Copilot+ PCs? Customers just aren't buying it – yet
- Reference: 1738842310
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/02/06/ai_copilot_pc_sales/
- Source link:
This is according to Context, which tracked sales-out data from distributors showing that 40 percent of laptops sold in Europe in Q4 were AI PCs yet just 5 percent of these were classified under the Copilot+ category.
Win 11 refreshes delayed, say PC makers – and here's why [1]READ MORE
"Manufacturers are embedding AI functionality into more devices, making AI PCs an inevitability rather than a choice for many buyers," said Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at Context. "But this doesn't mean consumers are actively seeking these features."
According to Gartner, [2]AI PCs will dominate shipments by 2026 , such is the pace at which vendors are phasing out traditional models in their portfolio. With [3]5-10 percent more margin in AI PCs , there is a commercial imperative to do so.
Demand, however, is weaker than expected. Consumers are hardly lining up to get a piece of the action, says Context, and some businesses see buying an AI PC as risky because there is no AI standard for software to work, as [4]Directions on Microsoft highlighted last year .
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The sales numbers for Copilot+ PCs are even more tepid. Since their market debut in the middle of last year, Context says the Windows 11 devices loaded with a neural processing unit (NPU) for AI features have "struggled to gain traction."
[6]
[7]
Microsoft's intention for the initial launch was to pit the machines against Apple Macs "in terms of performance and efficiency," Pygott told The Register , "and they were launched to play in the same price range as Apple."
Yet distributor data confirms that Copilot+ PCs were priced 57 percent higher than the average price of a notebook across Europe in the final three months of last year. That's €1,120 ($1,160) versus €712 ($738) when consumers have less cash in their pockets to spend.
[8]
Lest we forget, distributors were offered price protection by PC makers to [9]cut the cost of Copilot+ PCs by 10 percent in Q4 to stimulate more demand.
"Copilot+ is still mainly present in the consumer segment as this was the initial target market. The premium price is a reason for the lower-than-expected uptake, combined with tight consumer budgets," Pygott said.
Copilot+ PCs software compatibility issues left to you to sort out, with help from crowdsourcers [10]READ MORE
The "fact that the value is not clear to users" is another limiting factor and Microsoft is now turning its attention to enterprise buyers, [11]imploring thousands of resellers to pitch to customers .
However, Qualcomm's Snapdragon X SoCs' have some software compatibility challenges in the business space, says Context. "Commercial adoption is only expected to pick up from now onward as more specific commercial chips have been launched by all three main chip vendors," said Pygott.
"App compatibility is an issue in the commercial segment. We believe they are doing a lot to address this but it will take time for them to grow share."
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Pygott expects the share of AI-enabled PCs to rise as a proportion of the total market and for demand to increase. "This will take time and is happening a bit more slowly than the industry might have wished for."
Gartner told us in November that the price of the hardware and a lack of killer applications were inevitably going to limit adoption of AI PCs and something had to give, [13]most likely the price .
"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.
Mary-Jo Foley, analyst at Directions on Microsoft, told us the relative lack of AMD and Intel-based AI machines could have "limited growth." Microsoft signed an agreement to lead with Qualcomm chips based on Arm designs.
"You also could argue that Microsoft and partners still haven't delivered many (or any) compelling apps/scenarios that require NPUs onboard PCs. [14]Recall is still just in test mode. Unless you want to develop/run LLMs locally on your PC, there just isn't a real reason to buy one of these."
[15]Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11
[16]Intel has officially missed the boat for AI in the datacenter
[17]Improved Windows Search arrives... but only for Copilot+ PCs
[18]Where does Microsoft's NPU obsession leave Nvidia's AI PC ambitions?
She suspects OEMs will "increasingly stack the deck" to make it harder for customers to not buy an AI PC. "Just like they did years ago when touchscreen PCs/laptops became almost impossible to avoid. Not sure whether that will happen first or whether some compelling apps/use cases for NPU-based PCs will materialize."
We asked a range of the major PC brands for their opinion but they either didn't respond or weren't willing to go on the record.
One exec, however, offered a personal view: "I think the pace is quite natural to be honest, app compatibility is not really an issue and there are both Arm and non-Arm versions out there from several brands.
"Businesses are following their usual refresh path and the momentum will naturally pick up, also helped by end of support of W10. Businesses are also implementing AI at a different pace and the adoption is indeed slower than in the consumer space, as history would also show on other innovations." ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/13/win_11_refreshes_delayed_pc_makers/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/25/analysts_ai_pcs_shipments_gartner/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/13/win_11_refreshes_delayed_pc_makers/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/01/incoming_wave_of_ai_pcs/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z6TqtDfmiQq7f-id6OAMdgAAARI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z6TqtDfmiQq7f-id6OAMdgAAARI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z6TqtDfmiQq7f-id6OAMdgAAARI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z6TqtDfmiQq7f-id6OAMdgAAARI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/14/ai_pcs_europe_sales/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/08/copilot_plus_pc_software_compatibility/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/29/microsoft_preps_big_guns_for/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z6TqtDfmiQq7f-id6OAMdgAAARI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/22/premium_priced_ai_pcs/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/09/windows_recall_intel_amd/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/04/windows_11_avoidance/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/01/intel_ai_datacenter/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/20/microsoft_unveils_windows_search_improvements/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/20/microsoft_nvidia_ai_pcs/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"What does all that extra [AI] processing power do my PRIVACY?" I'm pretty sure that is what is on people's minds, after sticker shock, when seeing "AI" computers on their dealer's shelves.
Why would I want to pay for a feature that proper security hygiene requires be disabled?
In the forums for the commercial router we use, the most requested feature to be added to the content filtering is to add "AI blocking" in addition to "Porn blocking", ""P2P/File sharing blocking", "File Hosting blocking", Social media blocking", etc.
Let's cut the shit, and stop with the marketing bollocks. It's not "artificial intelligence" it's a "bullshit simulator".
Your
Nvidia isn't the "world leader in AI", it's the "world leader in simulating bullshit".
Clear? Fantastic. I'm glad we got that cleared up. Now spread the word.
You are Charlie Brooker.
My only use-case for "AI" is having it barf up hundreds/thousands of words of slightly-better-than-Markov-chain hacker bunny stories for amusement at weird hours of the night.
And the occasional laugh when Dalle makes a frumpy rabbit doing something silly, or makes a goat with three heads when you request Cerberus Simulator.
It's also great at making fake executive orders declaring strawberries and alfalfa the national fruit and candy flavorings.
All of it gets blown out of the water by a real creative person though, and for that there's merch I happily purchase to show support.
Why a HW cycle ?
I wouild imagine quite a few companies have kit that has a W11 license but they downloaded to W10 and will just put W11 back on and not upgrade to AI
Not sure what is happening on my machine. I have had a recent email about upgrades to W11 by October and mentions some employees will get new kit. Not sure where mine comes in that and nothing on the chassis is telling me if it has a W10 or W11 license either.
Curious to know what will happen and if the company would just fork out for the W10 to W11 license if that was required (as with a lot of modern kit, it is a bit overkill for what is needed)
Weird!!!
Funny that, the public and businesses avoiding paying a premium price for a device with features they don't need.
Re: Weird!!!
"You also could argue that Microsoft and partners still haven't delivered many (or any) compelling apps/scenarios that require NPUs onboard PCs. Recall is still just in test mode. Unless you want to develop/run LLMs locally on your PC, there just isn't a real reason to buy one of these."
Personally I'd say if an AI PC is a mandatory requirement to run Recall, then that there is a very compelling argument to never buy one and thus effectively block that particular spyware...
So it's less "...with features they don't need", more "...with features they actively don't want but otherwise can't avoid."
a hardware accelerated Clippy is still just a dumb Clippy...
But the battery life and performance of Snapdragon X is awesome. I only wish I could buy a SBC with that SoC and a full Linux support. It would be the ultimate homelab toy, totally blowing things like Rockchip RK3588 out of the water.
making AI PCs an inevitability rather than a choice
This "inevitability" argument is bullshit. Some manufacturers are going to realise that non-AI PCs are going to be much cheaper and therefore will sell much better to the many people who don't want it. This is just an attempt to buck the market, make things unneccesarily expensive and therefore bring the ever-increasing profits their shareholders want. It shows that they know that they won't win if they leave it to consumer choice.
confusion
What makes it more confusing is where this AI is coming from.
We see daily news reports about big new AI datacentres being built, which lets you believe that its all web based.
So why would you need it on your PC?
Besides which, until AI needs to start being reliable:
https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1i4a97w/water_is_not_frozen_at_27_degrees/?rdt=48785
Also check the google AI result for "calories in 1/8 cup sugar"
To me, its all a bit reminiscent of "3D TVs will be the next big thing, you MUST buy one"!
Re: confusion
Generative "AI" is just bullshit-generation. It produces something that, by pattern matching and statistics, looks very plausible. But no-one can guarantee that the output is either "correct" or "true". It's just "plausible".
I think most people have quite sensitive anti-bullshit senses, and they've already spotted AI-generated rubbish. They have no reason to want to produce their own bullshit: leave that to the advertisers and spammers.
Re: why would you need it on your PC?
To see what you see, hear what you hear and know what you know.
The "fact that the value is not clear to users"
Generally accepted that it's fairly difficult to see what's not there.
I guess most plebs are more than happy to see any emperor catch his death...
One doesn't know whether to applaud or decry the imperial sartorial success of the likes of NVidia but I suspect we will all suffer after the first royal sneeze.
Given that the overwhelming number of business PCs are for staff running Word, Excel, and Outlook, despite MS's recent 'updates', why would those staff need so called Artificial Intelligence in their machines?
So the meatbags could be replaced by AI when they are done training it.
MBA is short for Mediocre Business Acumen now
You can just like... design software people can use??? Instead of trying to force it and then charge rents for the imposition???
Maybe?
No?
Bueller?
Strangely, I would LITERALLY pay extra to NOT have that junk on my PC.
There's a viable business opportunity there. "Pay us or your computer gets AI!".
However, it never seems to be the case that I can buy the things/features I want (or the option to get rid of them if I don't want).
I'd pay an extra fiver for no dumb TPM restriction stuff to workaround. For giving me the old Start Menu back. For getting rid of CoPilot and IE (and Edge!) once and for all.
But they don't want that. Apparently, somehow, it means too much to them for you to EVEN PAY TO REMOVE THINGS YOU DON'T WANT FROM THEM. Which is ridiculous.
I know you wasted billions on training the damn thing and you're not getting that back because nobody pays for AI... that's your fault.
So give people something that they WOULD pay for... and I'd pay to get rid of quite a lot of junk out of Windows.
Hell, I would literally pay money to resolve single, individual, minor quirks in the OS that would take ten minutes to fix with the source code and which have been present for DECADES. But apparently that's not an option.
"Strangely, I would LITERALLY pay extra to NOT have that junk on my PC."
I'm Dutch and the Dutch are known for being stingy. So it's no surprise that I installed Linux and haven't had to pay a single cent for NOT having any junk on my PC.
Don't give them ideas.
Instead, the philosophy should be: if you want to sell me a funky-feature party-trick machine, I will have to spend time and effort and possibly some sort of software license to turn it into a functional and workable computer. How do you intend to compensate me for that extra work? My time and effort is not cheap. The price proposition needs to be the exact opposite of what they're going for now, and by a pretty large margin.
It's as if the industry has forgotten how loss leaders work and how you use them to build a long-term customer base that you can then slowly turn up the heat on.
A solution looking for a problem.
Even if you *do* use some AI tools, what can an "AI PC" do that you can't do with an online AI tool such as ChatGPT?
Until there is a clear functional use for these, customers will vote with their wallets.
Or worse, a solution that will create problems.
Using AI to generate stuff like presentations and emails, then sending without checking (or having the knowledge to do so, as if you did you wouldn't have been using AI in the first place) and all the resulting hilarity that could engender.
I guess it's the next step in (d)evolution when we have our indispensable devices go the whole hog and do our thinking for us.
Me, cynical...?
Bought a no name micro pc last week
For around 100€, off of amazon. Had win 11 on it (now off it). Why would I spend a lot more on some AI bollocks? If the micro lasts 18 months, I can just buy the latest version for another 100 or so €. If I ever want any LLM in my life then I'm sure there is/will be a service I can subscribe to that I can access via a browser.
OhNO! Nobody is buying what we are selling!
And the reason for that is that it is A) Overpriced, B) Not what people want, and C) Full of Bloatware crap that we have to spend hours disabling or uninstalling. I looked at buying a new PC late last year and concluded that I simply didn't want to be paying £2k for a 2nd-tier PC (CPU and GFX card both released over 12 months ago).
I'm not interested in CoPilot+ PCs, but...
I did get one as it was "free" with one that was Windows on Arm (which I did want).
I would still have got it if it didn't support CoPilot+ "features".
Local LLM support will end up used for games, the likes of Unreal engine will incorporate support for it in it's existing "Neural Network Engine", end up as a tickbox like raytracing or headset support is in games settings.
Will it be more? A high price for some teams background blurring and unused dictation capability.
And how much will it mess up all the applications that assume that a users's password/key entry is a legally binding verification of a person's action. E.g. docusign.
Typical Borkzilla
" Microsoft's intention for the initial launch was to pit the machines against Apple Macs 'in terms of performance and efficiency,' "
Bunch of morons. Redmond cannot fight Cupertino in terms of hardware because Apple doesn't have the same customer market.
Apple's market is artists, composers and other assorted artistic types.
Borkzilla's market is businessmen, Fortune 1000, bankers and home users.
Trying to pin the advantage on hardware just demontrates that you haven't evolved sine Y2K.
Hmmm. That explains a lot actually.
There may be another consideration apart from price and functionality. What does all that extra processing do to battery life?