How to watch and follow Thursday’s Microsoft Surface event

Microsoft is holding a ‘special event’ at 10 AM ET on Thursday, September 21. Details are scant but the timing certainly indicates a fall hardware event, likely prioritizing a new line of Surface products. There isn’t a livestream but you can watch the whole thing at 1 PM ET via Microsoft. There should also be a stream on the official Microsoft Surface YouTube channel after the fact. If you don’t want to wait three hours for some hot Microsoft news, check our liveblog that will run alongside the actual morning event.

The company held its annual hardware event in October last year, but typically sticks to late September for these kinds of things. Microsoft hasn’t released any official confirmation as to what will be unveiled, but rumors indicate a refresh to the popular Surface Laptop Studio hybrid device, giving it a much-needed performance boost, and the follow-up to the Surface Laptop Go 2. The current model is fairly underpowered, with an aging 11th Gen Intel chipset, so this would be welcome news.

Of course, there’s likely to be a surprise or two, given this is Microsoft’s big annual event. Will we get a refresh to the Surface Pro 9 or the Surface Laptop 5? Watch to find out. The desktop Surface Studio 2+ is getting long in the tooth and could use some hardware-based TLC. There have also been some rumors indicating that the company’s prepping a follow-up to the Surface Duo dual-screen smartphone, though it’s unlikely to get unveiled tomorrow.

This is also the year 2023 on a planet called Earth, so expect some AI news. To that end, Surface product lead and Windows 11 guru Panos Panay just announced his exit from the company after nearly 20 years, who championed the use of AI in the operating system.

Last year, we got the aforementioned Surface Studio 2+ all-in-one desktop computer, the Surface Laptop 5, the Surface Pro 9 and plenty of software announcements. There was also some AI stuffed into Microsoft Teams.