Microsoft has published an interesting data point about the usage model of its Windows-on-Arm (WoA) devices. The company's corporate vice president Mike Adams claims that "The Arm app ecosystem continues to expand, with native Arm versions available for apps representing 90% of total user minutes, thus providing efficient, high-performance experiences across the scenarios that matter most to our customers." The Arm-based software ecosystem has matured to the point where the user experience is primarily occurring on native app builds, rather than relying on an x86-to-Arm translation layer. Microsoft is confident enough in this ecosystem's compatibility that it recommends users with older PCs running Windows 10—which will reach its end-of-life on October 14, 2025—consider transitioning to Arm-based Copilot+ AI PCs.

The company showcased various app use cases, all operating on their native build for Windows 11 on Arm. These include endpoint protection applications, VPN and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) apps, endpoint management tools, productivity and creative apps, as well as social, web, and entertainment applications. Microsoft even made a list of compatible applications, which you can check out here. For consumers, the choice of WoA laptops is limited, but we can expect more announcements from Qualcomm and NVIDIA to kickstart more design wins and shipments of Arm-based processors to the general Windows PC users.