AI PCs: 'Something will have to give in 2025, and I think it's pricing'
- Reference: 1732280414
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/11/22/premium_priced_ai_pcs/
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So says a senior Gartner analyst who asked The Register recently if we are also hearing that businesses are still "delaying" signing off purchase orders.
"Businesses want to move to AI PCs but not pay a premium as there are no compelling business cases," said Ranjit Atwal, research director for Gartner's Quantitative Innovation Team.
[1]
Both Michael Dell and HP CEO Enrique Lores [2]admitted in September that customers were slower to refresh existing fleets of computers than they had anticipated.
[3]
[4]
Dell said that with Windows 10 standard support expiring on October 25, 2025, enterprise IT departments would realize "we better do something about this." Lores claimed "there is a large and aging installed base," much of which was bought during the COVID pandemic and "will have to be replaced."
According to some estimates, the average cost of an AI PC will be 5-15 percent higher than traditional models, so vendors are obviously keen on promoting these systems. IDC forecast AI PCs to account for almost [5]50 million units in 2024 , and Gartner reckons vendors will ship [6]43 million units .
[7]
According to Canalys last week, AI PCs [8]comprised 20 percent of global shipments in Q3 . That's 13.3 million computers sold into the channel – not to end customers. As we noted, buyers still seem unconvinced.
[9]AI PCs flood the market. Their makers hope someone wants them
[10]The NPU: Neural processing unit or needless pricey upsell?
[11]Arm's royalty revenues boom, execs talk up hopes for AI bonanza
[12]Windows 10 given an extra year of supported life, for $30
Atwal at Gartner told us: "Vendors are pushing AI PCs with a premium. Businesses want to move to AI PCs but are waiting for an AI platform that will provide the most future-proofing. CoPilot+ PCs and Recall are further confusing the matter.
"Add Windows 11 upgrades and a general lack of budgets and there are more issues than resolutions. Something will have to give in 2025, and I think it's AI pricing."
A Dell spokesperson told The Register last month, in response to a question about what is sparking interest in the PC market, that AI PCs and Windows 11 are driving the "upgrade opportunity."
"Of the 1.5 billion PCs in use today, 30 percent are four years old or more. None of these older PCs have NPUs to take advantage of latest AI PC advancements, and many of these devices don't meet the hardware requirements to update to Windows 11 – a pressing need as Windows 10 nears its end of support in October 2025. These factors will prompt users to upgrade, with AI capabilities soon to be a standard expectation in PCs."
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Marco Andresen, chief operating officer for Lenovo's Intelligent Devices Group, told us: "I think that refresh is coming from the huge spike in sales in 2021, as well as W10 EOS and of course some AI PC impact."
So it seems there is a divergence in the force. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z0C4sQrroCZoV3csRxcPCwAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/13/win_11_refreshes_delayed_pc_makers/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z0C4sQrroCZoV3csRxcPCwAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z0C4sQrroCZoV3csRxcPCwAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS51851424
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/25/analysts_ai_pcs_shipments_gartner/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z0C4sQrroCZoV3csRxcPCwAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/14/ai_pc_shipments/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/14/ai_pc_shipments/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/11/npu_debate/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/07/arm_q2_2025/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/31/microsoft_windows_10_support/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z0C4sQrroCZoV3csRxcPCwAAAIE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Exactly what I was thinking.
Where's the evidence of Businesses want to move to AI PCs ? Just because Gartner says so?
Seems like someone's trying to be relevant and it's not.
There's no rush to have AI anything as far as I can see in my experience to date.
I won't be rushing to get an AI phone either, as it sounds about as useful as a 3D TV does right now.
They just want the stickers for their collection
FOMO? Higher ups think everybody else is doing it and so they don't want to be left out?
"Yes, of course we're doing AI. Look around, we're all using 'AI PC's!"
Gartner Maths
"Businesses want to upgrade" + "Manufacturers are only making AI PCs" = "Businesses want AI PCs".
Shouldn't that read "Businesses can't be arsed if they move to AI PCs or not, but if it's free they're not going to turn it down"?
"there are no compelling business cases,"
No killer apps. But if there were, what would they be killing?
The electricity supply?
"Businesses want to move to AI PCs but not pay a premium as there are no compelling business cases"
So they have a solution to a problem that doesn't exist and are surprised that business had other things to worry about.
To the average person, "AI" means ChatGPT, and ChatGPT will work just fine[1] on their existing computer. So what are they actually selling?
[1] OK, maybe not just fine, but the problems have nothing to do with client-side hardware and I think people will understand that.
What in the heck even IS an AI PC?
See title.
How does it differ from a regular PC, and what capability is it being sold as having beyond that of a non-AI PC?
Why is there an assertion that consumers want these things if in the same sentence the speaker concedes that they see no value in it?
Re: What in the heck even IS an AI PC?
An AI PC is one that is compliant with the current marketing bullshit.
For most people their current PC is plenty powerful enough to do what they want, so why go to the bother and cost of replacing it. That is good for users but bad for vendors hence the marketing nonsense. This is nothing new.
Re: What in the heck even IS an AI PC?
It has a Tensor Processing Unit, or possibly a GPU that can do CUDA or ROCm.
Businesses - really
A lot of business buy decent machines that had a lot of useful features on that mean they can run W11. If I look at some Lenovo's, I am not sure about a T460, T470 / x240 and later definately can and they are quite old now - though still great devices. (some think the T460 can get to TPM 2.0 via a firmware update from what i read)
Why would they upgrade ? It is not as if there are great leaps and bounds in processors or RAM once you get 16GB and an SSD. OK, SATA vs NME may add more of an improvement, but from rust to ssd is the big one.
There is no killer PC app that needs to do AI
Bit like phones, no real point in upgrading these days as they are always so similar to the last generation or the competition's phone there is no killer reason - better camera, can handle a microSD, better screen
Must be bad
For vendors to be unable to offload this shit onto businesses with a track record of wasting money on shiny tat end-users don't actually need, these AI PCs must really be something else.
leaving Windows for a *nix
Is a great idea, but if you have some apps that you use a lot, it can restrict you or make you wonder how to do it
I want Sky Sports / Virgin Media. So unless I fudge a ChromeOS onto a machine to be able to install apps,it is not going to work. It was a faff to do, and as it is, I cannot remember if Sky Sports actually ran or not.
I want Onedrive and to download all the data to my local machine (for backup reasons). I can fudge that with a couple of 3rd party apps for linux, but that does not run Sky Sports, but the Chrome OS I cannot see where it may even download the files from OneDrive too.
So for me, to have a device that does sky/vrigin and onedrive is a challenge. I currently have a PC in the front room with this, which I use a lot when I am watching some sport in the quiet while other programmes are on that we watch together, and the one in the outbuilding is the only way to get sky/virgin on that TV. Don't fancy getting linux running to do Onedrive elements and then buying a table of some sort for the Sky. As it is I am not sure if there is a 15" tablet which is what my laptop screens are.
"Of the 1.5 billion PCs in use today, 30 percent are four years old or more."
All those PCs can happily run Linux.
Most of them should be able to run WIn 11 too, assuming they don't have Michael Dell's name on the front.
And Windows 11 if Microosft would remove that stupid hardware requirement.
But noooo, we must tend to our hardware milkcow... erm, sorry, partners.
A PC I built in mid-2019 is perfectly compatible with Win 11.
How is it PCs built and sold by Dell in 2020 and 2021 are not? And, why isn't Michael Dell embarassed by this?
Was it meant to be or is it planned obsolescence? The hardware requirements seem rather fishy to me. Not sure it takes a hardware upgrade to move the start menu to the middle of the task bar.
AI is to PC what 3D is to TV
Reminds me of the fat-thin client 1990's
Aside from the dearth of available business applications that can take advantage of local processing capability, what's the business case to spend at this level?
Core business apps are - and will continue to be - in the cloud, the corporate data centre or on the internet.
No company is going to want to double or triple their client costs just to speed up Mike in Accounts' excel spreadsheet calculations.
Re: Reminds me of the fat-thin client 1990's
Well of course not, this is the first generation of NPUs and like many examples of first generation kit it is crap, or at least not of significant utility.
Any sensible business will be waiting to see how it goes and hold off for the second generation of NPUs which might actually be useful.
Anybody buying an "AI" computer now is going to have a redundant box quite rapidly.
Windows 10 is 9 years old, not new but not really ancient, it could easily be extended for a few years until the "AI" stuff has stabilised to either the "next great thing" or another abandoned waste of time and money.
<......."....as there are no compelling business cases...........".......>
Perhaps because what we currently have maquerading as AI appears to be pretty crap at most of the things they might wish to do with it?
>> "Businesses want to move to AI PCs but not pay a premium as there are no compelling business cases,"
Obviously not true that businesses "want to move to AI PCs" or they'd be doing so. Same as Windows 11 is still in the dumps, because it doesn't do anything new that they need.
For myself, can't wait until 10 is no longer updated - no more attempts to sneak copilot on board. I'm just going to image the system drive next year and let my 3-month-old game machine/work pc sail on uninterrupted by evil "updates" that aren't. Same as 11 isn't an update I'm willing to waste more time on after 2 really buggy experiences.
Businesses will buy the extended support for 10 just to avoid the pain of upgrading, because if it ain't broke, don't fix it.