users. Meanwhile, people who have switched to the DuckDuckGo web browser already have their AI settings preserved, even if they clear their browser history.

The company says the extensions are meant to help people have a consistent AI-free search experience — something that’s harder to come by these days, especially after Google announced its AI-first revamp of its search engine at its developer conference earlier in May.

Since then, traffic to DuckDuckGo has been booming. Last week, the company noted that web visits to its no-AI search page were up nearly 30% week-over-week, and its U.S. app installs were also up 18.1% week-over-week, with U.S. iOS app installs peaking at 69.9% week-over-week growth.

Those trends followed news that Google was overhauling its search box in the biggest change to its search engine in more than 25 years. Now, instead of returning links at the top of the page, Google will favor sending users into AI-generated search overviews, which are becoming more interactive experiences capable of creating visualizations, charts, graphs, or even mini apps, as needed. Follow-up questions from AI Overviews will push users into an AI Mode chat experience. The traditional “10 blue links” that defined Google in its earlier days are more of an afterthought, appearing below all this AI-fueled productivity.

But not everyone is on board with having AI made the default, which is why some are making the move to alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo, Kagi, and others.

DuckDuckGo says traffic to its no-AI search page was up threefold on Thursday, May 28, 2026 — a new high-water mark since Google’s search announcement — and the numbers are still climbing. The growth is not coming in spurts either, the company points out. Instead, visits are averaging roughly 84% above the baseline, suggesting a more sustained shift.

In addition to the new “no AI” search Chrome and Firefox extensions, DuckDuckGo will soon update its original DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera to offer controls for AI search settings, as well.

It’s worth noting that DuckDuckGo isn’t an anti-AI company. The company still offers its own AI chatbot with access to many popular models, and a subscription plan that provides access to the latest models and other tools, like a VPN service, identity theft restoration, and personal information removal services.