In 2024, the world of laptops underwent a transformation that felt both significant and, in some respects, underwhelming—a paradox that underscores the realities of technological disruption in the PC industry. For years, the arrival of each new notebook generation brought the expected incremental upgrades: improved processors, sharper displays, slimmer chassis, and better connectivity. However, the introduction of “AI PCs” promised a shift from this gradual progression to what many touted as a seismic leap forward. The reality is nuanced, colored by both remarkable technical advancements and the complexities of integrating generative AI into everyday computing—a journey that is still very much in progress.
In late 2023, the seeds of the AI PC era were sown with the debut of Intel's Core Ultra 'Meteor Lake' processors and AMD's Ryzen Mobile 7040 and 8040 series. These weren’t just faster chips; they included, for the first time in mainstream laptops, a neural processing unit (NPU) dedicated to accelerating AI-driven tasks. The significance was twofold: it established a new baseline for local AI processing and hinted at a future where generative AI wouldn’t be shackled to the cloud.
At around the same time, Microsoft began rolling out generative AI features in Windows 11 23H2, notably through the Copilot suite, integrating tools like AI-powered writing, summarization, and image generation. Yet, as many early adopters discovered, these NPUs saw little real-world use. Microsoft’s Copilot, while impressive, relied primarily on cloud computation. Local NPUs—at least in their initial, relatively underpowered forms—were oft-ignored, and users who wanted to run local large language models (LLMs) found themselves leaning on powerful discrete GPUs and generous RAM allocations instead.
A notable strength of this ecosystem is the flowering of NPU-backed applications. Creators leveraging Affinity Photo 2, Blender, DaVinci Resolve, and Cubase found meaningful performance improvements thanks to AI acceleration, while enterprises could contemplate integrating NPU capabilities into in-house apps for bespoke advantages. Windows Studio Effects—offering features like improved background blur and voice clarity—became the poster child for how AI could meaningfully enhance productivity without demanding more from already-strained laptop batteries.
In what analysts describe as a crucial “Apple moment” for Windows PCs, the efficiency delivered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X chips brought battery life on Copilot+ PCs into MacBook Air territory—a benchmark long sought but rarely matched. Devices like the Surface Laptop 7, Surface Pro 11, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, and HP’s Omnibook X 14 garnered praise for both their design and their stamina, with real-world runtimes far outstripping much of the competition.
Much of the hesitation can be traced to the perceived value of the AI features delivered in 2024. While some (like Windows Studio Effects) offered tangible improvements for professionals spending hours in video calls, other capabilities—particularly generative image creation and text summarization—felt like gimmicks rather than essentials. Notably, the highly controversial Recall feature, designed to let users search through a visual record of past on-screen activity, was quickly flagged as a substantial security risk by enterprise IT departments. To date, it has seen only very limited release, pending further scrutiny and refinement.
Apple, always a disruptor in its own right, responded by previewing Apple Intelligence—a suite of AI-driven capabilities spanning writing, summarization, photo search, and more. These features are rolling out across MacBook and Mac Mini lines, targeting both creative professionals and mainstream consumers. Apple, like Microsoft, touts privacy as a central tenet of on-device AI compute, an advantage as enterprises remain wary of indiscriminately sharing sensitive information with the cloud.
Battery life gains on Copilot+ PCs are real and significant, but arguably these could have been delivered through ARM platform advances even without dedicated AI hardware. Improvements to video calling and background processing are beneficial, but many are replicated by less complex solutions or third-party software. Developers have started to take advantage of the NPU for creative and professional applications, but there is, as yet, no AI-powered “killer app” that fundamentally redefines how end-users interact with their PC.
Another limitation is fragmentation in the AI PC definition. Intel and AMD, eager to ride the AI wave, quickly introduced their own Copilot+ compliant silicon: Intel’s Core Ultra Series 200 and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 both exceed Qualcomm’s NPUs on raw TOPS performance and GPU integration. Yet, Microsoft has delayed rolling out full Copilot+ PC features to these platforms, creating confusion in the marketplace and frustration among buyers who want to know precisely what their “AI PC” can and cannot do.
For this to happen, Microsoft and its rivals must deliver more than incremental upgrades. Key enhancements rumored for the near future include Copilot+ add-ons like contextual recommendations, smart Windows Search, and “Click to Do” suggestions that predict what actions a user may want to take next based on their workflow. If key business software—especially from Microsoft, Adobe, and other productivity suite vendors—gains deep, meaningful NPU integration, the pendulum could swing quickly. Security and privacy will remain paramount, and on-device AI compute is well-positioned to address those needs compared to cloud solutions.
Today’s AI PC narrative is as much about preparing for the future as it is about satisfying present needs. The greatest value of these machines may be their potential: to deliver powerful, private, and context-aware computing as software and operating systems catch up with hardware. For now, buying an AI PC means investing in what’s next, not necessarily what’s available off the shelf in 2024. The next two years will determine whether that bet pays off—and which platform delivers AI’s first killer app for the PC mainstream.
Source: IT Pro How generative AI changed the laptop in 2024
The Rise of the AI PC: Evolution or Revolution?
In late 2023, the seeds of the AI PC era were sown with the debut of Intel's Core Ultra 'Meteor Lake' processors and AMD's Ryzen Mobile 7040 and 8040 series. These weren’t just faster chips; they included, for the first time in mainstream laptops, a neural processing unit (NPU) dedicated to accelerating AI-driven tasks. The significance was twofold: it established a new baseline for local AI processing and hinted at a future where generative AI wouldn’t be shackled to the cloud.At around the same time, Microsoft began rolling out generative AI features in Windows 11 23H2, notably through the Copilot suite, integrating tools like AI-powered writing, summarization, and image generation. Yet, as many early adopters discovered, these NPUs saw little real-world use. Microsoft’s Copilot, while impressive, relied primarily on cloud computation. Local NPUs—at least in their initial, relatively underpowered forms—were oft-ignored, and users who wanted to run local large language models (LLMs) found themselves leaning on powerful discrete GPUs and generous RAM allocations instead.
Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC Gambit
May 2024 marked the turning point. Microsoft launched the Copilot+ PC initiative, making clear that generative AI capability wasn’t just a feature but a fundamental part of the new Windows experience. The flagship devices—the Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11—were ARM-only, forsaking x86 compatibility to push developers toward ARM64. This was a bold move, aligning hardware and software in pursuit of a genuinely new computing standard. Windows Copilot+ PCs, developed in partnership with Qualcomm (whose Snapdragon X platforms powered these devices), set out minimum hardware specifications: at least 16GB RAM, 256GB storage, and an NPU capable of 40 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second). These requirements weren’t arbitrary—they were designed to reassure buyers that such machines were ready for not just today's AI workloads, but also what was on the horizon. Developers were granted a clear target to optimize against, and Microsoft provided the Windows Copilot Runtime and Windows Copilot Library to make developing NPU-accelerated AI software easier.A notable strength of this ecosystem is the flowering of NPU-backed applications. Creators leveraging Affinity Photo 2, Blender, DaVinci Resolve, and Cubase found meaningful performance improvements thanks to AI acceleration, while enterprises could contemplate integrating NPU capabilities into in-house apps for bespoke advantages. Windows Studio Effects—offering features like improved background blur and voice clarity—became the poster child for how AI could meaningfully enhance productivity without demanding more from already-strained laptop batteries.
In what analysts describe as a crucial “Apple moment” for Windows PCs, the efficiency delivered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X chips brought battery life on Copilot+ PCs into MacBook Air territory—a benchmark long sought but rarely matched. Devices like the Surface Laptop 7, Surface Pro 11, Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, and HP’s Omnibook X 14 garnered praise for both their design and their stamina, with real-world runtimes far outstripping much of the competition.
The Market Response: Expectations Meet Reality
Despite meaningful innovation, the adoption curve for AI PCs in 2024 has not yet met the hype. According to industry analysts from Gartner and Mercury Research, approximately 36-53% of all PCs shipped by late 2024 contained some form of NPU. However, only a small fraction (<10% in Q3 2023) met the full Copilot+ performance requirements, a figure only slowly rising as the year progressed. SnapDragon X-based laptops, Microsoft’s initial AI flagships, accounted for just 1.5% of total PC sales in Q3 2024. This disparity illustrates a critical point: hardware innovation alone does not guarantee widespread adoption, especially when the practical benefits are not yet clear to consumers or businesses.Much of the hesitation can be traced to the perceived value of the AI features delivered in 2024. While some (like Windows Studio Effects) offered tangible improvements for professionals spending hours in video calls, other capabilities—particularly generative image creation and text summarization—felt like gimmicks rather than essentials. Notably, the highly controversial Recall feature, designed to let users search through a visual record of past on-screen activity, was quickly flagged as a substantial security risk by enterprise IT departments. To date, it has seen only very limited release, pending further scrutiny and refinement.
Competitive Pressures and the Cross-Platform AI Race
Microsoft’s Copilot+ strategy has not gone unchallenged. In May 2024, Google expanded its Chromebook Plus program with native Gemini AI integration. While Gemini’s most advanced models still rely on cloud compute (and a paid Gemini Advanced tier), Google made headlines by deeply embedding features like AI-powered text and document summarization directly into Chrome OS and Workspace applications—often with a single keystroke. Additionally, Google wisely bundled a year of Gemini Advanced with new Chromebook Plus purchases, sweetening the proposition for buyers.Apple, always a disruptor in its own right, responded by previewing Apple Intelligence—a suite of AI-driven capabilities spanning writing, summarization, photo search, and more. These features are rolling out across MacBook and Mac Mini lines, targeting both creative professionals and mainstream consumers. Apple, like Microsoft, touts privacy as a central tenet of on-device AI compute, an advantage as enterprises remain wary of indiscriminately sharing sensitive information with the cloud.
The Status Quo: What Do AI PCs Really Offer?
For now, the transformative ambitions of the AI PC movement largely outstrip the day-to-day user experience. For most office workers and even many power users, Copilot+ features are more a quietly appreciated bonus than a revolution in productivity. The most advanced generative AI capabilities—such as Microsoft 365 Copilot’s intelligent document authoring and Excel data insights—remain tied to Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and require a separate (and still expensive) per-user subscription, currently ranging from £19 to nearly £26 monthly.Battery life gains on Copilot+ PCs are real and significant, but arguably these could have been delivered through ARM platform advances even without dedicated AI hardware. Improvements to video calling and background processing are beneficial, but many are replicated by less complex solutions or third-party software. Developers have started to take advantage of the NPU for creative and professional applications, but there is, as yet, no AI-powered “killer app” that fundamentally redefines how end-users interact with their PC.
Risks and Challenges: Security, Value, and Fragmentation
The biggest risks associated with the AI PC transition are not technical, but social and organizational. The Recall feature’s negative reception highlights widespread anxiety over privacy. Capturing a continuous chronicle of on-screen activity creates a tempting—if dangerous—target for malware and surveillance, and enterprises are right to demand strict controls or opt-out capabilities. Furthermore, the shift to ARM-only flagships by Microsoft complicates the Windows application ecosystem, as countless legacy x86 applications still require emulation or rewriting.Another limitation is fragmentation in the AI PC definition. Intel and AMD, eager to ride the AI wave, quickly introduced their own Copilot+ compliant silicon: Intel’s Core Ultra Series 200 and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 both exceed Qualcomm’s NPUs on raw TOPS performance and GPU integration. Yet, Microsoft has delayed rolling out full Copilot+ PC features to these platforms, creating confusion in the marketplace and frustration among buyers who want to know precisely what their “AI PC” can and cannot do.
The Road Ahead: Will AI PCs Become Standard?
Insight from across the industry suggests that integration of NPUs and local AI acceleration will become standard in the majority of new PCs within a few years. Gartner’s Ranjit Atwal put it succinctly: “Most PCs will eventually integrate AI NPU capabilities," with businesses opting for these devices not because of current killer features, but for future-proofing and increased privacy. However, he warned that buyers are unlikely to pay a premium for AI features until more compelling applications emerge.For this to happen, Microsoft and its rivals must deliver more than incremental upgrades. Key enhancements rumored for the near future include Copilot+ add-ons like contextual recommendations, smart Windows Search, and “Click to Do” suggestions that predict what actions a user may want to take next based on their workflow. If key business software—especially from Microsoft, Adobe, and other productivity suite vendors—gains deep, meaningful NPU integration, the pendulum could swing quickly. Security and privacy will remain paramount, and on-device AI compute is well-positioned to address those needs compared to cloud solutions.
Conclusion: The AI PC Is Coming—But Hype Outpaces Substance (So Far)
2024 will be remembered as the year the laptop world earnestly embraced generative AI, not just as a marketing differentiator but as core infrastructure. The push was led by Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC initiative and rapidly followed by rivals at Apple and Google. Major hardware efficiencies, longer battery life, ARM performance parity, and tightly integrated AI hardware are real and measurable wins. The reality on the ground, however, is that most users barely notice AI’s presence so far—except, perhaps, in longer-lasting batteries and cleaner video calls.Today’s AI PC narrative is as much about preparing for the future as it is about satisfying present needs. The greatest value of these machines may be their potential: to deliver powerful, private, and context-aware computing as software and operating systems catch up with hardware. For now, buying an AI PC means investing in what’s next, not necessarily what’s available off the shelf in 2024. The next two years will determine whether that bet pays off—and which platform delivers AI’s first killer app for the PC mainstream.
Source: IT Pro How generative AI changed the laptop in 2024
