AI PCs: Progress, Potential and Hurdles in Redefining the Market in 2025

2025 Predictions is a series of special reports examining market trends and business changes TBR expects in the coming year for AI PCs, cloud market share, digital transformation, GenAI, ecosystems and alliances, and 6G

Top Predictions for AI PCs in 2025

1. AI PCs will not drive the next commercial PC refresh cycle
2. Proprietary AI agents will become increasingly prevalent in the AI PC space over the next several quarters

 

 

Revitalizing the PC market

For several quarters during 2022 and 2023, major PC OEMs directed investment from their PC businesses to other ventures as PC sales slowed due to market saturation and cautious spending from commercial organizations. Since late 2023, however, this trend has reversed as PC OEMs invest in the development and marketing of PCs with built-in AI capabilities powered in part by a dedicated processor called a neural processing unit (NPU).
 
While PCs with AI capabilities have existed for years, including high-powered workstations that leverage the GPU for AI tasks such as computer-aided design (CAD) and other simulation workloads, new AI PCs will target a much broader user base, including consumer and business users. This latest influx of AI PCs started in December 2023 with Intel’s release of its Core Ultra series of processors, which offload on-device AI tasks to the NPU in order to deliver greater power efficiency. Since then, PC OEMs have released several waves of AI PCs featuring both the first and second generation of Intel’s Core Ultra chips, as well as similar x86 processors from AMD and comparable ARM-based variants from Qualcomm.

When OEMs first started releasing AI PCs, they shared expectations that the advent of this new product category would help drive the next major PC refresh cycle. However, even as vendors continue to roll out new generations of AI PCs containing increasingly powerful NPUs, adoption remains relatively slow. This is because the presence of an NPU itself does nothing to increase the value of AI PCs compared to other similar devices, and AI PCs require an additional layer in the form of applicable software that makes AI-enabled features easily accessible and user-friendly.
 
Therefore, to build out the market and drive greater adoption of AI PCs over the next few years, silicon providers, PC OEMs and ISVs will need to collaborate around and invest in developing applications that increase the functionality of these devices beyond what can be achieved by a traditional, non-AI PC.
 
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