SAN FRANCISCO, May 6 (Reuters) - Microsoft ( MSFT ) on

Tuesday said it will release a new laptop and tablet with chips

from Qualcomm ( QCOM ) at lower prices than before, aiming to get new AI

features to a broader set of customers.

The newest Surface 13-inch laptop and Surface Pro 12-inch

tablet will go on sale on May 20, with the laptop starting at

$899 and the tablet starting at $799.

Both will feature Qualcomm's ( QCOM ) Snapdragon X Plus chips, and

they will be priced slightly between competing products from

Apple ( AAPL ) such as its MacBook Air, which starts at $999 and its

iPads, where Air Pro models start at $649 and $999.

But Microsoft's ( MSFT ) new offerings will be its lowest-priced yet

with support for what it calls "Copilot+" features that it

introduced last year. That bundle of features includes things

like the ability to ask how to change the computer's settings as

a natural language question rather than sifting through settings

menus or the ability to ask for an AI-generated first draft of a

word document.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) has set performance computing chip requirements

for the new Copilot+ label, which has meant that most of those

AI features are only available on machines that cost $1,000 or

more.

Pavan Davuluri, corporate vice president of Windows and

Devices at Microsoft ( MSFT ), said the new Surface devices are aimed at

getting those features to a broader set of users, especially

students or young professionals at the start of their careers.

"We think these new Surface Pro and laptops are for a set of

customers for whom affordability is going to be important,"

Davuluri told reporters during a press briefing on April 28.